Night in NOLA

Oh, I am an old lady. It's true. Last night a friend and I headed to New Orleans for an Ingrid Michaelson show. We had some sushi and beers and walked around the Quarter and hit up a bar in Pirate's Alley and had a sazerac & a martini and it was all well and good. Ingrid did not go on until 10:00, by which time I am normally dead asleep, but I soldiered on for the cause!

The opening act was an English dreamboat named Greg Holden whose tweets about New Orleans are just as adorable as he is. Also, his voice is great and his songs were excellent. I bought his 4-song EP and am digging it already. I love opening acts who seem genuinely stoked, like they can't believe their good fortune. It's very endearing.

Ingrid Michaelson was really good. I have all her albums, and I always enjoy a show when I know every word of every song. I have mixed feelings about the audience. About two-thirds of the crowd: attentive, sang along, knew the songs, had fun and made merry. The rest: a horror. They just stood by the bar and ran their mouths at what I found to be a rude and distracting volume! Greg Holden tried to shush them (adorably, natch) to no avail. Even Ingrid tried to shush them for "The Chain," but no dice. Luckily that song builds to such a glorious degree that it drowned out the ridiculous cacophony of obnoxious undergraduates. I've decided 18 and over shows are for the birds. I really just wanted to kill them all but quickly realized I had to let it go and focus on the stage.

"The Chain" was the best song other than "You and I," which brought the entire band and opening act to the mic to sing in a very cute group fashion. Really, every song sounded great. I know a lot of people dismiss Ingrid Michaelson because of her prevalence on the likes of "Grey's Anatomy," but I think her songs are very beautiful and have a real sweetness and depth.

My only disappointment other than the loudmouths in the crowd was that she didn't play "Keep Breathing." How is that possible? I was looking forward to hearing it live because of the way it swells into major beautifulness. But c'est la vie. We still had a great time.

Music madness

Normally audience singalongs bother me when I'm watching video of songs I love. But there's something about this one ... it totally doesn't bother me. It just makes me happy. It reminds me of the millions of times singing this song with friends at the top of our lungs when we were in high school. And makes me wish I could have been there in Central Park on that evening in June.

One of my main pastimes lately has been watching videos of Brandi, the Indigo Girls, the Avett Brothers, etc. It's like the next best thing to seeing them for real, which for some reason has been a major desire of my heart this fall.

I wasn't nuts about the song "Last Tears" on the album, but this video gives me chills, and I am now completely in love with it. Emily's voice is so perfect, and she's so sincere, and Amy's pants are so ridiculous & wonderful, and watching Brandi Carlile stand there and mouth the words about three minutes in just makes me teary. Something about this young, amazing talent up there with Emily and Amy, who really are an institution by now, as noted by someone in the video's comments -- Brandi looks almost like a little girl. Which clearly she isn't, she is an incredible artist in her own right ... it just moves me. It's like you can see the impact their music has had on her just as a person. Love. Seeing all three of these women in concert has been one of the major highlights of my year so far. I feel lucky.

This one of the three of them singing Bob Dylan just makes me happy, for no discernable reason other than it's awesome.

And now I just can't stop. I am pretty much in love with every single song on Brandi's new album (next Tuesday!) already, but if I had to pick one as my fave, "Dreams" might for sure be it.

I also greatly enjoy "Dying Day."

I love Brandi Carlile. I know I say I am in love with people a lot. But I really am in love with her. For real! That she is not stopping around here during her fall tour causes me actual pain. Oh well. At least she was here in the spring, and lo, it was glorious.

(The next day...) I started poking around the fall schedules of Brandi and the Girls, daydreaming about what would surely be a futile notion of seeing them somehow. I saw that Amy is opening for Brandi on several dates. And I am so one hundred percent sure that that's something that I could miss, considering that several of such dates, while not in this state, are in the South. I am now roadtripping to see them together this fall. It had to happen. And so it is. And I can't wait! This might end up being the greatest year for live music in the history of my life. I mean, them? More than once? And the Avetts at Jazz Fest? And the motherfrackin' Swell Season? I am getting the vapors just thinking about this! It's like it's too good to be true.

And don't even get me started on the Avett Brothers and how they are going to be on LETTERMAN next week. And so it begins. There are actually posts about them on Oh No They Didn't! now. Which, in case you don't know, is a very mainstream celebrity gossip site. They are being written up everywhere I look. They're all over NPR. (Wonderful Tiny Desk Concert, entire new album streaming before its release next Tuesday, etc.) And it's a wonderful thing, and they deserve it, and they have always been stars to me, ever since I first heard them, which let's face it, was in 2008, so it's not like I am the most longterm fan on earth. And that was before I saw what they look like. Which -- come on. On every level, they are so destined to be as famous as I think they are about to be.

