They Might Be Giants, Part III: Video From The Concert!

Yes, the two instruments are accordion and bass drum.

Now you know why all the nerds showed up.

(Also I swear I can hear my voice from about 0:13-0:22. But I could be wrong.)

They Might Be Giants, Part II: John and John and Ira and Sarah

So my friend from undergrad and I were talking, before the concert began (he would have gotten tickets too, but they were all sold out) about TMBG, which we both liked, and This American Life, which we both liked, and how interesting it was that John and John regularly, like, hung out with Ira and Sarah and David and the whole This American Life crew.

"It's weird that they're all friends in real life," he said, "and that they've got the same group of fans."

I disagreed; it made sense that people who liked each other would have creative enterprises which might attract the same audience. Here was what was weirder:

"They all turn fifty years old this year," I told him.

(This, btw, is not completely true. Ira Glass turns 50 on Tuesday. John Linnell will be turning 49 this year, and John Flansburgh will only be turning 48.)

What makes this "weird" is that this is a group of people (the whole TMBG/TAL/David Sedaris/Daily Show crowd) whose fan base is predominantly, though not exclusively, made up of people in their 20s and 30s. So to be all Malcolm Gladwell about it (Gladwell, of course, is also part of this group of real-life friends): what happened in 1959/1960 that caused a particular set of experiences that caused a group of individuals to form creative enterprises which, though unbeknownst to each other, created similar fan bases of people a generation younger; and then, when Glass's intern introduced him to TMBG in 1998, how coincidental was it that Ira, who had not yet heard of John or John, met them and befriended them and helped promote their music? And then John and John in turn helped promote Ira's show? And then John and John met Jon Stewart and helped promote his show?

My friend-from-undergrad and I agreed that it didn't seem fair; that in some imagined apartment in NYC John and John and Ira and Sarah were all pouring drinks for each other and sitting on a couch with their shoes off having a good time and sharing all of these influential ideas with each other. And what was even less fair was that they were our parents' age so they were never, ever, going to think we were cool enough to hang with them.

"Do you think it's the same kind of thing like when we were kids?" I asked him. "Like how we were in junior high and we idolized the high-schoolers? Is that why we like them all so much?"

And then:

"Do you think we can be that cool when we're fifty years old?"

They Might Be Giants, Part I: The Concert

My trip to NYC to see TMBG was one of the most fun things I've done in a long time, in part because I got to ride on a train (which I love) and because I got to spend the pre-concert day wandering around the city with a friend I hadn't seen since undergrad. (We got to eat cream puffs at Beard Papa!)

It was nice to have a change of scene, and NYC is always an interesting place even though it doesn't feel home to me the way DC does. (DC is organized and tidy and small-scale and all of the buildings match and it is full of smart, fun-but-socially-reserved introverts. Thus: obviousness.)

So the concert. First of all I'll get the end of the story out of the way and say that it was so much fun and TMBG was so awesome and I want to go again! Now the story from the beginning:

If you remember, my first thought after "ZOMG I have TMBG tickets" was "oh crap, what can I wear so I don't look like a nerd?" I didn't look like a nerd. I mean, maybe I did look like a nerd, but I didn't look any more like a nerd than anyone else there. For some reason I thought the concert would be a hipster thing, and that I would be out of place in my non-skinny jeans and brown felt beret, but the entire audience was made up of nerds.

How nerdy was it? More than one person brought along their own knitting.

It was worse than nerdy. It was uncomfortably nerdy. It was Comic-Con nerdy. It was "oh no, I wonder if I appear as socially awkward as everyone else in this crowd" nerdy. All four Gregs showed up, in their infinite variations, and one of them tried to hit on me by telling me about how the song "Apartment 4," from TMBG's children's album Here Come The 123s, "blew his mind" because it was so much like his life (the song is about a kid who lives in Apartment 4 and wishes the kid in Apartment 2 would come over and play with him).

