BEYOND ELEVEN

Let's just do a quick recap of the week. I was unbelieveably busy all week and could not find time to blog.

Tuesday, May 17th - Cory Lidle manages to beat the Cards 7-5 despite five Phillies miscues, three by David Bell

Wednesday, May 18th - Jon Lieber gets clobbered again as the Cardinals win 8-4. Come on, Jon, we really need you.

Thursday, May 19th - Brett Myers, the true team ace, gets win number four as the Phils prevail 7-4. The Phillies score one run in seven different innings.

Friday, May 20th - Interleague play begins in Camden Yards. The Phillies bash the Birds 9-3. Wolfie lowers his May ERA to 2.77.

Saturday, May 21st - The Phils can't solve Eric Bedard and lose 7-0. Vicente Padilla is now 1-5 with a 7.04 ERA. Paging Gavin Floyd? He's 1-4 with a 7.66 ERA at S/WB. Maybe not.

Sunday, May 22nd - Lidle throws a complete game in a 7-2 victory. The Phillies are very sorry to leave Camden Yards.

For the 2005 Phillies, this was an auspicious stretch. They went 4-2, won both series, scored 34 runs, and aside from Padilla, Lieber, and Terry "Please Release Me, Let Me Go" Adams, pitched pretty well. Philadelphia is now 21-24, 5.5 games behind the Marlins, whom they meet for a three-game set starting tonight. Discouragingly, Jim Thome is now hitting .195 with one home run, and it's nearly June. Clearly, this situation has to improve rapidly if the Phillies have any chance this season. And we have to get rid of Adams. He's a three-run rally with ears.

In other news, on Saturday night, my wife and I attended a show by the inimitable Welsh chanteuse Judith Owen and her husband, the omni-talented Harry Shearer, of Simpsons voice-over and Spinal Tap's bassist Derek Smalls fame. The show was at the Tin Angel, on 2nd Street in Olde City. As my wife and I walked into the club, and back out again, we instantly went from the oldest people on the street to the youngest people in the room and vice versa. Second Street was thick with 20-somethings dressed for, it would seem, imminent sexual congress. The Tin Angel itself is an exceedingly long and narrow space on the second floor of the restaurant Serrano. We stood in a line on the stairs waiting to get in while a stout gentlemen at the door went in and out checking to see if the sound check was over. On one of his sojourns outside the door, he made a point to complain about Judith's behavior. Nice. As we sat down, my wife was greeted with a table having the adhesive qualities of a roach motel, only not as appetizing. Why I was expecting more out of musical performance venues in Philadelphia I'll never know. Undeterred, I ordered a fully caffeinated cappuccino in order to keep my aging self awake through the 10:30 show and the drive home.

Finally, Judith and her backup duo took the stage at about 10:45. She mentioned something about the "Non-COMM", which I found out later was a convention for public radio stations that she and Harry had attended that day at the University of Pennsylvania, and then went right into her rendition of Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water". She played most of her new album, interspersing her songs with witty commentary about the Welsh in general, Tom Jones in particular, Beverly Hills cosmetic surgery queens, her impossible husband, her impossible self, the unfortunate souls who had to navigate right past the stage to get to the bathrooms, and the ventilation fan above her that kept blowing in her face periodically. Harry, who sat on a stool in the audience along a sidebar during most of the show and was only mildly harassed for autographs by Simpsons dweebs, came on stage as a backup baritone on the Michael Jackson inspired number "Famous Friends". He then took over for about 10 minutes while Judith took a breather, doing bits from his "Le Show" program, including the hilarious song sung from Barbara Walters point-of-view called "82 Facelifts".

The night belonged squarely to Judith, however. Her songs, most of which she wrote herself, and a few which are covers of contemporary classics such as Sting's "Walking On The Moon", are sung with a jazz-inspired pop style that can only be described as unique, with her strong yet sweet voice punctuated with frequent staccato elongated vowel phrasings. She played her Yamaha keyboard with an effortless virtuousity, and percussionist Jeff Brownlee and bassist Sean Hurley, whom she described as "her hunks", were first-rate as well. The between-song interludes were always funny and often mesmerizing as she exerted her considerable will over the audience. The 40-50 patrons called her out for two encores. For the first encore, she came out and said, "I thought you lot didn't want me to come back out, and I was saying 'Those fuckers!', but now I love you." For the second encore, she sang the England homage "Blighty" from her 2003 album "12 Arrows", and then told us all (a la Tracey Ullman), to "Go home!", which we did, thoroughly entertained and feeling lucky to be part of this intimate group amidst the horny rabble on the street below. Now if they can give our table a good steam cleaning and stop dissing the talent, the Tin Angel will really have something.