I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH CORIN TUCKER OF SLEATER-KINNEY
13For boring reasons I won’t go into, I was looking through my high school yearbook yesterday, and who did I see? Corin Tucker, the badass punk superhero lead singer of Sleater-Kinney, a band I’ve adored for 15+ years and have seen live a bunch of times here in Seattle.
She was a sophomore when I was a senior. I probably walked past her a dozen times. Or more! She turned out cool. I did not.
Here she is, along with Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss, blowing the bejeezus out of One More Hour in barely 3 minutes:
KuoH
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I say she went to school with you @UncleVinny
@UncleVinney Cool is in the eye of the beerholder.
@booogerbrain
As is talent…
Btw; @uncleVinny
I always thought you were pretty cool yourself! Jus sayen.
Who of what? Too many caps
@unksol Lol. Much internet shouting.
I went to school with a famous musician too. Didn’t think he was that cool, so I’ll keep names out of it.
Your story is cooler because you like the band and it sounds like you just discovered the school connection. Also, it sounds like you did not interact with her so you didn’t form an opinion on the cool-to-asshole scale, which could then influence your opinion of the music.
@djslack oooooh good point. What if I’d hated her in high school, and then not listened to the band cuz I thought she was terrible? TBH, I try to ignore the personalities of most artists, but sometimes I can’t help it.
KuoH
Didn’t hear a note she sang…cute tho.
I’ve heard of Carrie Brownstein too. Small world!
I googled her name and it popped up at Corin T so I guess she’s pretty famous. Cool!
I understood “I went to high school” and the rest is clicks and hoots.
I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH (ok stopping the caps now!) Doug Pederson, coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. He was 2 years ahead of me. I did not know him (he was obvi, a jock. I was most definitely not)
@moonhat weird!?!? I totally had you pegged as a jock.
KuoH
@UncleVinny Vin-man, you did not?!?!! Why would you’ve thought that. In my late 20’s I played rugby for a couple years, but I was mostly there for social aspects and camaraderie. In HS I mostly hung around more of a misfit-y group, at least in my mind.
@moonhat you’re so macho! And such a bruiser! And always shouldering the weaker Meh commentators into a locker and givin’ em wedgies. That’s the main reasons.
Oh, and your clutch 2-point conversion in the 4th quarter of last week’s epic Forum Bowl.
KuoH
@UncleVinny pfffft very funny!
@moonhat I played on a Rugby Union club team in college, and my HS physics teacher and wrestling coach both did as well [on another team], and to the best of my [age and beer damaged] recollection, the social aspects and camaraderie was what it was always [mostly] about- winning a state championship or two was also fun, but after the game ended and all the teeth were picked up and returned, everybody drank, sang, [and occasionally fought] together.
/giphy rugby
@PhysAssist yes… the parties and the after game drinkups were always, always the most fun ever
@moonhat Agreed- and I learned more verses to more dirty songs and limericks during them than I have in the 40-ish years since.
I WENT TO THE SAME HIGH SCHOOL AS Teddy Jack Eddy, AKA Gary Busey. He was a little before my time though.
I graduated from high school with Renee Fleming, diva soprano of the NY Metropolitan Opera.
@PhysAssist I saw her perform here in Seattle one day long ago. She was sensational. Totally, 1000% full of herself…but it was one of those things where ya gotta say, “Welp, she’s earned it.” That concert may have been what got me started listening to arias, which inevitably led me to becoming obsessed with Jussi Bjorling:
So I’ll always have a special place in my heart for ol’ Renee. Was she insufferable in high school, though?
KuoH
@UncleVinny That’s so cool- I haven’t seen her in person since high school, and even then, I was never really in her circle of theater/band/chorus geek friends, even though I did “sing” in the chorus for a year or so, but from what I can remember she seemed pretty normal- she certainly wasn’t one of those people who stuck out as being stuck up.
I do think that once you get to the place she is at in classical music and opera, the “full of yourself” syndrome is just part and parcel of the milieu.
It’s almost like the opposite pole from hipsterness- they all seem to feel like they’re above their hometown roots [the so-called hoi polloi].
/giphy stuck-up
being the retail drone that I am, I will occasionally lose my proverbial shit when one of my class mates accomplishes something “adult” enough to make the local paper.
Ex: a few years back, one of my class mates was named Superintendent of one of our neighboring school districts, and I had a mini meltdown.
which went away, (after i explained MY problem) when one of my co-workers reminded me, that She went to HS with John Legend.
I drive by Sleater-Kinney Road (the namesake of the band) all the time, does that count?
Fun fact - I had a mail route at the north end in the late 90s.
