Staten Island Circus Ride

The only time I go to Staten Island is when I'm driving through it to get to Long Island or out of Long Island.  I usually have to hold my nose while I drive due to either lovely low tide STANK or methane nastiness emanating from the giant landfill there.  I wonder if Staten Island still has the world's largest landfill or if someplace else took over that title...

Anyway, in a few years Staten Island is getting the world's largest ferris wheel according to this Newsday article.  Honestly, I'm a little shocked.  Why the hell would you put something like that there?  I get that you want a nice view of the Statue of Liberty and all, but why there?!  That's not such a good area.  No one goes to Staten Island unless they live there and it's not easy to get there in the first place.  Plus, it smells bad a lot of the time.  I just don't understand people and their decisions.

Courtesy of the AP as seen on the Newsday website

The last ferris wheel I went on was during the Salem Fair this summer.  It was awesome but I apparently now have a semi-fear of heights that I didn't have before.  I got to see the Mill Mountain Star from afar during dusk and there was no smell.  :-)

The Unforgettable Fire of New York

Who doesn't love U2?  Really, who doesn't?!!  I've seen them in concert three different times - first for their PopMart tour in 1997, then at Madison Square Garden with my sister during a Thanksgiving week some years ago (best show EVER), and finally during their last tour at Giants Stadium.  [Note: U2 rocks but Giants Stadium does not...]

But my brain thinks I've seen them more than that since I've experienced two different U2 tribute band performances several times back when I lived in New York.  If you close your eyes, being there is like being at an intimate U2 show.  I know you probably think I'm exaggerating but these guys are truly fantastic.  They bring the energy, the passion, and they sound like the real deal.  If you are a U2 fan, it's a real salve when U2 isn't touring.



There's a new documentary screening at Tribeca that examines my fav U2 tribute band, Unforgettable Fire.  Check out their trailer above and their website too...  I love when "Bono" starts speaking with a heavy New Yawk accent.  It's just so funny!  Then you hear him sing towards the end of the video clip and you listen to the band play and you're like "What!!  OMG, they are soooooo good!" [I sound like a Valley Girl there.  Gag me with a spoon.  I should have inserted 'like' a few times for emphasis.]

Anyway, if for some reason you are in NYC on Friday, October 12th you should go see them at The Canal Room.  I did a few years ago w/ one of my best friends, Miriam, and we had A BLAST!!  Canal Room has very nice bathrooms, as an aside...

I wonder if Coldplayers, the Coldplay tribute band from Canada, will open up for them again on the 12th?  They were awesome too.  :-)

Freckles: happy vs. sad

I was looking for an article in The Roanoke Times about the closing of a local coffee shop named Freckles.  Instead, I came across an article and slideshow about Freckles the Ferret who survived being caught up in a washing machine for over half an hour.  So, one Freckles survives and the other doesn't.  I guess this recession/economy is worse than being drowned and spun around ~ scary thought.



This is not Freckles



Bagel Boss

Hey!  Guess who is the guest post gal at Virginia is for Bloggers today?  Me!  Read about my bagel smuggling here: http://virginiabloggers.com/

Real Life & the Movies: Part II

Just seeing this movie poster traumatizes me

The best boyfriend ever treated me to dinner and a movie last night downtown.  It had been a longggggggggggggg week and we were both exhausted but happy to be getting out and about.  Yay Friday night!  Dinner at The Village Grill was delicious.  We got to sit outside on their deck and enjoy some chicken panini yumminess and chat.  The Yankees game was being broadcast on a giant HDTV, not that either of us really cared about the Yankees game but hey...  We topped it off by sharing some apple pie and vanilla ice cream.  "Autumn!" he said.  Yep, it was a good start to the evening.

Then we wandered over to The Grandin to wait for the previous showing of The Master to let out so we could get seated for the 9:35 showing.  The critics have been raving about this movie and it was opening night.  High expectations!