But it's very strange to see them about to burst onto the scene in such a huge way. Rick Rubin. I mean, good Lord. The word is that they're doing "I and Love and You" on Letterman and "Laundry Room" on Craig Ferguson the following week. Both of which are relatively mellow songs (for them). I kind of wish they'd play one of their songs where they start jumping in the air and becoming totally unhinged, because that's part of what's wonderful about them, but maybe that's something you can really only appreciate when you're standing live in front of them. I think "Shame" might be a perfect choice because it starts mellow then goes bananas in a way that just kind of blows minds, especially the first time someone hears it (here's a delightful performance of "Shame," goofy audience dancing and a somewhat screamy Seth notwithstanding), but I understand why'd they want to do songs off the new album. Oh, Avett Brothers. Don't ever stop singing "The Weight of Lies." Don't ever change.

Emmy ramble

Let me just say first and foremost that I am in love with Neil Patrick Harris. I have been in love with him since he was Doogie. I never missed an episode. I saw him standing outside the Nederlander in the summer of 1997. He was with Christine Taylor and they kissed on the lips. I loved that he loved Dr. Will on Big Brother. I love him as Barney. I love him as Dr. Horrible. I love him as himself. I LOVE HIM. That this Emmy telecast will be so all NPH, all the time means it might be the best ever, and I'm not even joking.

Super cute opening number. His voice is lovely. (Here he is singing in another white tuxedo many, many, many years ago.)

My favorite reaction shot so far is the redheaded waitress on True Blood sitting next to her husband, Benjamin Linus!

COMEDY

Comedy montage! The opening for the montage was really too long! The fire alarm scene on The Office was the funniest of all of these by far.

Presenters: Tina Fey & Jon Hamm. They both look pretty. It is hard to look pretty next to Jon Hamm. He is so stunning. And funny. And beautiful. Wow. Supporting actress in a comedy! Kristen Chenoweth has on weird 2009 glasses. I don't care for Jane Krakowski on 30 Rock. Elizabeth Perkins: also weird glasses. Amy Poehler: patch! Kristin Wiig: Lens thingie. Vanessa Williams: not playing with the props. WINNER: Kristen Chenoweth: SHOCKING. I am shocked to the max. She is a tiny little mouse and she's crying really hard. She'd like to be on Mad Men and The Office and 24. She's shaking and thanking her producers and cast and manager. She thinks NPH rocks. She looks gorgeous. Thanks the academy for recognizing a show that is no longer on the air. I did love you, Pushing Daisies. She hugs Tina Fey enthusiastically and leans on her on the way out. Tina Fey is a full head, if not more, taller than she is.

Cat Deeley is there! This makes every show better! Gorgeous and classy as always!

John Hodgman is also there. Another bonus! NPH is very amused by John Hodgman.

Presenters: NPH's co-stars on HIMYM! All of whom look great! Oh, Willow Rosenberg & Nick Andopolis, I love you forever. Writing for a comedy series! 30 Rock wins for Reunion, which was definitely a very funny episode. This guy Matt Hubbard looks very young.

Presenters: Julie Louis-Dreyfus & Amy Poehler! Supporting actor in a comedy. Cryer, Dillon, NPH (next to his beautiful BF), McBrayer, Morgan, Wilson. If NPH does not win I am GOING TO BE PISSED! Jon Cryer, oh for heaven's sake.

NPH is back, being adorable. The host lost. He is giving himself a pep talk and saying it's not awkward. Justin Timberlake is now onstage with very dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Justin Timberlake is a dreamboat. There, I said it. Lead actress in a comedy: Applegate (I love her, and I loved Samantha Who), Colette, Fey, Louis-Dreyfus, Parker, Silverman. Colette! Timberlake sounds suprised! She is beautiful but her tan is atrocious. I'm sorry, Toni, but it's true.

NPH! Congratulating Jon Cryer. And interviewing him in the press room! They are being cute.

Presenters: Serena & Blair in some crazy dresses. Serena's dress is basically obscene and Blair is way more gorgeous normally than she looks tonight. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Guest actress & guest actor in comedy series. Tina Fey (as Palin) & Justin Timberlake (overall SNL wunderkind) won! Sexy Back is playing! As it should. She is saying that Justin would still be very famous and very rich without Lorne Michaels, but she wouldn't be, so thanks Lorne Michaels. They are adorbs. Director in a comedy: Someone for The Office. The band version of the theme song is kind of weird. It was a really funny episode, so yay.

