cheech

I wanted to be a big hero yesterday, but ehh it didn't really happen. I was out walking on the north side of Hawthorne Blvd and saw a sign for a lost cat, Itchy. I circled around to the south side, in Ladd's Addition, and heard a whiny cat noise. I saw a long-haired tabby and black cat that were standoffish, but not fighting, just making weird noises and stalking slowly. I figured that the black cat could be Itchy: it was black and had no collar... not exactly rare things for neighborhood cats, but I then called Mikael cuz I figured he might know more details since the signs are near-ish his home. He didn't. So I walked all the way back to the sign I'd seen, about 5 blocks, called the number on the sign, then went back to see if I saw 1) the black cat, 2) the guy I'd called.
Well, I ended up seeing neither... and the damnedest thing is, the tabby cat was there and extremely attention-seeking, meowing like mad and following me.... then another tabby cat, with weird ears, came out of that same yard and also sought lots of attention. But no black cat. I went around the alley, around a couple different streets. Nothing. It's too bad; aside from liking cats and obviously not wanting pets to be lost, I was hoping to Save The Day, like Gord in Freddy Got Fingered, be a hero, help folks out... I dunno, maybe I should keep that feeling in mind when looking at future employment.

I saw an Lauren K Newman show again last night. First, I got to hang out with charming howdypardner again, too. She is cool people. I then saw in the paper that LKN was back in town, and hoped I could "make it" to the show. Well, it was definitely in no danger of having started by 10 pm! After waiting a long while, this nice subdued acoustic-playing lass, JESSICA JONES, did a folk-slanted set... then Lauren played drums in a improv band, ROME PLOWS, with the sax player Ben from Old Time Relijun, and a guy who played guitar and clarinet. It was nicely uncategorizable, sometimes quiet and sometimes not. Then Lauren did her band set (I found it a bit odd she didn't share drums with her drummer. I dunno, it would save much set-up time.) and rocked out hard but also like... uh, saying it was a bit short since she'd been out of state and they hadn't rehearsed much. She was at once really energetic but also... not quite as energetic as the 9th St Public House show. The two shows seemed oddly contrasted. 9th Street was a free show, with other women in punkish bands on the bill, and (apparently, from stage-patter and visual evidence) heavily lesbian in attendance. Towne Lounge was dark, subdued, mostly dudes in audience, the folk and odd avant-jazz serving as opening acts, it was a $5 show, and Lauren talked but... not as manic, not as talkative. The paper compared her to Iggy Pop in the Towne Lounge preview, and she was a lot more so at 9th St, a bit crazier. Anyway, it was a short set but not mellow, it rocked out, so I don't want to seem like LKN is not worth seeing every time. I'm sure she is.