Another person had brought over a picture of a llama, in the hopes that he could go up to TMBG after the concert and ask them "will you sign my llama picture?" and then TMBG would be struck by the request and decide the phrase was quirky enough to turn into a song, and then he would have influenced a TMBG song. (Maybe the difference between nerds and other people is that while everyone might have a fantasy like that from time to time, nerds not only create a plan to execute said fantasy but also tell the person standing next to them in line about what they're doing and how they hope it will play out.)

Once the concert itself started, all of the crowd's awkwardness melted away and we became a giant group of sing-along fans. This, after all, was the band who wrote a song with the lyric:

There's only one thing I know how to do well
And I've often been told that you only can do what you know how to do well
And that's be you
Be what you're like
Be like yourself.

So there we were, all being ourselves, non-skinny jeans and llama pictures and knitting and all.

It was really fun. The whole concept of giving fans who have memorized an entire album exactly what they want--the opportunity to sing along with the entire album, in sequence--was brilliant. (Yes, I only heard this album for the first time last week--but I was able to memorize most of it in time so I could sing along too.) What was great was that most of the crowd had decent voices and half of us automatically took the harmony parts.

I only have one real regret, and it's this: the venue was set up so that we were all standing in front of the stage, and because of the architecture of the room there was this three-foot-wide load-bearing post in the middle of the space, and so everyone behind a certain point could really only see half of the band at any one time. So I spent most of the concert watching Flans and trying, during the between-songs bits, to push my way up a little closer. It took me three-fourths of the album to get close enough to see both Flans and Linnell and it was suddenly like the whole thing burst into stereo. (This may have had more to do with speaker positioning than anything else.) It was a shame I couldn't have been that close the entire time.

At a certain point I began to wonder exactly how much money the bar was making (or not making) off of this evening, when I realized that--although many people had purchased a drink--this crowd was ridiculously sober. If TMBG had committed to do one show a month at this bar, and the crowd which showed up was made up of nerds who had never jumped on the whole "heavy drinking" bandwagon (it would interfere with the knitting), how could the bar sustain these concerts?

The answer came at precicely 11 p.m., when the show ended and the bouncers told us we had to leave right now. No hanging around to get llama pictures signed, no drinks for the road, we all had to leave. As we were shoved out, we saw a line of people outside the bar, waiting to get in. These people were the kind who wore skinny jeans and tiny skirts and spiky heels and did not bring along their own yarn. The message was clear: after having dealt with the nerds, the bar was now ready to open for real.

So... yeah, it was awesome. Do I want to go back again next month? Absolutely. Do I think I will? Probably not. But it's nice to know that on the last Saturday of every month, a bunch of dorks show up at a bar and sing along with a band that writes songs about geography and history and how the only thing you can ever do in this life is be yourself. ^__^

The Money's Under My Hat

Anyone who knows me knows that I am inveterately frugal; so much so that, when I actually do go and buy something I've needed for a while (after using it up, wearing it out, making it do and doing without--in that order), I often get a feeling that can only be summed up as follows:

Having one of these is SO AWESOME.

In short, I have a hat. Which I bought particularly because I was going to be going to NYC this weekend for TMBG; the seats are general admission and I plan to be queuing for a while, and it's going to be cold.

Now, my frugal mindset says "so do what you do on other days when it is cold; pull your pashmina over your head." But then the "I want TMBG to think I'm cute" mindset popped up and said "when you do that, people tease you about looking like an old lady."

So I did a little online research and found out that in late February, stores are practically giving hats away, and I got this little $50 number marked down to $16.

And now I have a hat.

Having a hat is so awesome. It keeps my ears so much warmer than my pashmina did. Plus it is undeniably cute. ^__^

I guess, in the end, one of the benefits of being otherwise frugal is that it makes small things, like buying a hat or buying a mixing bowl, much more enjoyable than they have any right to be. 'Cause I am loving this hat, just like I love my bowl, my toaster, my annotated Pride and Prejudice, my Ira Glass-signed Kings of Nonfiction, and--of course--my laptop camera.

