Darkoshi

On July 20th, I drove to Charleston with my mom and Qiao to see the Culture Club concert there. I could have gotten tickets to the Charleston concert on Friday or to the Charlotte concert on Saturday. Almost exactly 20 years before (July 25, 1998), I had been to Charlotte for my first ever Culture Club concert. This was my 5th.

I chose Charleston this time so we could visit my sister and bro-in-law, and so they could come to the concert too; they have been living in North Charleston for the last few years. The Charleston venue, the Volvo Car Stadium, it turns out, is a tennis court that is re-purposed for concerts during the off-season. It is open to the elements, with no roof or awning over the seats. There was a strong chance of rain in the forecast. I worried that the concert would be cancelled due to rain.

It began raining on the drive down and became a downpour as we neared Charleston. But after checking into our hotel room, the rain lessened and stopped. We went to a nearby restaurant for a quick bite to eat, and then picked up my sister and her husband. Getting to the concert involved driving on an interstate over a big steep tall bridge, which was nerve-wracking for me. First I got on the wrong ramp, and drove in the wrong direction, so I had to take the next exit, turn around, and do it again! But I made it through ok.

I was mentally/emotionally exhausted from having bought the tickets and planned the trip only the weekend before. I'm always low on sleep to begin with, and then was even more so. So I think I didn't enjoy the concert as much as I could have. Although I'm largely convinced now that concerts really aren't my cup of tea.

The opening acts were Tom Bailey formerly of the Thompson Twins, and the B-52's. (Here's a recording from the Atlanta concert with long clips of all 3 bands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrSFenAh03w )
I enjoyed watching them, but concert speakers are always so loud that the music quality sounds very bad to me. It is very noisy, cacophonous.

At concerts, when I sit in my seat rather than standing up and dancing, I feel bad for not displaying more enthusiasm for the performance. When I stand up and want to dance, I feel awkward. I don't really dance; I just sway back and forth repeatedly. Even if I'm really enjoying the music, that's all I can muster in public. So I feel awkward as an audience member, no matter if I sit or stand. The music quality really isn't so great, it's expensive, and it's a lot of extra effort to go out to a concert... listening to music in my living room is much more pleasant. But I guess one doesn't go to concerts to hear music. One goes to see the performance, to see the musicians. To see people. To feel the vibe of the crowd. To do something different. Right? So maybe this won't have been my last concert, who knows.

Culture Club's first song was not a Culture Club song. It was David Bowie's "Let's Dance", one of my favorite songs. Here is a good quality video of CC playing it at another concert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPYaICA0oLk
And another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n_HUwAj9ek

That got me out of my seat, and bouncing as much as I'll bounce around in public, I guess.
Later on they played "Addicted to Love", which I enjoyed a lot as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGWpQmC9UK4

Those songs excited me as I didn't expect them, and I'd never heard CC play them before. But the other songs played that night didn't do much for me. I've heard them too many times. Even the band's "new" songs didn't sound as great to me this time, as they did at the last CC concert I went to in 2015. They didn't play "I Don't Do Emotion Like I Used To" this time. Nor is it listed on the track listing of their upcoming Life album. So maybe that is part of it; maybe they dropped or changed or didn't play the new songs that I liked best.

It made me feel funny, like a bad fan, that the songs which CC played which I enjoyed the most, weren't even CC songs.

https://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/FeedbackFile/archives/2018/07/20/tonight-boy-georges-40-year-career-and-his-makeup-is-still-on-fleek

Rather than breaking up, Culture Club, George says, goes on "breaks" [...], which is why it's taken five years to release their latest record. George laughs before explaining, "We partly recorded it four years ago and then we had a break and then we started again about six months ago. We rerecorded everything, so basically went back to square one, took all the tracks we recorded before, and just rerecorded them because I really liked what the producers were doing."

The Life Tour included/includes 62 concerts in the U.S. between June and October - it's still going on. Then they will play 21 more concerts in Europe thru December. It sounds grueling to me, but I hope the bands are enjoying it.

I replaced my refrigerator's evaporator fan motor, because the old one was intermittently squealing, and I had a feeling it would stop working altogether in the near future.

I should know better than to start a task like that at 9:30pm when I have to get up for work the next day. I finished around 2am. The new motor and fan are working, and are sounding good.

Much of my time is spent looking up information on the internet, to make sure I do it right. Sometimes I find useful information. Sometimes I don't, and decide to bite the bullet and do it the way I think is best. Some of the time was cleaning gunk out of the freezer compartment, while I had all the shelves removed and out of the way. A good bit of the time was deciding how to handle the wire connections, since they were different on the old and new motor.

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When I order stuff from Amazon, I often have it delivered to my mom's house, as delivery people are sometimes scared of the dogs at my house. My mom was telling me of a package that had been delivered. She said the return label said it was from Amazon Fulfillment Services. Then she asked me if it was something sexual. LOL. She's fluent in English, but it isn't her native tongue. Maybe she's been wondering that every time I got a package from them, and finally asked.

Today she tried to convince me that people in the South pronounce Augusta (Georgia) with an "N" in front, like "Naugusta" or "Nugusta". I've never heard it spoken that way (unless they are saying "in Augusta"). But she says everyone here pronounces it that way. I'm still dubious. There's a North Augusta on the South Carolina side of the border. Maybe some people refer to North Augusta as Nugusta? But I didn't find any mention of that online.

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This weekend, I:

- mowed my lawn
- washed out my garbage bin as had gotten gunky inside. I don't like stinky garbage cans. I took a photo of the bin's number, so that if it happens again, I'll know whether my bin was accidentally switched with the neighbor's or something. (Although it's mainly for curiosity's sake. I wouldn't actually go up to the neighbor and say, "Hey, I think our garbage bins were switched, because mine was clean inside, and this one isn't.")
- did more work on securing the fence against Serena at Qiao's house. This involves a lot of brick moving, and some pounding of stakes. It's about half done.
- cleaned Qiao's shower stall in order to apply tub grip to the floor, and then did the latter.
- watched Dirk Gently
- did some yardwork at Qiao's house
- turned on the heater for the first time this season and let it air out with the windows open.
- replaced fridge evaporator fan
- ordered Culture Club tickets - they are scheduled to play in Augusta in November

Other things I need to do soon:

- look up info on the non-presidential candidates for the upcoming election
- choose a doctor for myself

Culture Club concert in Boston at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion. Short clips: "(I Don't Do Emotion) Like I Used To"; "I Just Wanna Be Loved".




URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctHTG35SfiU