The Travelling McCarrick Road Show

Cos Dan had a work "milestone" - another phrase that should be perhaps assigned to Marketing Bullshit Bingo - coming up, I hit the the lonesome trail for US's Left Coast last week.

Plans to hook up with Nasty and Jim, aka, Martin and Kimberlee McCarrick, who're on tour of the US with former Throwing Muse Kristin Hersh were cobbled together and thus I set sail for Seattle's fab Ballard area.

First I had to find a seat on the bus among the Dawn of the Dead-matching-leisure-suit-wearing-American-cruise-ship-retirees. And then I had to perfect my cross-pollinated look of sleep, quiet loathing and fearsome youthfulness, designed to discourage any of them from sitting next to me. It worked.

I breezed through US customs without the pleasure of making the acquaintance with the the rubber glove (although the presence of a photo of George Bush made me itch), and soon arrived in Seattle a mere one hour late. Rocked up to the hotel (conveniently and expertly planted right at the bus stop) and must have been giving off some old groupie pheremones because a tour bus filled with the members of Front Line Assembly also pulled up at that moment. Roadie told me they had a day off and were planning on "getting wrecked tonight". Ah so. A bit of Canadian Industrial band carnage. Erm, do I attract them or what?

Got a historical tour from Mr. Nice Taxi Man, found a fabulous BBQ shop (where I stocked up on American rubs, as it were), and then found Mr. Marty and Ms. Kimber. Hung out for sound check, chatted with Kristin, and grabbed a fast meal at Aunt Hattie's Hat - a fab, dark, diner-style resto.

Gigs were grand - M&K are doing double duty on this mahoosive tour, opening for Kristin with their mix of amazing short films and cello, violin, electronica wondrousness. Then they put on their 'main band support' undies, and play second fiddle, as it were, to Kristin. An awesome and exhausting feat. At one point during their opening gig, when the two musicians were coaxing some intense music from their strings, a man leaned over to me, shook his head incredulously and said "Holy fuck! Can they play!" I was chuffed for 'em naturally. People even queued up afterwards to buy CDs from them and get sigs.

One curious by-product of the gig: the entire third row and parts of rows front to back were filled with lesbians. I swear, Kristin attracted them by the busload. Some pretty cute too! ;-)

Made my way through many local beers all selected because of their names of course (Red Menace, Mothership, Fat Tire and Mac n' Jack) and nattered to the locals, who are a kinder, gentler breed of 'Mericans. At 1:30am, I bid my adieus to my best mates and floated home on my beer belly.

Exhaled when we crossed the border (my quote to the Canuck Customs officers: "What did I spend my $46 on? Would you believe BBQ gear?" His response: "I would.") and put my green bills away - gotta save them for today's journey to New Yawk!

More powerful than a million elastic bands!

Well it would appear that Mikala and I have succumbed to the new-age health bollocks that seems to permeate this oh-so-virtuous town.

Yes, this week we have both taken up Yoga.

Ommmmmm.

Every other day or so The Missus and I get our flex on in front of the TV, ready for some limb-stretching, ham-string burning, all-round bendiness. Our instructor, via the miracle of DVD, is Ms. Patricia Walden, who may not sound terribly mystic, but she's pretty lithe for a lady who's 146. Patricia takes us through the various beginner poses from Mountain Stance to Proud Warrior (my favourite... of course).


Not only does our little yoga sesh give us a good stretch but it's also really relaxing (thanks, in some part, to the orb-style ambient music on the DVD). In fact, so great is it's calming effect that when it comes to to the end of the warm-down session Mikala usually has to kick me to wake me up.

We even ventured into scary "sports shop" Lulu Lemon to purchase our own Yoga mats after a nasty slip on our deceptively slick carpet nearly left me a eunuch. Lulu Lemon shops have more in common with Scientology recruitment stalls than your run-of-the-mill Footlocker, so Mikala and I made a swift exit before the fruit behind the counter used nuero-linguistic programming to brainwash us into joining his palates group.

Although he was nice enough to recommend using tea-tree oil and lemon juice to keep our mats free of toe-jam.

Namasté!

x

Dan.

Three is NOT the magic number

Superman 3... shit.
Batman 3... shit.
Spiderman 3... well, take a guess.

'Nuff said.

:(

Recent stuff and 'ting

So our trip to England was excellent, yesirreee. We had bottles of wine with the family, too much crap chocolate (and some excellent cocoa courtesy of a present from Dan), met the most amazing little man (our mate Meave's new son Magnus) , and had lunch at the IVY (yep, THAT Ivy) with Dan's dad, Michelle and sister Rach (dressed resplendently for the occasion in a t-shirt, combats and rubber clogs). We had pies at the Newman Arms, beers with friends, lunches with our much-missed work mates, and far, far too much of all of that with Martin and Kim over an eight-hour sesh.

Best mate Suze put up with our late night hollering and general shuffling about (oh and THAT party, see below), and the sun shone down on us, revealing London to be a kinder, gentler and still-smog-filled place.

A great trip, messy in all.

