John Hiatt and the safety cake

Five of us ventured into the rain tonight to see John Hiatt, a long-time favorite of mine, perform at the outdoor amphitheatre at the North Carolina Museum of Art. There was, however, one big obstacle: it was raining heavily and steadily. We ate dinner from the hot buffet at Whole Foods and pondered the situation. After much thought, we realized there was only one solution.

We had to buy a safety cake.

A safety cake is one you purchase as insurance. You buy it so the world knows that even if it keeps pissing you off--in this case, by raining--you will have a good night, because, after all, you have cake. So, the world has no choice but to relent.

The safety cake worked wonderfully. They decided to go on with the show unless lightning started. During the opener, the rain stopped. John Hiatt performed for two and a half hours, and the show was big fun. He played many of his hits, including "Slow Turning" and "Perfectly Good Guitar" (which he used to start the show), as well as a wide variety of songs old and new. The audience didn't know it, but they had us and the safety cake to thank for their show.

Afterward, though, we faced the one problem of the safety cake strategy: we had a cake.

Fearless and self-sacrificing people that we are, we took this giant chocolate and raspberry concoction to Jennie's and ate half of it while watching an episode of Burn Notice that we had missed. The other half will make its way to tomorrow night's party.

I should also mention the annoying sentence of the night. On the way to dinner, we noticed that a builder had the unfortunate name of Beezer. We then turned onto Ebenezer church road. This semi-rhyme situation led us to construct a sentence fragment about an old man with breathing problems doing a commercial for a cooling device specifically built to chill tweezers in a house from this builder on that road, or, to sum it up, the

wheezer geezer Ebenezer Beezer tweezer freezer teaser

Don't blame me; I just report the news.

FLASH UPDATE

Sarah wishes to announce the following song recommendation:

"Bleeding Heart Show," The New Pornographers

Check it out on pain of her cake-fueled wrath.

Burn Notice returns

We gathered in front of the TV in the primitive way: watching a show as it was broadcast, no DVR, nothing other than the Mute button to protect us from the commercials. The first episode of the second season of Burn Notice was what compelled us to face this ordeal. Many of us here at the beach loved the first season, and we were greatly looking forward to the second.

After watching tonight's show, I'm afraid I'm still going to have to reserve judgment. The episode was good, way better than most shows. The dialog was snappy, the tradecraft solid, and the returning characters all in fine form. Despite all that, to me this first installment felt a bit forced and also lacked the spark that set the previous season apart from its competition. Having said that, I'm looking forward to the next show, because I think some of what I felt was due to the fact that this show had to serve as a bridge from the past season to the setup of the new one.

So, with those reservations I recommend catching this episode in a later airing this week if you missed it tonight, and I'm hoping for improvement as the season wears on.

Online viewing tip

If you're at all a fan of Burn Notice, as I am, then you'll need to check out these video snippets, which Kyle told me about. If you're not a fan of the show, what's wrong with you? Catch it on reruns now, or pick up the DVD box set in June, and watch the entire first series in preparation for the season two debut on July 10.

In other TV news, we're now watching the first season of Heroes on DVD, and I have to admit that I find it quite wonderful. I'm a sucker for superhero stories, and this show does a good job of delivering them. We watch almost no shows until they appear on DVD, so I'll have to wait until at least fall for season two. Unless the remaining shows greatly disappoint me, I'll buy that set as soon as it appears.

Burn Notice

If you're not watching this new TV show and you have any TV viewing time available, you should give it a look. It's smart, funny, full of accurate tradecraft, and generally good-hearted. The lead actors all do fine jobs, with Bruce Campbell's scenery-chewing antics worth the time all on their own. Dave turned me on to this show, and I'm thankful that he did.