poppydawn

Give me a yell if you go to Cahokia Mounds. That's right up the street from me, and there's some cool Uncle Tupelo/Wilco sites in the area, too.

I noticed that Tweedy had a Booche's shirt after the show. I haven't been there in a zillion years. We pass through Columbia fairly often, since my parents live in Sedalia. However, with the insane gas prices, we're going to be taking Amtrak which means fewer stops in Columbia for pizza and Lakota. Although I've heard that there's a place in St. Charles that's selling Shakespeare's. But that would mean going to St. Charles. That show last fall was just an all-around good time. Even with driving to Columbia that morning and driving back to Illinois afterwards. As for Stag bottles,

Vives vives vives!

It's been nine years since I moved from Columbia and I still get Shakespeare's cravings. *sigh* I think my half-baked supply is down to three. One of the best moments of the past year: stuffing my gullet at Shakespeare's, then wandering down 9th Street and into Wilco's soundcheck. It's like the angels looked down and said, "Hey! Robin would dig this!"

I didn't take that quiz, but I'm pretty sure I'm that fat guy who used to play for the Phillies, who recently played a muse on "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" with Neko Case.

That's definitely one hell of a year. I'm so buying you a beer when you're here. And maybe a box of Tweedy-O's.

The drive's not bad from there; you'll avoid a lot of the nasty highway construction. Your hotel's right off Page Ave. Just go east on Page for a few miles. Go past I-170. Turn right on Midland Ave. Stay there for a few miles until you hit Delmar. Turn left, and you'll be about a mile from the Pageant. I'll gladly accept two Shakespeare's veggie half-bakeds in exchange for my personal navigation services. (Love your avatar. I think I see myself.)

I just missed the line cut-off for being in the Halo Bar at that show. Instead I was outside, freezing my ass off, but it was a lot of fun.

There's a hot dog cart that parks outside the Pageant, but that's usually after the show. Personally, I'd rather run to the noodle shop down the street. Last time I was in line at the Pageant for a Wilco show, some stranger offered me half of her Qdoba burrito. More proof that Wilco people is good people. Although I didn't take the burrito, perhaps I'll buy extra noodles and offer them to someone next time.

Westport's a little nicer than the airport area, and quieter. My parents used to stay in Westport when we lived in that area. They liked the Sheraton, Hampton Inn, Baymont, Courtyard, and Staybridge in that area. You can usually get a decent deal on that Hampton through Priceline.

I could be misremembering, too. Someone bought my ticket for that show, now that I think about it, so there's a good chance I have no idea what I'm talking about. I really think all of the out-of-towners coming to St. Louis for the show need to set up a shantytown in the parking lot across the street from my house. It's highly visible and would certainly alert the media that there's more to Belleville than our fantastic annual art show, Catholic shrine and Stag Beer.

The '04 show didn't sell out, but it was at the Fox, which is quite a bit bigger than the Pageant. I'd like to see if they could sell it out now, although I'd rather seen them at the Pageant than the Fox. The '06 Pageant show sold out in minutes, but it was just one show. Two years ago, I wonder if they would have sold out two shows this fast. I know a lot of local fans have been feeling pretty starved for them. And I don't recall such an influx of people coming to St. Louis to see them in the past, which I think is great. I hope it'll let the non-Wilco world in St. Louis and the Metro East

That Sheraton is awesome! I stayed there a few years ago and didn't want to leave. It's across the street from a Metro stop. It's maybe a 10-minute ride to the Pageant. You did good. I'm pretty sure the reserved seats weren't included on the Wilcoworld presale, but I wasn't paying terribly close attention. I just seem to remember the pull-down menu only having the GA option.

Dunja, much love to you, Tara and the rest of your family right now. I'm so relieved that Tara's prognosis is good, but I hate that you and your family are going through this. Donna, thanks for the head's up.

Gwar terrifies and fascinates me.

Oh, I know where all the Trader Joe's are located. I'm such a regular that, when I moved, the manager of the TJ's closest to my old house gave me a dozen roses. Kimcatch, you best get your ass down here! Do you have any idea how many Thai restaurants are within two blocks of the Pageant? Four. Four! I met Andrew Bird at one of them last year. How can you pass up such a scenario?

I could probably be talked into a Friday afternoon trip to Euclid without having my arm twisted too much.

That Baymont's really nice. My aunt and uncle stayed there recently and were really happy with it. I just looked at the Baymont website. For $65/night, that's a pretty damn good deal. It's a little jaunt to the train stations, but not bad. The ones nearby have lots of parking, and they're pretty safe. The trains usually run well after any shows at the Pageant, so that shouldn't be a problem at all.

One of my friends used to work for Hullaballoo. She also claims innocence in the fire, but sometimes I wonder ... Euclid move a few years ago to some fancy digs in downtown Webster Groves. It's still awesome, though. I haven't been there since I moved to the Illinois side last year and I miss it.

Fairview Heights, Illinois is a 15-minute train ride to the Pageant. They have just about every hotel chain. Availability might be a problem, since there's a huge art show in Belleville that weekend, but it's worth a shot.

Those were the ones I was going to mention, along with the Best Western on Lindell near Forest Park and the Hampton Inn on Oakland, also near Forest Park. There's really nothing within walking distance. There are Cardinals home games the same nights as both shows, so I'm not sure what that will do to the hotel situation downtown. I'd avoid it.

See, I haven't read anything about "Accelerate" yet, or looked at any of the nine web sites for the album, so perhaps it's easier for me to see this little publicity stunt as a fun little jab at the media that's spends so much time and energy speculating over things that really don't matter, like who people sleep with. Maybe it's time to step away from the publicity machine if it's ruining the musical experience.

Yep. Mike and Peter came out. Watch the video.

God, I love Michael Stipe. See it here.

My four-year-old daughter is crazy about robots. We saw the trailer for "Wall-E" last weekend when we saw "Horton Hears a Who", and she's talked more about wanting to see the "robot movie" than she has about Horton. I hadn't heard anything about it until we saw the trailer, but now I'm really excited about it. I was really dreading the movie thing when she was little. I'm trying to avoid Disney crap at all costs because I don't want her falling into the princess obsession. I'm finding that the Pixar ones are definitely the best of the bunch.