And I'm going to see TMBG this weekend wearing an awesome hat!!!!!

TMBG And I Are Getting Old And We Still Haven't Walked In The Glow Of Each Other's Majestic Presence

1996

“You have to listen to this song,” my friend said. There were six or seven of us crowded into her parents’ living room, in my small midwestern town, before the day I accidentally spilled Mountain Dew onto their brand-new carpet, before the only boy in the group asked me to prom, before the rest of the group convinced him to try an experiment in which he would see how long he could go without speaking to me before I got angry with him; before I accidentally spilled sparkling white grape juice on my friend’s faux-fur coat and effectively ended my tenure in that particular living room. (The grape juice moment is caught, somewhere, on videotape.)

“You have to listen to this song. There are secret lyrics.”

There were.

Experimental dog
Salivating dog
Good dog.

We were fourteen years old and proud of ourselves for understanding the reference. I think we had just learned about Pavlov in psychology.

2002

I’m being driven across the country from the small midwestern town to the university I attend, three states away, after Thanksgiving break. The driver is a friend of mine whose family lives in a city en route; I am delivered to his home and he delivers me the rest of the way as if I were a parcel on the Pony Express. It’s very late. He puts in a cd: Mink Car. For the first time I hear the song “Older,” which is probably the only way to really hear this song: after midnight, in a car where you haven’t spoken to the other passenger for hours, in hour ten of a fourteen-hour haul. Pitch black outside. Nothing but the two voices:

You’re older than you’ve ever been
And now you’re even older
And now you’re even older
And now you’re even older.

When the CD finishes my friend is too tired to replace it, so we listen to Mink Car twice that night. It also contains the song “(She Thinks She’s) Edith Head,” which I listen to very intently because the lyrics hit a little too close to home (“the accent in her speech/she didn’t have growing up,” etc.).

I’m nineteen years old and, surprisingly, know who Edith Head is, though it’s a bit complicated to explain how I know (it has to do with a Pride and Prejudice-related image search which led to this site which led here). I’d be proud of myself for understanding the reference if the song itself didn’t make me a little uncomfortable.

2005

I see the Homestar Runner “Experimental Film” video for the first time, in a dingy apartment in Minneapolis. For the first time I make the connection between They Might Be Giants, the band; and this song, which is awesome. Every day before I go to my telemarketing job I play this song and rock out.

Oh—and of course I get the reference to Un Chien Andalou. Even though I’ve never actually seen the film. But there’s no one in Minneapolis to tell about it, so it doesn’t matter.

2005 Part Two

On the basis of “Experimental Film,” I decide that TMBG is my favorite band. Even though the only real understanding I have of their oeuvre is this song, plus a few memories of a salivating dog, Edith Head, and getting older. I decide to buy my sister a TMBG album for Christmas because I think that giving other people things that I think are cool is a good idea. On Amazon, the TMBG albums are too expensive (even used) so I compromise by getting John Linnell’s solo project State Songs. My sister loves it.

2005 Part Three

I happen to see a sign for a TMBG free outdoor concert in dingy Minneapolis. The concert, however, happened two days ago. I promise myself that I will go to a TMBG concert someday.

2008

Talking music with a friend; I mention, of course, “Experimental Film.”

“Is “Experimental Film” your favorite TMBG song?” my friend asks.

“Yes,” I say. “What’s yours?”

“Birdhouse.”

“Yeah, that’s a great song,” I agree.

I'm bluffing: I’ve never heard “Birdhouse In Your Soul.” Never knew it existed until that moment. Later that day I google it tentatively, wondering what could be so good that it surpassed “Experimental Film.” I listened to it and understood.