First of all, it's never a good sign when it's opening night and no one is there to see the movie.  Secondly, when people stagger out proclaiming "Worst movie ever!" you should be concerned.  An acquaintance made his way out of the theatre and into the lobby.  "So, how was it?!" I asked in a happy, expectant voice.  You could tell that he was trying to think of a way not to depress me.  He summed it up by saying, "It's different and disturbing and has no plot."  Keep in mind, this man directs theatre for a living.  Two and a half hours later I would sum up the movie as:

• In my top three worst movies ever along with Ponette and North Fork
• Disturbing and stupid ass
• A total waste of money ~ sorry best boyfriend ever :-(
• A joke on the public ~ the producers should be forced to refund everyone's money especially since no one should have to pay for garbage like this during a recession
• I told my boyfriend: "I feel like I just spent some time in pergatory now so I'll have less time to spend in it after I die"

Various professional film critics raved about this movie.  Why?  It's awful.  There was not one person in that theatre for either show that liked it to my knowledge.  In our time slot, people were falling asleep because they just couldn't take the awful, boring, weird-ass-ness of this movie.

So, my opinion is: save yourself and don't watch this movie and don't believe a word the critics are writing about it.  Real life and this movie have nothing in common.  Unless you want to compare it to torture.

Real Life & the Movies Part I: Roller Derby

A few years back, I saw this really cute movie with Ellen Page, Jimmy Fallon, Marcia Gay Harden, Juliette Lewis, and Drew Barrymore - Whip It.  Did you see it?  If not, it's a good rental...

I wish I had the guts to wear my eyeliner like this...

In case you've never heard of the movie: Ellen Page's character is a teenager with typical problems and stresses who joins a local roller derby group and boosts her self-confidence along the way all while trying to avoid being a beauty pageant contestant (her mom's idea).  That description sounds cheesy but the writing was actually really good and the characters weren't flat or predictable.  Her scenes with her parents are some of the best...

The roller derby chicks each had their own alias like "Iron Maven" and "Maggie Mayhem" and really pounded the hell out of each other on the roller track.  It was a funny movie that made me want to catch a live roller derby match one day.  See them race along a large track on their roller skates and slam each other around ~ the action and violence!  LOL

Unfortunately, this is one of those situations in life where the movie is much more high tech and fancy than the real thing.  I went to see a local roller derby team at a nearby roller rink and they had the cool outfits and the clever names but their venue just wasn't good enough for them to play on.  They only rolled around on the center part of the roller rink and it took them about 15 seconds to circle around the track once.  Why weren't they using the entire track?  Where was the shoving and fancy choreographed moves I saw in the movie? 

It was really hard to follow what was going on and nearly impossible to see since there were so many women packed into such a small space.  I felt like they "ended the jam" every 15 seconds and the point system was more complicated than college-level calculus.  Someone tripped a ref once and that was fun...

There were only two breaks for injuries.  Both times, everyone on the track got on a bended knee and total quiet came over the crowd.  It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop and that was respectful, I thought.  In both cases, everyone was okay.  Also, in both cases, the skee ball machine behind me started up VERY LOUDLY with crazy carnival music to attract customers.  Probably not the best time, skee ball...  Have a little class, okay?

What was pretty cool was that the majority of the athletes seemed to be in their late 30's and early 40's and had their spouses, kids, and parents there to cheer them on.  The women seemed really excited and happy to be playing and were polite to each other and displayed good sportsmanship.  It was obvious that they really loved what they were doing which was great to see.  But, even then, I wanted what I saw in the movie.  I had been spoiled.  I felt like screaming aloud: "Use the entire track!  Shove your Jammer to the front!  Crash into those voyeurs sitting on the track instead of behind the wall!  Turn on the disco ball and black lights!"  Instead, I kept my mouth shut since a roller girl's 11-year old daughter was sitting next to me playing on her computer...



Roller girls racing around the track (that purple blob is a cement wall)

 

Starry Night

http://www.space.com/12973-skywatching-find-tatooine-alien-solar-system-kepler-16.html

Well, after months of trying, my boyfriend and I were finally able to go stargazing through the Roanoke County Parks & Rec's free nighttime astromony program.  Once a month around the new mooon, Frank from the Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society will unload his giant telescope on the Blue Ridge Parkway by an overlook area and point out whatever the night sky has to offer.

The last few months that I've registered, the program has been cancelled each time due to cloud cover and haze.  Yesterday, it was a bit cloudy but clear enough that the program could go on.  Yay!

There were about ten of us and Frank showed us a globular cluster in the Hercules constellation's keystone area using his telescope.  It looked like a cotton ball.  We also checked out a binary star that only looks like one star when you are looking at it without a telescope because the two stars are so close together.  It's Cygnus the Swan's beak - Albireo (see pic above from Space.com).  What's neat is that when you look at the two stars in the telescope one is clearly white and the other is blue.  It's really pretty awesome!

