Musical Soapboxes

Random stuff about this weekend & things I've been thinking about & there may be a soapbox or two that I climb upon.

Keem & I went to see The Incredibles this weekend & it so seriously rocked. Even though I was surrounded by small children, I didn't care. I also saw the preview for The Polar Express again and they changed it and I cried again. I am frightened about seeing this movie because I don't think the small children could handle me sobbing when the conductors do the dance with the hot chocolate.

I am seriously beginning to understand and appreciate why Keem always wants to go to the theater so early. We got there about 3:15 and it didn't start until 4 but there was seating. 45 minutes or so of listening to music & watching a lot of Coke commercials is a little wearing on a person. But I was glad we got there early when I started watching the theater fill up.

There was a little boy, maybe about ten, who found his way up to the top row where we were sitting. He was waiting for awhile, standing up and searching the crowd for someone. Finally he decided to run off to see if he could find his family & asked if I would save his seats - all five of them. Now, if I had been thinking, I would have put my purse & coat & bag over the seats, something to make them less inviting to everyone who waited until the last minute to get there. He had been gone for less than a minute when someone tried to sit there. I apologized & explained that the seats were saved. The woman was extremely gracious.

I turned to Keem for a moment & turned back to see that someone else was trying to sit there. Two seconds after watching me turn the other people away. I was torn between saying something and then going with my usual instinct to be polite & not make waves. I was just going to, at Keem's urging, to say something to the woman closest to me when the boy came back up. He said to this woman "I'm sorry but these seats are saved."

He was very polite, very nice to her, apologetic even. She, however, did not respond well. "Saved? Saved!" she screeched. "I don't think so." I was going to back him up and then rescue came in the form of his mother, who had found her way into the theater with her other children. Face to face with another mother, the woman backed down. But not gracefully, oh, no. She had to set a good example for her children by stomping down the stairs, cursing. Nice, huh? Now I understand why Keem likes to get to the theater so early. Now I will stop complaining about it.

I read a very disturbing post by The Lioness this weekend. I linked to it here but I recommend you visit her site & read what she wrote. It is very moving & had me crying when I read what had happened to this poor little boy. So soapbox #2 is over what the heck is wrong with people? But then also what is right with people when I read about all the help that is being provided to him as well.

Beth called me on Sunday because of karaoke & she told me that she had bought me a present & it was incredibly cool! She discovered itunes & the fact that she could purchase music online & is now hooked. I had mentioned to her once that I really liked the Indigo Girls but I hadn't heard anything by them in years. This is mainly because the radio station I used to listen to was wonderful & played alternative music & I adored it and then they sold out & started playing all 80's music. All the time (I grew up in the 80's. I don't want to revisit them all that often. So, yeah, like the music but hey, haven't the artists done anything lately?).

So I listen to KS95 & they have variety but they're really not alternative. In other words, they play Melissa Etheridge but nothing she's done since oh, the 80's. There's no Idigo Girls. There's lots and lots of Uncle Kracker (blech) & whiny girls that kind of annoy me but there's also Maroon 5 & Matchbox Twenty & BNL so I'm somewhat happy. I have tried switching to Drive 105 because they are awesome but I can't get it in my bedroom, where my radio is.

My vant #3 is why is it that you can't hear the Indigo Girls everywhere? Or Melissa Etheridge? Or Doughty? Why does there always have to be mainstream? Not that mainstream is bad, per se, but c'mon? Why are you playing Picture when you could be playing Closer to Fine? And how come I don't know who Ani DiFranco is?

Well, thank you for listening & climbing the soapboxes with me.

Previous Comments:

At 1:37 AM, brooksba said...
Again Dana,You are awesome. Fun post. I'm glad you like the CD. I'm having fun with it too. =)
At 4:39 PM, Robert ~ Marlénè said...
I have long had the same gripe with radio, that they are all pandering to the same "mainstream" audience and leaving those of us whose tastes run to the obscure and wonderful out in the silent snowy cold. There used to be several independent radio stations in the SF Bay Area where you could hear all sorts of interesting music, B-sides and new bands and ancient oldies (like pre-stereo ancient), but now they've all either been bought up by the media giants, or turned into talk stations, or their bandwidth is so feeble that I can't receive it on anything I own. It's too sad. Thank the goddess for iTunes, though... I'm a bit of an addict myself and am going to have to upgrade my hard drive someday soon to store more of it.And coming to movies early, I always like to be the first person into a theater so I can get my favorite seat: the one where I am in the exact middle of the row and just close enough that the screen fills my field of vision. That spot always fills up fast. But then, I usually don't go to a movie until its been running for a few weeks and the children have already seen it.