I’m twenty-six at this point and perturbed at the incorrect reference: Jason and the Argonauts were not killed by a faulty lighthouse. Medea guided Jason home safely and no one crashed on the rocks and then Jason married Medea and they had two sons and then Jason started macking on Glauce and so Medea made a magical dress and gave it to Glauce and she put it on and burst into flames ‘cause it was magic and then Medea killed her two children so Jason’s bloodline would end and I’m a dork.

2008 Part Two

Thanks to a combination of YouTube and Seeqpod, I begin to familiarize myself with the entirety of TMBG’s twenty-year career. (Actually, that’s a lie. What I really is listen to “Birdhouse In Your Soul,” “Don’t Let’s Start,” and “I Palindrome I” over and over and over. )

2008 Part Three

Wait: they wrote the theme to The Daily Show???

2008 Part Four

When my sister graduated from college, she got a book titled Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff: After Graduation, which contained such gems of advice as “Give Up Your Political Ideology” and “Get A Haircut.” (The book advised graduates to, quite literally, give up their hobbies, beliefs, and friends in order to start a new life as a working adult; it says that after six months into the job you are allowed to go back to one hobby and call up your college friends to ask how they are doing. It’s an extremely depressing book to give to a new graduate.) The one piece of advice I liked was the one that said “Every time you get a new job or a promotion, buy yourself a present.”

I decided that when I got my new job I would buy myself a copy of TMBG’s Dial-A-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants. I got my new job. I decided it would be better to build an emergency fund. I never bought the CD.

2009

I made a New Year’s Goal to attend a TMBG concert. They were still, after all, my favorite band—even though I only knew a few of their songs and had never bought any of their CDs.

2009 Part Two

I buy my first TMBG CD. It’s the “greatest hits” album A User’s Guide To They Might Be Giants and it is used, on super-sale in the back bin of Melody Records. I listen to the CD like, a jillion times.

2009 Last Week

I do a quick search to see what TMBG concerts are coming up in the next few months and end up buying tickets for the Flood Concert coming up this Saturday. ^__^

2009 This Morning

Using Seeqpod, I listen to (and record) the Flood album for the first time. I'm twenty-seven and the album is twenty years old exactly.

I Have TMBG Tickets!!!!!

It’s strange, the way the universe aligns sometimes.

I wrote about Ira Glass, and Ira Glass appeared, live, in my world.

I wrote at the beginning of the year that I wanted to go to a They Might Be Giants concert. On Monday I randomly clicked over to the TMBG website to see when they were playing, so I could think about planning a trip.

They’re doing the Flood Concert in NYC on Saturday the 28th.

And I have tickets.

I can’t believe I am this lucky. They’re not playing in a month or in six months; they’re playing next week. And they’re playing Flood. And I have tickets.

I’ve never been to a concert before. Not a concert like this. I’ve been to symphony concerts and every kind of quartet-quintet-octet-ensemble and innumerable choral/orchestral concerts and those “educational” concerts they bring to colleges and universities, like the seventh generation of the Martha Graham dance ensemble.

I’ve never been to a concert with, you know, a band in it. Like, a rock band. Even if TMBG sings about history and geography and chemistry, it’s a real band that is very popular.

I am twenty-seven years old, I rub wrinkle cream into my forehead every morning, and this is my first rock concert. It’s also the first thing I’ve ever done without planning it out beforehand; as soon as I saw that there were tickets still available I thought buy them NOW; don’t run your cash-flow budget, don’t worry about whether or not you’re going to take the train or the bus, there are thousands of reasons to talk yourself out of going to New York for the weekend but YOU CAN’T MISS THE FLOOD CONCERT!!!!!

Now, of course, I’m all “what do I wear??” My first thought is that it doesn’t matter; my second thought is that of course it matters; don’t I want TMBG to look at me and think I’m cute? ^__^

But I’m the sort of person who wears cardigans. My t-shirts have smocking in them. I don’t even have bangs. (How can I be a TMBG fan and not have bangs???)

