Wow.  If you're from Dalton, MA (as I know millions of you are) then you're probably just as surprised about this as I am.  I don't care about baseball at all, but it's still interesting when the hometown hero is arrested.  I remember in middle and high school when the only things the gym teachers would ever talk about is Jeff Reardon this and Jeff Reardon that, and how he was the best baseball player to ever come out of Dalton, and they recognized how awesomely great he was at the time, blah blah blah blah, I knew a famous person back in the day when he was a high school kid, blah blah blah.  I'm sure that the English teachers at my old high school are saying the same thing about me ever since my book of poetry ($17.95 on Amazon!) became permanent required reading for all AP English classes in the school state country world.

We spent the day by sleeping in, then finally got up around 9.  We flicked on the fireplace, put on the Restoration Hardware Christmas cd, and when Kari had her coffee in hand we started opening the presents.  This is when I discovered that Kari isn't a ripper.  She's one of those people who takes their time and carefully, thoughtfully, delicately opens her presents, which is kind of strange considering she's one of the most impatient people I've ever know when it comes to presents.  If it was up to her, we would have opened everything under the tree last week.  I, on the other hand, am very patient when it comes to presents.  I mean, if you open everything before Christmas, what's left to look forward to on the big day itself?  When it comes to opening the gifts, I rip the fuckers apart.  Wrapping paper becomes an innocent bystander, shredded only because it was in the way of me and what lies inside. 

After 20 minutes we had a nice jumbled pile of wrapping paper on the floor in alternating layers of tidy, smooth, virtually untouched paper, and those sheets that were ripped, tattered, and mangled.  We quickly abandon the Christmas cd in favor of our new Edith Piaf cd and Kari spent the day reading her new books in front of the fireplace while I painted some tiny paintings with the paint, canvases, and brushes that I opened this morning.  I made this cupcake one (which I like) and another one of the Eiffel Tower that didn't come out so good.

In other good present news, I got a Holga camera (thanks, mom!).  It takes some really neat supersaturated color photos that have a neat, surreal quality to them.  Check out some of the Holga/Lomographic photos on Flickr.  The only wacky thing is it uses 120 film which makes for 6" x 6" pictures, and I've been having difficulty finding film at local camera stores.  Good thing it came with a roll, but knowing my digital photo habits of taking dozens of photos at once, I know I'll need a whole lot more film.  I can't wait to use it when we get to Chicago next weekend.

Now, this blue picture caused a wee bit of disagreement in the Chixon household.  Kari said she doesn't like it because, as she said "it makes me think of something you'd find in Spencer Gifts.  You don't want your pictures to end up there do you?" 

After spending ridiculous amounts of time on Flickr, I've decided to start trying to take a couple of pictures every day.  In the past I normally didn't pull out the camera unless I was hopping in the car and driving hours to some previously un-photographed city.  After taking a few really good pics at home lately, I'm going to try and keep it up and practice daily, because hey, some of the most random pics of some of the most uninteresting objects end up becoming the most interesting....for instance, this picture, would you believe, is of a candle flame.  When Kari looks at it, she sees a dinosaur head.  When I look at it, I see a girl with an Amelie-style haircut (the purple part), looking down and reading a book or something.  Also took some funky half normal, half messed-up pics like this one of Kari.  To see larger versions, just click on the pics.     

So anyway, we went to Nashville to see Jupiter Sunrise play at a club called The End.  We got into town a few hours early, so we walked around the funky neighborhood on the other side of Vanderbilt University.  One of the stores we went into was See, the neat glasses store where we spent an hour trying on some nifty frames.  After wandering around a few more stores we drove and parked down the street from The End.  The website said the show didn't start until 9pm, so we killed the remaining two hours by getting dinner at this neat old diner where the food was exactly like Friendly's used to be 20 years ago when all they made was burgers, fries, and shakes.  While we were eating, I saw Ben (we went to the same high school) and some other band members from Jupiter Sunrise walk by.  I waived and they stopped in for a minute to say hi.  Ben was more than a little surprised to see me in Tennessee of all places.  After dinner I was looking forward to taking more pictures of the neon signs they had in the window, but they were closing, so they were shut off before we got back outside. 

We wasted some time by walking over to the nearby Border's bookstore and read magazines (I read the latest copy of Aperture while Kari read some cooking magazine).  When it was finally after 9, we went back to the club...only to find it mostly empty.  We left and killed some more time by taking pictures of the graffiti in a nearby alley.  I'm guessing the area where The End is is more of the "rock" club area, as there were three in that one block.  On the other side of town, in the more touristy area by the river is a whole shitload of "country" bars with live music.  When we ran out of cool graffiti to look at, we sat on the steps of a nearby church and talked for a while.  It felt oddly reminiscent of college in a way...there we were, sitting on some cold stone steps, on a cold night, just shooting the shit while passing time before going to a concert.  Yeah, it was cold at first, but you got used to it after a while.  The conversation was always good on nights like this, and last night was no exception.  I remember looking at the empty parking lot in front of us and the moderately busy street past that, listening to the occasional car whoosh past and the bass thumping from a club a block away (unfortunately, not the one we were waiting for) and thinking "we're in Nashville...Tennessee" of all places.  The smoke from Kari's cigarette floating lazily by as I thought how weird it was to think that my life changed so radically much in the past year and I never ever would have responded to the question I often ask myself "where will I be and what will I be doing one year from right now?" with "loitering on a random church's steps in Nashville, Tennessee with my fiancée while waiting for a concert to start."  It all boggles the mind a little when you stop to think of such things. 

They finally started at 10:45pm, which was a far cry from the 9pm listed on their site, but man o man, they frickin' rocked.  They ended up doing a nine-song set which was half-filled with songs from their cd, and half new songs.  I hadn't heard any of the new songs before but I was really into each and every one of them.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, Jupiter Sunrise is one of the best live bands ever.  It seems weird to go to a concert where the band members have gigantic smiles on their faces because they're so damn happy to be playing, yet at the same time, it's so infectious.  Their energy is astounding, their timing is beyond amazing (where they can go from Total Rock to stopping to chat with someone from the audience back to the dead-on-same-note-they-left-off-on Total Rock like they were one cohesive entity as opposed to five individuals), and their pure talent is obviously evident.  They went from rocking harder than Iron Maiden at their fastest, loudest, peak, to playing a quiet acoustic ditty reminiscent of some summer camp campfire song back to rocking hard again a few minutes later.  Most of their songs culminated in such an immensely released torrent of sound, the only comparison that can begin to adequately describe it is a sonic orgasm.  If they're playing within a few hundred miles of you, seriously, go and see them.  It's impossible to be disappointed.

                                                                    © 2005 Eric Nixon.  All rights reserved.