Frank also pointed out lots of different summer constellations using a green laser pointer: The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, part of Ursa, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Hercules, Cygnus...  He also showed us the Northern Cross and some other neat things.  I liked how Frank would say: "That star is 25,000 light years away and that light started traveling here before agriculture even existed."  Mind blowing...

On the way there and back, we encountered fog, raccoons, and deer ~ plus nice mountain views.  I can only imagine how pretty the parkway is in the autumn!

Today, will be Roller Derby.  Hopefully!  Have a great weekend ~

Get Me to the Greek (food)!

This weekend is Roanoke's annual Greek festival which is held right off of Williamson Road (Rte 11) at a Greek Orthodox Church.  Last year, the festival drew over 20,000 visitors and they expect even more this year with the awesome weather we are having.  Let me tell you: they do a great job.  The hours are long (open until 10PM) and they don't close up at 8PM like every place else in Roanoke seems to do.

The best boyfriend ever and I went tonight and waited in a very long line, which is unusual for Roanoke, to select some Greek yummies from a buffet line.  Sooooo worth the wait!  He had chicken souvlaki, rice, green beans, and a Greek salad.  I had moussaka, spanikopita, and some sort of flan-like, custard dessert.  I think it was spelled something like "Galaktoburrito" but that's totally not it and I'm butchering the name.  Anyway, the food was amazing and we got to sit outside under a gigantic tent listening to live traditional Greek music.  It was in the mid 70's and just perfect outside...  So nice to be enjoying an outdoor food festival with several thousand happy people after a long work week.

There were about a dozen kids of various dressed up in traditional costumes dancing and that was pretty adorable to watch.  Especially the boy who liked his tassled hat and kept playing with it.  No smashing plates, though.

Desserts for the parents to nibble on

 

Why Do All the Great Alt Rock Stations Die?

Four years ago, something very exciting happened in New York.  My favorite alternative rock radio station of all time was born.  I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful it was.  [Notice I'm writing in past tense here?]  Not only were the on-air personalities fabulous and so connected to their fans but the music selection was amazing.  101.9 WRXP played great music and also introduced me to so many new artists and songs ~ it was always a candy store for the ears:

Soundgarden, Linkin Park, M83, Death Cab for Cutie, Alice In Chains, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Cult, Muse, Shinedown, Spacehog, AWOLNATION, Foo Fighters, Arcade Fire, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Mumford & Sons, Audioslave, Jane's Addiction, Radiohead, Broken Bells, Beastie Boys, U2, Oasis, The Church, Foster the People, Kaiser Chiefs, Kings of Leon, Matt & Kim, Florence + the Machine, The Naked and Famous, Neon Trees, Phoenix, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Psychedelic Furs, Regina Spektor, Trevor Hall, Two Door Cinema Club, Young the Giant...

Matt Pinfield, a former beloved MTV VJ, became their morning radio host and I loved listening to his stories and deep voice and laugh.  Leslie Fram, the program director through most of the RXP run, was his cohost and she apparently knows everyone in the business and she impressed me as being the most positive and upbeat music host.  The two of them were fantastic together and it made my hour-long ride into work in the mornings enjoyable ~ which was significant considering the traffic hell I was dealing with.  As soon as I got to work, I'd listen to them on the internet.

Steve Craig came on at lunchtime and would play some Ramones and punk from his "punk trunk".  I'm not a big fan of punk but it was an education and one I appreciated.  I used to e-mail him all the time to play Oasis songs during the lunchtime request hour.  I'm sure he got sick of me but he was always so generous with his replys and took his listeners seriously and always put us first.  :-)  Brian Phillips handled the ride home and had me laughing all the way out East.  Paul Cavalconte hosted when I was driving around on the weekends and he had the smoothest and gentlest voice of them all.  He always sounded like such a gentleman with a deep love for music.

When I moved to Virginia I was happy to be able to listen to RXP on the internet when I was at work.  I missed it in the car and on the weekends but it was something, anyway.

Previously, 101.9 WRXP had been CD 101.9, a smooth jazz station.  It was really good too and I'm sure the listeners who loved it were totally outraged when it died and was replaced by an alt rock format.  As outraged as I was when WRXP died last year.  Actually, it was murdered.  Due to 'low ratings' which I think is total b.s.  All these fantastic d.j.'s lost their jobs and scattered across the country at the whim of a corporation.  A year later, 101.9 is back with alternative rock but without the original team so it's not the same.  Very sad.

