Thursday, Jun. 10, 2004

Usher in the house, posted at 2:34 p.m.

Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com

I'm thinking about seeing Supersize Me tonight. It's been a very long time since I've been to the movies, and I need to get back. That seems like an appropriately important movie to see.

However, my tastes run very broad. I can go to a slightly highbrown independently made documentary, but I also have a stronge urge to see Usher and Kanye West play at Mariner Arena on August 6. I bought Usher's CD over the weekend, and it's very good. There's this song called "Let it Burn" that has the best vocals I've heard in a long time. The chorus is a bit overproduced, but overall the song really blows me away.

I'll be seeing Melissa Ferrick at Funk Box tomorrow night. I've never been there, but am looking forward to seeing her in a new venue. The lesbian version of Bruce Springsteen has a new CD out and apparently there will be a question and answer session after the show. I'm going with a lesbian couple and my friend Rob, who I took last September because he likes the singer/songwriter thing and Ferrick is the best live performer in that genre right now, as far as I'm concerned. They're also playing her a lot on WTMD right now, which is pretty cool.

If you know my real name and google it, about on page four you see a journal entry that Ferrick wrote about four years ago. In the entry, she calls me a cool guy who booked her. I booked her twice at MSU when I was there, which is how I became a fan. She's sort of over the top and scary in person.

Speaking of which, a substitute in our building has apparently decided that he's a good friend of mine. He subbed for me when I was sued, and I came in and talked with him on the way to the trial. He was very friendly, and mentioned something about all the signs on the board, and told me that he had gone to the same school that Nikki Giovanni had. He was pleasant enough and I didn't make much note of it. Well, today he came up to me and was really excited to see me, and told me how much all the posters on the wall meant to him, how they really revealed a lot about my personality and how he would look up at the posters if he had bad parts of the day. Then he laughed, bellowed, at his own non-joke. He was very, very gregarious, and I was friendly and polite, I think, but he just saw me again and asked if I was shy. I said no and tried to overplay it, really smiling and laughing and even patting the guy on my back because I didn't want this guy to think I was shy for some reason. Oh well.

***

The teachers are all organizing a sick-out in support of the custodians who are said to be fired tomorrow unless someone fesses up to all the thefts this year. This could get interesting next week.