In Love, in Tampa
by Scott Hardie on February 16, 2015
Last night we took in a special show by Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman for Valentines Day. Kelly is a huge fan of both and I was happy to take her to see them.
I did not start the evening as a Palmer fan, but I was one by the time it ended. Her songs can be pretentious, self-involved, shrill, off-key -- all qualities that are off-putting at first that gradually become endearing. I particularly enjoyed her piano playing and wished for an instrumental number, but it wasn't in the cards.
I enjoyed Gaiman's comics back when I read comics, and I knew of his reputation as a very gifted storyteller otherwise. He doesn't have the best reading voice (and an even worse singing voice), but he certainly made do. His stories were touching and clever.
The best part of the show by far was the conversations with the audience, in the form of Q&A on notes dropped in a box in the lobby. Both stars have a mutual love affair with their fans, although Palmer's are far more extroverted (and prone to shouting things at her all night, as I learned). They improvised very funny answers to fan questions and showed a lot of personality. They were there to engage with the audience, not just put on a one-way show.
We arrived too late to have the planned dinner with friends in Tampa, so we sat shivering outside without jackets (boo hoo, right northern friends?) at a sidewalk bistro before showtime. I was on diet, so I just had to sit while Kelly ate hummus and tried to get it over with quickly. We walked around downtown Tampa a bit and found a shop selling all kinds of chocolates, the perfect spontaneous purchase on Valentines Day. Due to the show running past midnight and it already being a long drive to Tampa and back, we wound up having a ten-hour day trip. It was worth it.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
The Dragon
This is the first of four weekly blog posts about diagnoses that have completely changed my life since the pandemic started. Let's get the gravest one out of the way first. Until recently, I never appreciated how essential the future was to your mental health. Go »Grievances
I haven't written about my life in this blog for a while because I haven't liked to think about the state of my life. Things could always be worse, but I still don't feel much optimism these days. - We're being pinched by the economy. Go »My Dinner with Amy
Nice to meet you, old friend. Go »Det är inte så farligt
Yesterday, Kelly and I joined friends who had free passes to shop at the new Ikea store in Tampa before it opens to the public. It was our my first time in one of those stores, and it was every bit the harrowing shopping marathon I'd heard it was. For a store that boasts so frequently about how efficient everything is, having you proceed through the store in one long winding line for four hours sure doesn't feel that way, but every store has ways of getting you to buy more than you came for and Ikea has come up with a unique one. Go »Roller Coaster
Our lives have had lots of ups and downs lately. I'd blog about each of these separately if I could. DOWN - Kelly is laid off again. Go »