Presenter: Rob Lowe. A little too tan but still gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Although I never think it's very nice to say that you turned a show down because it reminds whoever got the part that he wasn't the first choice. Are we talking about Dempsey here? Well, he's really the only one who could be McDreamy, I think -- he's just so rumply and wounded in a way that Rob Lowe could never be. Honestly I just miss Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn. A lot. Lead actor in a comedy! I really want Steve Carell to win. But Alec Baldwin will. And so he does. He says he'd trade his Emmy to look like Rob Lowe! Which is very funny! And probably what every other man in the room (and possibly world) is thinking.

REALITY

Reality montage: I am enjoying this montage more than I can possibly say, maybe just because I love Britney's "Circus" so much. Even though I wish there were more SYTYCD. Poor Maksim & Karina just called off their engagement and now they have to dance together. Horrifying. For them. Great for us.

Presenters: Jon Cryer & Hayden Panettiere. Both of whom bore me. Reality host! Cat Deeley should be nominated. I would like Phil to win. But I agree with Linda Holmes that Tom Bergeron deserves it the most. Just say no to Probst. PROBST WINS. Oh, gag me. I agree with everything Linda said about this category. But he complimented NPH, which earns him points in my book. He is honored to be the face of Survivor. Barf? He is quoting Joseph Campbell. I can't deal with him. Next!

Presenter: Tracy Morgan. Makes me laugh. No matter what he says. Best reality show: Amazing Race always wins and that is because it is the best! I wish there were a special award for best reality contestant so Adam Lambert could win. Because he's clearly what made AI good this year and nothing else.

(I had to talk on the phone for a little while.)

Okay, Brendan Gleeson just won for playing Churchill. And I just want to take this opportunity to encourage the world to watch his amazing performance in In Bruges, a wonderful movie that is very brutal and violent and somehow manages to also be quite touching and utterly funny and weird and wonderful. I could not love it (or him in it) more. I loved seeing how enthusiastically his fellow Irishman Gabriel Byrne applauded for him. Yay!

Skipping some stuff! The accountants! Interrupted by Dr. Horrible! Hijacking the Emmys. It's a beautiful thing. Which much of the audience is not going to understand at all. But I don't care. And he just got punched by Dr. Hammer! Who is being hilarious! And there's Moist! And Penny! This is kind of good to be true. I can't even explain it. You've got to see it. And get Dr. Horrible today, if you haven't seen it. What are you waiting for?

Jessica Lange wins for Grey Gardens. I am scared to see what she looks like. Her eyes look a little weird, they really do, but over all, I'm very happy for her. My sister and I once followed her into a restaurant bathroom. She seems genuinely touched and surprised. I love Drew Barrymore. And I love that she is back with Justin Long.

VARIETY

(Missed this part!)

Jimmy Fallon running around with his voice like T-Pain. Steve Carell is laughing very, very hard. Jimmy Fallon is funny. I've never seen his late night show but his appearance locally in like 2001 made me laugh a lot. I LOVE THIS SONG FROM THE COLBERT CHRISTMAS SPECIAL. I watched it over & over and laughed/cried every time. I really hope it wins. I had forgotten about this Timberlake ESPY performance. He really can do anything. I hated Motherlover & hope it does not win. Well, Hugh Jackman's opening number took it. I can deny Hugh nothing, so good for him. (Even though he will never ever be better than he was in the Tony opening number of 2004, to which I will now link for the 47th time.)

Ricky Gervais! I love him. I hate that hideous tux but I love him. He makes everything better.

(Okay, this is when I stopped typing for the most part. A few miscellaneous remarks as follows.)

I loved Patrick Swayze as Orry Main before I loved him as Johnny Castle. That clip made me teary. (I realize North & South was ridiculous, but I was 10 years old and I LOVED IT.)

Wish they'd figured out a way for Stephen Moyer to lapse into Bill voice and say "SOOKIE!" while presenting.

Not impressed by how Matthew Weiner basically ditched his co-writer while running to stage.

Peggy's clip was monumentally spoilery for those who haven't started Mad Men yet but intend to. Oh well!

I love you, Gabriel Byrne.

(And that's all I wrote. I remain completely in love with Neil Patrick Harris and am so glad he is shining his light all over Hollywood and the world. Eliza out!)

It was grand

I've read Wil Wheaton's blog for years now. It's very enjoyable. But the posts that get me right in the heart are ones like this. This movie was such an important part of my childhood. I can't even put it into words.

I first saw Stand By Me in the spring of 1987. I think it was a pay-per-view movie that some girlfriends and I watched. It was love at first sight for me and became a very intense and heartfelt obsession. Evidence of such: my diary, age 12.

