I went to Denver this weekend to see the Bronco Game.  The trip was Ed’s idea, and he met me there with Sandip.. 

All trips to Denver are going to pale in comparison to the one Rich and I  took 5 years ago.  On that trip we ran around the Old Mile High stadium. Took some chairs from the it. Rode in an elevator with the Bronco Cheerleaders, got in a fight with a Lucent Lackey, met a bazillion locals, watched Denver Kick KC’s ass, got a dozen signatures including those of Bill Romanowski and Ed McCaffrey, and escaped detection at the Rental Agency.  I had removed the front bumper performing an intricate maneuver in the hotel parking lot as I returned from a early morning trip to Kanarado to see Grandma. Monday morning we had tied the car back together using shoelaces, but we still ended up dragging the thing 30 miles to the airport.   The clerk at National Car rental didn’t notice the damage in the pre-dawn light but I didn’t have the heart to let him walk away having to explain it later that day.

“Hey, wait up!”  I said after exchanging complex looks with Rich behind the departing clerks back, “I need to show you something”.

“What did you scratch it or some----HOLY CRAP” he exclaimed, as I brought him around the car mid sentence.

So yeah, it was  great trip filled with great stories.  This trip was less eventful but we did get to see the Broncos whup New England.  Ed's a NEw England Fan so everytime he and his Brady Jersey stood up to clap, two guys behind us a few rows would yell "Down in Front!". 

And I did manage to find the bar, since renamed, where I had the altercation with the Lucent Lackey. Ed didn’t understand my fascination with the place but I had told that story so many time before….

“…. And then Rich, finally seeing that the guy isn’t going to let the matter die, walks over and says ‘Excuse me, do you work for Lucent?’ The guys says ‘So what if I do?’ and  Rich replies ‘SELL!  DUMP IT ALL! GET OUT NOW!’  and the guy then knew he’d been had."

Going to see the Hold Steady and the Constantines Today.

Here is NPR on The Hold Steady.

That NPR  keeps calling it a concept Album.  It ‘s as much a concept album as any ever written, I’ll give him that, but I had never thought to call it one.  Heck, the songs on their first album focused on the same three characters so really you would have to call them a concept band. 

The second album has two of the coolest moments of recorded rock I have ever heard.   Flak Magazine notes them both here:

On "Charlemagne in Sweatpants," Finn decides how to best tell his song's stories:

Do you want me to tell it like it's textbook history/ Or do you want it like a murder mystery?/ I'm gonna tell it like a comeback story,/ 'Cause when we left we were defeated and depressed/ And when we arrived we were ripping high./ We had a gun in the glove box./ We had some sweet stuff tucked into our socks./ We had Jesus Christ in all his glory.

On the final track, "How a Resurrection Really Feels," Finn sings about one of his "desperate characters," Holly/Hallelujah, a girl caught between the impulses of youth and the strictures of religion:

The priest just kinda laughed/ The deacon caught a draft/ She crashed into the Easter Mass/ With her hair done up in broken glass/ She was limping left on a broken heel/ When she said, "Father —/ Can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?"

That last song continues on to acknowledge the audience:

Holly was a hoodrat/ and now you finally know that/ she’s been disappearing for years/ today she finally came back”

You simply can’t get any better than that.   Or this.

she said don't turn me on again. i'd probably just go and get myself all gone again. holly was a sexy mess. she looked strung out but experienced. so we all got kind of curious.

Here is a video here: www.dirtypicturesinc.com  (They aren’t as dirty as they sound)