@kdemo I used to try to hit play on Dig Me Out each time I was driving N or S on I-5 as I went under that overpass.
Sometimes I could time it right, and the effect was electrifying. But…I’m a fan, I would say that.
How long did you work for USPS? I’m apparently a weirdo in the US for thinking that the Post Office does a great job.
KuoH
@kdemo where in the north end was your mail route? You, me and Vinny need to have a Seattle area mehtogether one of these days.
@UncleVinny - Memories!
I didn’t work for the post office for too long. I actually worked at a hospital, but hospitals have a “hospital convience” policy - they staff according to patient census, so when beds are empty employees shifts can be cancelled. During a slow period, I got hired as a part time mail carrier. Went through the training, bought an old car
(I drive a stick, and needed an automatic to deliver mail. We had to drive from the passenger seat to reach the mailboxes)
-and worked the route part time for a couple of months at Christmas time. All that stretching to reach the boxes killed my shoulder, not exactly ergonomic.
Census picked up at the hospital after that, so it worked out.
USPS can be a nightmare if you have to call them with a problem, but in general I agree that they do a good job. The logistics are amazing.
KookoO
@moonhat - North end of Sleater-Kinney Road? Route was a cross-section of Johnson Point. Are you familiar? It’s incredibly beautiful out there.
Did you think I meant north Puget Sound area? I don’t really get up to Seattle.
@kdemo oh! Ya that’s what I was thinking. Sorry! Never mind!
@moonhat - I can see how you would think that. I wasn’t very clear.
@kdemo @moonhat omg, a mehtogether would be awesome. I kind of didn’t realize that you were in the area, moonhat. I had you in my mind as more of a Delaware commentator. (Kind of like how I imagined you as a hockey-playing, cigar-chomping jock. i.e., totally wrong. OR AM I?!)
KuoH
POPSOCKETS! SPA KITS! POLLY POCKETS! AWESOME!
@kdemo I’m having a hard time visualizing delivering from the passenger side…and driving from the passenger side, too!!! But it was a normal driver-on-the-left car, yeah?!
KuoH
@kdemo @UncleVinny Vinny I have always imagined you (I am being serious here unlike you, you brat) as a mid-20’s to mid-30’s artistic type living in some hip fun area like capital hill or the like and working downtown or at some super fun cutting edge startup. Was I close?
@UncleVinny - Yes, that’s how it’s done on routes without postal vehicles. Boxes of mail stacked in the driver seat and back seat, stretching left foot to brake and accelerator, right arm to the mailboxes.
I’m not that tall, so it was . . . interesting.
The person that trained me on the route had a British Subaru with R side steering. Luxury!
KookoO
@kdemo @moonhat welllllll…you’re right on a few things, sort of, but not on others. Lookit me, being all mysterious!
In all seriousnesses, I’m a pyramid of banana pudding with a caramel glaze and a nugget of ginger-encrusted fig right where you’d expect the Pharoah to be buried. Since pyramids don’t have arms, legs, eyes or mouths, it’s difficult to imagine how I maintain my position at the mani-pedi shoppe, but somehow I get by.
KuoH
@UncleVinny fine be mysterious, meanie! I won’t organize a seattle area Meht-together now!
@moonhat a girl is nothing without a little mystery!
KuoH
@UncleVinny I don’t believe you’re female…
@moonhat tsk! pessimist!
Anyhoo, the good news is that you haven’t been paying any attention to the various videos-starring-me that I’ve posted to the Meh forums, and that means you haven’t seen for yourself my ladylike pyramid-pudding nature. So the mystery is preserved! Nice!!
KuoH
@kdemo wow, that sounds especially dangerous for a federally sanctioned activity. I never knew that was a thing! I thought they all got right hand drive vehicles to do it with (and that they were supplied with the job, obvs).
A few years ago my dad was hit by a rural route driver in a non-USPS liveried mail vehicle (a civilian style Jeep, IIRC). It totaled his truck but no one was injured. I wonder if she was driving from the passenger seat? Sounds like the kind of thing he would have mentioned but you never know.
@djslack - Sorry to hear, glad no injuries!
If the car did not have right-side steering, then it must have been driven from the passenger seat. Only other option would be driving on the opposite side, into oncoming traffic. (Unless they are one-way roads lol).
Some of the drivers had woot-off style lights to place on top, but I didn’t see anyone using them.
Also there was a lot of driving instruction included in the training, however I was tested in a USPS delivery vehicle but was never assigned one.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@djslack @kdemo that is soooo so wack. Seems like if a police officer ever saw someone driving like that they’d nip that nonsense in the bud real quick-like.
/giphy bud nonsense
KuoH