2 trips to the Boston Garden

Feb 3, 2007: Saw Rod Stewart with my parents and my aunt. It was a solid mostly non-embarassing show. We had nosebleed seats. Rod is still quite good-looking for a 60+ year old guy, and many of the middle aged women in the expensive seats were remarkably infatuated with him. Rod belted out most of his hits in a professional, light-hearted manner, with little stage banter and plenty of conventional 70's rock poses. He mangled a couple classics (I'm Losing You, for example), delivered the goods on Every Picture Tells a Story, Maggie Mae, and Forever young), ran through a couple of pointless cover songs (a CCR and Janis Joplin tune), and got the crowd singing on some ballads. The band was annoying. A scantily clad, 20 year old, Ann Coulter lookalike was the saxophonist when what you really want to see is a rough, grizzled Clarence Clemmons type. There were some needless solos including perfunctory drum and bass solos, and an ill-fitting banjo solo which brought I'm Losing You to a grinding halt. Also, I feel some kind of strange white guilt whenever I see a trio of token black female backup singers arrayed behind a painfully white singer. In the second set, most of this excess was reigned in, and he ran through a well-chosen selection of hits and more obscure numbers. The man hasn't written a song that I truly like since 1973's Never a Dull Moment but he does have the occasional palatable song amidst his 70's disco schlock and his 80's synth-pop dreck. It is somewhat disconcerting, however, sitting next to your Dad singing "Do ya Think I'm Sexy?" at the top of his lungs.

Feb 14, 2007: Saw the Celtics end their 18 game losing streak against the Milwaukee Bucks. Pierce was in vintage shape, and Gerald Green knocked in a bunch of consecutive 3-pointers. Pretty much everyone on the Celts played well. My Dad and I really enjoyed ourselves despite the sensory overkill of an contemporary NBA game. The inane antics of the cheerleaders and the advertisers, and the endless barrage coming out of the sound system and Jumbotron still get to you, but tonight the game was good enough that we could happily overlook most of it. The local sports radio guys keep telling us it is a good thing that the Celtics are losing because we will get a good draft pick, but the real fans, of couse, want to see W's. Personally I found that an 18 game losing streak was having a negative psychological effect on me, when coupled with the cold and the darkness of a New England winter. Getting a win went a long way towards casting off that pall. We had great seats behind the Celtics bench ($150 seats, mind you). After the game, we went back to my Dad's house and like a couple of teenagers re-watched the Tivo-ed game in the hopes of seeing ourself on the screen.