This is where I wish I could pull off hipster-cool, but I’ve never been able to pull off hipster-cool. So I’m probably going to wear a dress over blue jeans.

I’m so excited. This is going to be SO AWESOME. I can’t believe I’m going to a rock concert. ^__^

Ira Glass Is My Friend

"Hi," he said. "I'm Ira."

I didn't respond automatically as I should have, temporarily bowled over by two contradictory thoughts: first, the sheer duh-ness of his statement (of course you're Ira Glass, that's why we're here); secondly, the absolute genuineness with which he spoke. He was introducing himself. He wanted me to know who he was. In those three words he connected with me on a personal, almost intimate level, and I could understand how he got people to tell him their stories and secrets.

"Hi," I said, a few seconds late to the exchange. "I'm Blue."

I had waited over ninety minutes to get to the front of the line. At first, in the back, when we were too far away to see, people were joking "it's taking so long because everyone's pitching him ideas for This American Life;" as we got closer, we realized it was because Ira was talking to everyone in the line; asking them questions about who they were, what they did, where they lived, what brought them out that evening, etc.

I'd bought his book even though I don't really think it is useful or necessary for me to get famous people's signatures on things; the real reason I bought his book was because I hadn't known until the moment I walked into the Borders that Ira Glass had written a book (they had advertised it as an opportunity to get This American Life DVDs autographed, and the books were a surprise), and by chance or fate the woman behind the counter told me this particular book was the very last copy in the store. That, apparently, is what it takes to get me to impulse-buy something. (I have a vision of the woman pulling out another copy after I leave the counter, and telling the next person who walks in that this, too, is the very last copy.)

So after Ira talking about This American Life and the Q&A I got in line, with this book, and waited ninety minutes (and read the first 130 pages) and as soon as I got close enough started watching Mr. Glass interact with everyone in line. It was fascinating.

After Ira Glass introduced himself to me, he asked me a few questions about my job and then said, over his shoulder to the Borders assistant, "All these people in Washington have such interesting jobs!" He was keeping track, too, because then he talked to me about some of the other jobs he had heard about in the past ninety minutes, and then he signed my book "Your Friend, Ira Glass." Then I said "Thank you very much," and he said "No, thank you very much," as if it had been the most generous thing I could have done, to come out this evening and buy his book and then wait patiently for him to autograph it.

It was an interaction both intimate and bizarre, in the way that I felt that Ira Glass was one hundred percent serious about what he was doing, both in terms of his radio show and in terms of every interaction with every person in this line. I left wishing I could be more like that, though I can't imagine how much energy it would take, to invest oneself fully in every conversation and to remember and track them like threads in a story.

But Ira Glass is, after all, a storyteller. And, for five minutes yesterday evening, my friend.

ZOMG IT'S IRA GLASS

So I happened to mention the other day, both on the blogosphere and on the Facebookectangle, that I had a little infatuation with Ira Glass, or at least with his magical radio voice, and that I listen to a lot of This American Life. (They have every single epsiode online, for free. Thirteen years' worth.)

There's a lot one can do during an episode of This American Life, like cleaning the entire apartment or cooking enough meals for the week, and the two addictions (that of the radio program and of the to-do list) probably feed on one another a bit. Let it suffice that I for serious have this show going in my apartment all the freaking time.

But the most important thing of all is that IRA GLASS HIMSELF is going to be AT BORDERS talking about HIS SHOW on WEDNESDAY!!!!!

I am delighted for two reasons. First because ZOMG IT'S IRA GLASS, and secondly because this is happening right at the height of my infatuation with his program. ^__^ If he had come to DC next year, I might have moved on to something else and maybe I would, you know, go just because I used to listen to his thing all the time, but I might be a little over it.

But since it's happening on Wednesday, I get to be a complete fangirl and swoon over the possibility of being in the presence of an aging nerdy Public Radio documentarian.

It's like The Secret in action.