Looking back at these diary entries, it seems like my love for this movie was wrapped around crushes on the actors. And it's true; I did have major crushes on them, and my walls were plastered with pictures of them from the latest teen magazines I would buy every Sunday at K&B when we went out for beignets after mass. But it was deeper than that for me. I was twelve; the characters were twelve. I had some true and real friendships at that age; so did they. My life was nowhere as adventurous as the trip they took to see a dead body. But in my mind, life held that potential for adventure. And that was enough.

I remember that this movie made me wish I were a boy. I felt like only boys got to sneak away for the weekend and cross railroad tracks and romp through the woods. I was very aware of this aching feeling all the time. Why couldn't I be a boy? I guess that was just all a part of being confused and twelve years old. I would wonder what would become of us when we graduated from that school and went our separate ways, if we would stay friends forever or if we would come in and out of each others' lives like busboys in a restaurant. I would watch the adult Gordie typing on his computer at the end of the movie and wonder what we would all be when we grew up.

My friends and I loved this movie so, so much. It was a major bond between us, it really was. We all had our favorite characters and defended our stances on those favorites. As noted above, mine was Gordie. Always, always Gordie. I think I fancied myself an observer like he was, as lame as that sounds. And the weird thing is that even though it was a movie about boys, I don't remember sharing the obsession with any of my guy friends back then. It was for us girls only, it seemed. We basically started speaking to each other exclusively in the film's dialogue.

I shared it with my family, and they got it. Somehow the first time I watched it with my parents is still cemented in my memory. I still remember how hard my dad laughed when Ace was giving his lesson on what kind religious background girls should have if the guys wanted to get lucky. And how he rewound the part when Milo told Teddy that his father was crazier than a shithouse rat like 10 times, laughing every time, even though that was an upsetting scene. I think he just liked that expression. And how much he LOVED when Gordie told Ace to suck his fat one. (I also remember how much he wished that Gordie had said, "I want my hat back, you son of a bitch," like when Inigo Montoya says that about his father.) My mom understood that it was really about friendship and understood how much it meant to me and didn't seem to mind the talk of Annette's chest and the f-bombs. My sister and I got the soundtrack on vinyl from our parents for Easter that year. We wore it out, and I still have that record even though I don't have a record player. My friends and sister and I still drop the lines into our casual conversation when appropriate.

This movie made me laugh out loud and broke my heart into a million pieces every time I watched it. My heart broke for real when River Phoenix died my first semester of college, and I imagined him fading out like the shot of Chris Chambers over and over. I am having a hard time explaining this without sounding like a major idiot, I realize this. I haven't watched it in years, even though I own the DVD, but I could watch it today and still recite every word. I just loved it so much.

It makes me really happy that Wil Wheaton grew up to be a writer.

Co-ed tri

I've now completed my first triathlon with dudes. And I have to say, no disrespect to the dudes, but they were not as nice as the women have been. They liked to say things like, "Anyone's slowing me down, I'll just swim over them!" As if this were an Olympic qualifying event and not a very small town community race to benefit a freaking scouting troop. Like, a little sportsmanship would be nice. Only one dude passed me in the pool, so there.

I liked the swim best as usual. The biking was kind of a drudgery. I just think I really need a faster bike. My friend's husband said, "It's part bike, but it's part motor!" Meaning that I need to motor more. Which I'm sure I do. But you can only motor so mightily on a bike that weighs one thousand pounds when competing against bikes that I could hold over my head with my pinky finger. I'm just sayin'. I love my bike and I love what it's done for me this year in the grand scheme of things, but it's just so plodding. I really might invest in a faster one. I need to think about it. The run was fine. I was pooped and slow, but I never had to stop to walk, a first for me in a tri. We ate some jambalaya and hit the road pretty quickly as we were late for a pool party due to the race's late start in a fog delay. Fascinating, I know! Anyway.

Here's what the dudes did that the women never do -- hello, sweeping generalization that's totally true! (1) They failed to call out when passing on bikes on the left. Sorry, but it is just discourteous not to. (2) They wore really tight clothes that showed off all their business. I understand that women do not have the same business to show off but it was really quite overwhelming and distracting to be surrounded by all of those bulges. I'm sorry! I am sorry. But it's true. I think I'm just a better women-only racer. I love men and am not trying to rag on them, but there was such a different vibe on the entire course with the testosterone pulsating all over the place.

Anyway -- overall, it was a good time, and I was particularly delighted in the photo above to be approaching the finish line. The inevitable post-tri slump has set in this week, and other than a rousing night of singing along with my brothers in a martini bar, a fun backyard visit with my faux nieces and the pups, the rental of Adventureland, and a nice Italian lunch on a patio, this has not been the world's most wondrous week. But a holiday weekend looms ahead, and that is always a good thing.