Weekend Reflection

After work on Friday, I headed out to Lee's Palace to catch a concert. Brian was there to see some friends of his play. Wintersleep was playing, as well, and since I'd heard them on the podcast, I thought that it might be a good show to see.

Land of Talk was one of the opening bands, and Brian had gone to school with two of them. I missed half their set, but what I did hear was quite good. The lead singer sounds like Cat Power, with a little Julie Doiron, I thought.

The second band was super terrible. As their set went on I kept getting happier and happier, because I knew that each second that ticked by was a second closer to them finishing their set and leaving the stage. I don't even know what their name was; I didn't care to know except that I might accidentally see them again.

Wintersleep came on at 12:10, and I was horrified to discover that the band was just a smaller version of the previous band. Their sound was different, but I still couldn't get past the fact that I had just endured 45 minutes of ear-gouging metal-garbage and now was faced with a watered down version played by the same guys who actually liked playing it, and cared enough to try to write these awful songs. Fortunately, they played "Jaws of Life" (the only song I had heard) second and when more band members came onto the stage, we got the hell out. We headed over to Pauper's for some drinks and some hilarious conversation.

On Saturday, I zipped over to Massey Hall as soon as I finished work, to catch the Ron Sexsmith concert. It started at 8:00 so I missed all of Kathleen Edwards, and I missed the first few songs by the time I arrived at 9:30.

The show was great. I've seen Ron Sexsmith many many times, and have been following his career since 1995. There isn't too much else to say except that the new album sounds like it's going to be fantastic. I like his outlook on life, and I think that my life could use more of that kind of hope, and seeing the beauty behind the terrible.

Chris and I then headed over to Sneaky Dees for some drinks. That place is awesome, and might be one of my favourite bars in Toronto. It doesn't pretend to be too fancy, but is a bar where you just go drink and have fun, period. It's not pretentious and that seems to be a rarity in these parts.

Today, I had to go to work. I knew that it would be a quiet day, but that I had two assignments to get finished. One was a documentary on nuclear jihad (this should get me a bunch of very disappointed new visitors), and the other was a performing arts show.

The documentray seemed to just be a simple case of fear mongering, but was fairly easy to caption. The other show was an exercise in torture: an hour long concert of big band music that was in 1940s style.

I dislike period pieces, and always have. I also get very uncomfortable when someone is singing and the entire focus is on them. I recognize the absurdity of this statement since I have just finished explaining that I enjoyed the Ron Sexsmith show, but this was different, and the cringe-factor was off the chart.

Another thing that was really disturbing is that used to have a crush on the woman singing. She used to host a kids tv program that I used to watch. The show was okay, but I liked watching it simply because of the crush. I was just a little boy then, but I always thought that I would end up with someone like her.

I couldn't help but think as I captioned the show how foolish I had been. Though she had aged, she still looked much the same. Each second that I watched of her performance, the more embarrassed, sad, and just plain upset I became. Numerous times I shouted at the computer screen pleading for this to be over. The hour long show was so unabashedly annoying that I could hardly stand to watch it. This woman drove me crazy. Her facial expressions, her hand gestures, the way she cared about the songs and was passionate about big band music. It was just so sad. They would have had to pay me to watch this show; and fortunately, they did.

It made me think a lot about why I was so angered by someone who clearly loved what she was doing. I think that it all boils down to respect. I can respect someone who cares about their job, or their hobbies, a charity, or their house. I just couldn't respect this woman's passion, because of the cold, hard fact that she just wasn't very good.

What I really think, and this makes it all the worse, is that she really did believe that she was good. I kind of got the impression that all the other musicians also knew that she really wasn't that good. They could see that she cared and loved what she was doing, and, I suspect, that they didn't have the heart to tell her the truth. She reminded me of those poets that you see at coffee shops and bookstore open-mic nights who take what they do so seriously, and are just so pathetic in doing so.

Aside from this I was still incensed by the fact that I had a crush on this woman at one time, and now, with all my years of wisdom, I found her to be repellant. How could I not have seen it at the time? Was I so stupid not to notice that she was annoying? Has she changed? Have I?

How do I prevent this in the future? How can I prevent myself from thinking someone is great and not see the truth? Will all those around me be like her bandmates, and quietly nod and smile and say congratulations while secretly telling themselves that I'm an idiot. What the hell am I going to do if I wake up one morning and find that the woman I'm with drives me crazy?

I know how trivial and stupid this whole argument is, but it really has me thinking about the state of my love life, and what the hell is going to happen.