Burma Shave

Hoo-ah. Today was a different kind of day for me. As I mentioned previously, Deb went back to work and took Hannah to daycare, while I stayed home with Lily. It was a pretty miserable day out, which made it easy to stay inside and catch up on my TiVo'ed shows and on the three Netflix DVDs that had been gathering dust the last few weeks. Lily followed the pattern of eat, spit up all over me, and snooze, but she wouldn't let me put her down for too long before she woke up. Still, I watched the last two-thirds of "Super Troopers" and all of "Kill Bill, Vol. 1," which I had been wanting to see since it came out. "Kill Bill" in particular was awesome, but definitely not a film I could watch with the wife, who doesn't appreciate the cartoonish violence that Tarantino doles out in spades in this movie. We're talking a body count in the hundreds, Hong Kong martial arts, Uma, an anime segment, a soundtrack by the RZA, and enough fake blood to fill a Red Cross drive. Can't wait to see Vol. 2, more than likely when it comes out on DVD.

The softball team's doing well. We're 6-2 after this weekend, although I've already missed three games and will miss a bunch more in the weeks to come. The new blood has really helped. Who knows, maybe we'll do some damage this year.

Speaking of the RZA, who if you don't know is a member of the hip-hop collective, the Wu Tang Clan, I just found out that my old Webnoize colleague Christian "Big Audio" Douglass was hanging with the Wu doods in Albania of all places. Guess he went to a hip-hop show and they were headlining. I can't wait for him to get back stateside and tell us all about it. The guys knows how to tell a story, that's for sure. And if you're wondering, and I know you are, my Wu name is Bitter Wizard.

So the reason I missed Saturday night's softball game is because I ventured into the city to see the legendary Mission of Burma at Avalon. They were one of the most influential post-punk acts to emerge in the early '80s, even if they only recorded one full-length album and an EP. They broke up after guitarist-singer Roger Miller's tinnitus grew to be too much for him to continue. They reunited a few years ago to do a couple of shows (with Miller wearing industrial headphones and keeping a plexiglass shield between him and drummer Peter Prescott--I guess the drums are really what messed up his ears) and I had the good fortune to see them then, and now they're back with a new album, OnOffOn, which is totally smokin'. Saturday's show was amazingly good, a scorching performance that saw them play most of the new CD and a bunch of old classics. These guys are in their 50s now and sound just as good as they did back in tha day. I wish I had seen them back then, but they had broken up before I had ever heard of them. Thankfully, they're back doing what they do best. Another great reunited band following suit is the Pixies, who I hope to see when they play Boston later this year.