Tamsin and Campbell in San Diego: Live Entertainment ‘09

Note: I wrote this in September but forgot to post it. Tamsin got sick of me not posting, so she wrote about this stuff as well and as editor-in-chief I’ve decided to allow some of her comments to be printed as well.

Once again, I’ve been very slack with the updates. A week or so after we got back from San Francisco in July, I took Tamsin up to Los Angeles on a surprise Tuesday night after-work trip to see Counting Crows at the Greek Theatre, which is a famous concert venue (it must be, because my Dad has heard of it). It is an outdoor amphitheatre that is nestled amongst up against a wooded hillside in Griffith Park and was a great place to go and see a concert. We’ve both been fans of Counting Crows since back when we were at high school, so it was slightly strange to be seeing them in concert in LA. It was also slightly strange that Counting Crows and their supporting acts Augustana (who were pretty good and it seemed a lot of college girls were there to see them specifically. For an example of their music see this) and Michael Franti with Spearhead (you may have heard and become sick of this song) would play a couple of songs, then maybe one of the other band’s songs then swap out and come back later, rather than each band playing their set in order. It was very collaborative and all, but I found it confusing and we agreed it would have been better to stick to the standard format. Still, it was a really good way to spend a summer’s eve. On the way back we ended up on the wrong freeway and began to take a detour back to the freeway over the surface streets. After Tamsin uttered the phrase “Now we just need to go through Inglewood and we’ll be back on the freeway,” I hung a quick U-turn and we retraced our steps. I wouldn’t drive through Inglewood in Taranaki, let alone Inglewood in LA at 1 am especially with Tamsin wearing gang colours.

Tamsin’s review: “Our final cultural experience of the month was the Counting Crows concert at the Greek Theatre in LA (editor’s note: We actually went to this concert about 2 months before seeing the two musicals which are reviewed below but Tamsin’s temporal memory seems to be going). Apparently the Greek Theatre is quite famous and has played host to such acts as The Who, Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley and Elton John. It is also the venue where Neil Diamond’s ‘Hot August Night’ live album was recorded. Both Cam and I have been waiting 15 years to go to a Counting Crows concert so you can imagine that we were quite excited (well, I was excited, Cam was less apathetic than usual). After a brilliant concert we set out to drive back to San Diego. For some reason the City of Los Angeles decided to close the freeway, causing a major traffic jam at 11pm. In the interests of finding a quicker way home I pulled out the map and navigated us through the surface streets of LA (editor’s note: attempted to navigate). Unfortunately I had never heard of a suburb called Inglewood (I thought it would be similar to the one in Taranaki) and when Cam got me to read out where we were going he pulled a huge U-turn in the middle of the street and got quite upset at me! Apparently Inglewood isn’t such a nice neighbourhood for white folks to be driving around in at midnight. Who knew?”

We made a second attempt at musical theatre in America, the first being when Andrew Lloyd Webber stole $80 off me in Las Vegas for an abridged version of The Phantom of the Opera. In August we went to see the touring company of Wicked in downtown San Diego. Wicked is the “true story” of The Wicked Witch of the West and The Good Witch of the North before Dorothy dropped into Oz. The music was quite poppy and neither of us were really impressed by that, but we’re not really the target audience I guess. The story started off pretty slow, but it picked up and the ending was actually pretty good and redeemed the earlier plot issues I have jotted down in my notebook. The production was really well done too. Tamsin’s review of Wicked is “Wicked.”

Following Wicked, in September we went back to the Civic Centre to see Spamalot, which is sort of a musical version of Monty Python and The Holy Grail with a few bits from Life of Brian and some original numbers making fun of Broadway musicals. The original stuff was probably the best, because the stuff taken from The Holy Grail sounded like Americans doing a remake of the movie, which is exactly what is was. Not to so it wasn’t well done, There were great numbers about Finland, the importance of Jews on Broadway and Sir Lancelot discovering that he likes to “dance a lot.” With other men. It was really good all in all, very funny. Enough about musicals though.

Tamsin’s thoughts: “ For some reason Cam was much happier watching men dancing around in tights throwing cows than he was watching green ladies flying around on broomsticks. It was refreshing to get a bit of British humour, even though they did throw in a couple of topical American references which totally went over our heads (someone calling someone else a liar in the senate or something?). Spamalot was hilarious and we would recommend going if you get the opportunity. And you don’t even need to have watched the movies to get the gist of it – I will admit to falling asleep in every single Monty Python movie (sorry Esther!) but I still thought Spamalot was good.”

In addition to Tamsin’s duties as Vice President in charge of Cat Sanitation and Entertainment for the cats at the local pet store, she also recently became a cat foster mother. Our first guest was a little kitten tentatively called Joey who was found outside a house of ill repute covered in fleas. The flea treatment burnt the fur and skin off the back of his neck so he needed a place to convalesce. Within four seconds it was quite apparent that Tamsin would never be able to let him go, so now he lives with us. How she survived a year without a cat I don’t know. He has had several different names since he arrived but the latest incarnation is Scruff as he was lacking that particular region of fluff when he arrived here. We also had a 9 year old cat named Clara staying with us for 2 months. She had a thyroid problem and needed somewhere to make the most piercing meowing noise in the history of feline-kind at all hours of the day and night as well as put on some weight. If there’s one thing Tamsin knows its how to fatten up cats, as anyone who knows Tank can confirm.

Tamsin: “Not long after our return from San Francisco I was asked to foster a small fluffy grey kitten by the head of the cat rescue society where I volunteer. I had resisted up until that point but they were desperate. So we took in a tiny 4 week old kitten with no fur on its neck and horrible scabs all over its scruff from over-zealous use of Advantage on an underage kitten. After about a week he was starting to heal and became known as Scruff. He has never left and will be flying back to New Zealand with us at some point.”

In late September our friends Joanna and Joshi got married. This was very exciting as it enabled Tamsin to challenge her well-honed Christmas cake making skills by making a four tier cake for them. After several months of trial cakes, icing, decoration and 76 episodes of Ace of Cakes on the Food Channel, she managed to get it all done and we delivered it the church without me smashing it in a humorous manner by tripping over flower girl or stepping on a roller skate or something. It was very popular and she has several orders for other wedding cakes but only from people who aren’t getting married unfortunately. The wedding was interesting because they had to have a Polish Catholic wedding (which we could understand about half of) one day, then the Indian ceremony (which we could understand none of) the next. The priest was about an hour late to the Indian wedding so everyone, bride and groom included, stood around outside the temple waiting for him to arrive. The ceremony was much less formal than we’re used to, with people filtering in and out and chatting to each other while it was going on.

I made a new friend about 6 months ago (I cleared it with Tamsin first and she begrudgingly allowed me to have one) and we have been spending a lot of time together. He’s a mean go kart driving 8 year old called Devon who is my Little Brother. Big Brothers and Big Sisters is a organisation that matches up a kid who might be lacking in a stable adult figure with someone who allegedly can fill that void. We’ve spent a lot of time at GoKarts and bowling, and he is also a very keen helper with the cats that Tamsin looks after.