But since we've been back, here's what's happened:

• My tolerance for small dogs has continued to plummet. One day, I may kill.
• Dan's begun to cheerfully yell "thank you" to every bus driver, when they stop and let him out.
• Ugly Naked Guy across the way from our office flashed me his arse yesterday, thereby searing my retinas.
• We watched our first hockey game. In a bar. Surrounded by slack-jawded gawping fans, who, when the ads were on, would look at each other. But when the game was on, all - in unison - would crane their necks at the cathode ray tube. Very funny to walk to the loos during any one of the FIVE periods (we went into double overtime) and see this. Catchin' flies!
• The 'Nucks got turfed from the playoffs by the 'Ducks. Which sucks.
• We had our lovely friend Nick (he of EA fame, and who helped refer Dan to his current job and husband to the stunning Kate Barnes) over for a night as he was in town from the UK. The sun shone on the Saturday and we had huge plates of food at our fave diner, the Templeton. Then Dan and he bought out most everything from Future Shop.
• We planned our first house party and set the date! Anyone wanna come over for June 16?
• We've booked our business trip to NYC and I shall be staying a few nights with the most fabulous Janelle. Wahey! I've already discussed with my boss the important issues at hand: going to Greenwich Village, checking out the MOMA, dragging her to Toy Tokyo and trying to sort a theatre excursion. It'll be my birthday (May 29, fact fans!) while we're there so need to go big! (Okay, we're actually going budget. But even sharing a room in NYC is muchos better than going to Bristol. Which is where I'd be this weekend if I was still working on Most Hated Live...
• Gigs upcoming: The Bravery on 14 May, Kristin Hersh with my fabulous, aforementioned friends Martin and Kimberlee opening and playing with her band on 16 May in SEATTLE (woo-hoo, bus trip on my own into scary America!) and my boyfriend Lou Barlow and his friends Dinosaur Jr on 23 May. Oooh and some late-night clubbing with UK DJ Dave (tee hee, you said Semen!) Seaman on 20 May. That last one's with Dan...
• Mikala's joined and become obsessed with Facebook. Join me on it, it's piss-easy to sign up to and very wheeeeeeeeeee!
• In Dan's news, his Nazis are still playing silly-buggers (in the video game he's working on, natch!), he's addicted to his space-station-sized new computer and he may even try to build me a new computer out of the kindling that arrived from ParcelForce.

So that's all the news that's fit to print. It's a sunny Friday, I'm underwhelmed with the idea of work (any work) and joyous at the possibility of being able to get on my bike, crack open my new yoga DVDs and read my "Hammer of the Gods" Led Zep bio to my heart's content.

Sorry for the lapse in the blog.
Ourselves we will certainly flog.
We must order more grog.
Then go and maim a small dog.

xM

Sugar Mummy (yes - another food related post)

So...The problem with playing videogames for a living is that it pays peanuts. This is not good when you have a lady who is accustomed to the finer things in life...

Fortunately for me, said lady earns a tad more than the monkey-nuts I get for sticking Nazis into the French countryside, so I find myself enjoying the dubious benefits of having a Sugar Mummy.

Nice.

As a special treat, last weekend Mikala took me out for dinner in town to a restaurant on "happening" Granville Street. Granville Street is Vancouver's answer to Soho. Only without the trendy bummers and sophisticated cocktail bars. So, it's sex shops and pubs then.

Clever readers will also recognise it as home to El Furniture Warehouse and The Templeton Diner. Both fine eateries in their own right but decidedly... lo-fi.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when we rocked up at swanky Sanafir.

Now this place is pretty flash: massive vaulted ceilings, moody lighting and opulent decor. Oh, and the waitresses were all well fit too. The picture below really doesn't do them... er it justice.


Sanafir is another one of those... "fusion" restaurants, the very mention of which sends Michael Winner into anaphylactic shock. In this case however, the menu is genuinely entertaining and extremely tasty. You choose three or four "tasting sets" from a list of main ingredients: Lamb, Pork, Tuna, Chicken, etc... The sets consist of three small dishes (enough for a few bites between two) each based on a different location on The Silk Route. So, that's one from India, one from Asia and one from The Middle East. Yum, yum and thrice yum.

Unfortunately I can't quite remember what exactly we ate as we had about sixteen different plates (the crazy cocktails and two bottles of wine didn't help my recall either). Needless to say they were all delicious, particularly the tuna. The lamb was a tad disappointing though. Still as I wasn't paying I couldn't complain!

I could get used to this...

x

Dan.

Oh Dear.

Apologies for the lack of communication. We can't even deign to call ourselves bloggists anymore. But we will make up for being crap. Pronto. In the meantime, please enjoy this lovely and delectable "LIVE ACTION SHOT" from our recent Party in London.

Apologies for the offensiveness of how ugly I am, and kudos to Kim for looking so immaculate. And one thousand and two thanks to Suze, who, despite the party waterworks, was the most amazing host and goddess for letting us stay and muck up her apartment with Sin.

In my defense, this photo (left to right at back: Martin, Kim, Murray and in front our cousin Ciaran and Dan's brother Dom) was taken all of five minutes or so before I had my head in the toilet, never to return.

London, you are my favourite retox station.

And as this photo is testament, it's time I shifted from lardass drunkard to healthy freak. So you may all be disappointed to hear that I've sworn off wheat and dairy, am going to regular reflexology, start Yoga on Thursday and have bought two excercise DVDs. But I can't quite shake the booze thing just yet. Spent all of Friday in a pint of beer, celebrating the Vancouver Canucks (ice hockey) semi-final win over Anaheim, with Dan, our UK mate Nick and Dan's colleagues. Oooh, how very Canadian! Eh! Maple Syrup! Moose! Etc...

More soon.

xM