Last year, after I lost RXP and was so sad about it, I started looking around for a different alt rock radion station that also broadcast on the internet so I could listen to it at work.  I found 99X in Atlanta.  They seemed to mostly just play music and there didn't seem to be a lot of DJ interaction like there was on RXP but the music was really good!  Guess what happened last week?  Dead.  Same cause of death: alt rock isn't appreciated by the corporate giants that decide on formats for their radion stations.  I'm depressed.

I honestly have no idea where to turn now.  Part of the enjoyment of listening to radio is having a connection with the DJs.  That's why I avoid Pandora.  Well, where to next?

Roanoke on PBS

We made the news scene. Nice views of local businesses and downtown farmer's market area.

Apparently, my video feed has disappeared...

50 Shades of...

This December, if you hear thousands of women screaming and hollering from this direction it's because the Las Vegas Chippendale's dancers will be in town.  Of course, I use the term 'dancers' loosely - no pun intended.  Loose.  Get it?  (hee hee)

Twyla Tharp Meets the Crooked Road

I like to try new things.  Living far away from a large city means that I need to try new things on a regular basis to keep from getting bored.  When I moved here from New York, I read a lot about SW Virginia to get an idea about what made this region special.  I thought, "I'll figure out what this area has that NY doesn't and I'll give it a try!"  People wrote a lot about all the great hiking and kayaking and river-y things to do which made me nervous.  I knew I was not going to become some hiker because I'm too wimpy for that.  Plus, I don't swim.  So, now what?

One of the natural resources that Southwest Virginia has in abundance is good bluegrass music, apparently.  'The Crooked Road' is an area in SW VA that people call our state's "heritage music trail".  Basically, it's the part of the state where you focus your attention if you want to hear good, live bluegrass.  There's even a PBS series that's filmed in SW VA that showcases professional bluegrass musicians so you can get a concert on your couch.  I saw some episodes and I thought I'd like to give a live music experience a try!

I've read about The Crooked Trail in various magazines and newspaper articles, especially in the last few years.  Hipsters love rediscovering old timey pursuits like farming and beekeeping (Did you read about the guy in Queens who had 30+ beehives housing millions of bees and it was shut down? Thanks to his real estate agent who knew she couldn't sell his house with swarms of bees.  Crazyyyyy) and playing banjos and things like that.  I think that's why there is a resurgence in interest in bluegrass by young people.  Most of these young people are hipsters.  This is just a theory but I think it's true.  In case you are wondering, I'm not a hipster.  "Not that there's anything wrong with that".

Anyway, two weekends ago my boyfriend took me to see a bluegrass jam at the Salem Farmer's Market on a Friday night.  There were three pods of people in different corners of the quiet farmer's market next to Roanoke College.  Most of the musicians were AARP members and they obviously don't have arthritis issues because they were able to strum their guitars and banjos FAST FAST FAST.  I saw a bass, a harmonica or two, and some other instruments that I didn't know exactly what they were.  In any case, the music was good!  We didn't stay long - maybe 15 minutes total before we went on to our next adventure.

So, last weekend we went to see the Roanoke Fiddle & Banjo Club do their thing at a local high school.  They were pretty good.  It was hard to get a full appreciation of the music because someone's little girl ~ about 8 years old ~ was an attention whore and was doing interpretive dance a la Twyla Tharp on the side of the stage for no good reason.  WTF?!  There were a lot of off-key leg lifts, hops, and convulsive actions going on.  I wanted to smack that kid off the stage and tell her to find her rhythm.  It was obviously missing.

What made the whole scene more annoying was that you could tell the kid was loving it.  Not the dancing part, the fact that people's eyes kept drifting towards her.  She couldn't see the horror in their eyes, I don't think.  Maybe she is jealous of Honey Boo Boo Kitty Child and wants to be her.  Ugh.

Wandering Around NYC

I'll be visiting NY for a few days in the next few weeks and I'm looking forward to wandering around in the cooler, crisper weather.  I'll try to find time to check out the newest section of The Highline while I'm there.  The Highline was such a big deal in the local news when it opened up a few years ago.  An old, abandoned section of elevated train track was repurposed into a walking garden/park instead of being torn down and it's really pretty.  You get good views of the Empire State Building and the surrounding neighborhoods while you walk around ~ here's a pic I took the last time I was up there:

Looking towards 10th Avenue