What A World
No, not It's A Wonderful Life or "It's a wonderful lie / can still get by on those..." But this year has been different than recent years. I'm not terribly "bah humbug," not beaten down by the usual crass commercialism, just not as down as other recent years.
Maybe it's working nights and not being exposed to the plethera of prime time advertising pushing Christmas down my throat. It's not my job because there's still lots of customers who are 'not the brightest nor the sharpest crayon in the box.' I still roll my eyes a lot.
Some part of me thinks it is being out of the apartment life. Not being cramped on three sides, being able to park in my own driveway and not hike halfway down the hill from the only spot left at 11:30 at night five nights a week, not having the front spots closed for the semi-annual whatever breaks under the parking lot and repave, not having the cars flying by with the 300 watt subwoofers going at all hours....
But more than that, I have been working on some homework and worked some thing out for myself and I feel some of those anchors I used to carry have been dropped off. Some of that guilt and always asking 'what if...' has gone away.
The song I kept running into yesterday kind of hit me between they eyes:
If it makes you happy
It can't be that bad
If it makes you happy
Why the hell are you so sad?
-Sheryl Crow
So cheers to you all, here's to old friends, lost loves, old gods and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us give the devil his due. And
Have yourself a merry merry Christmas
Have yourself a good time
But remember the kids who got nothing
While you're drinking down your wine...
-Ray Davies
Thursday, December 21, 2006
The President Jumps the Shark
12/20/06 - By PETER BAKER - The Washington Post
12/20/06 - By PETER BAKER - The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - President Bush acknowledged for the first time Tuesday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the "stressed" U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists.
As he searches for a new strategy for Iraq, Bush has adopted the formula advanced by his top military adviser to describe the situation. "We're not winning, we're not losing," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday. Days before the November elections, he had declared, "Absolutely, we're winning."
Bush also said he has ordered Defense Secretary Robert Gates to develop a plan to increase the troop strength of the Army and Marine Corps, heeding warnings from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill that multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching the armed forces toward the breaking point. "We need to reset our military," said Bush, whose administration had opposed increasing force levels as recently as last summer.
But in a wide-ranging session in the Oval Office, Bush said he interprets the Democratic election victories six weeks ago as a call to find new ways to make the mission in Iraq succeed. He confirmed that he is considering a short-term increase in the number of troops in Iraq, an option that top generals have resisted out of concern that it would not help.
A substantial expansion of the military will take years and would not be meaningful in the near term in Iraq. But it would begin to address the growing alarm among commanders about the state of the armed forces. Although Bush offered no specifics, other U.S. officials said the administration is preparing plans to bolster the nation's permanent active-duty military with as many as 70,000 additional troops.
Democrats have been calling for additional troops for years. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., proposed an increase of 40,000 troops during his 2004 campaign against Bush, only to be dismissed by the administration. As recently as June, the Bush administration opposed adding more troops because restructuring "is enabling our military to get more war fighting capability from current end strength."
But Bush on Tuesday had changed his mind. "I'm inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops -- the Army, the Marines," he said. "And I talked about this to Secretary Gates, and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building, come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea."
Bush tied his decision to the struggle against Islamic extremists worldwide rather than to Iraq specifically. "It is an accurate reflection that this ideological war we're in is going to last for a while and that we're going to need a military that's capable of being able to sustain our efforts and to help us achieve peace," he said.
"I haven't heard the word 'broken,'" in referring to the military, he said, "but I've heard the word, 'stressed.' ... We need to reset our military. There's no question the military has been used a lot."
Democrats pounced on Bush's comments. "I am glad he has realized the need for increasing the size of the armed forces ... but this is where the Democrats have been for two years," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. Even before news of Bush's interview, Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters that the military is "bleeding" and "we have to apply the tourniquet and strengthen the forces."
Bush, who has always said that the U.S. is headed for victory in Iraq, conceded Tuesday what Gates and most Americans in polls have already concluded. "An interesting construct that General Pace uses is: We're not winning, we're not losing," Bush said, referring to Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was seen near the Oval Office before the interview.
Most of you know I am a pretty conservative kind of guy - lower taxes, less government, less government intrusion, etc., etc.... but today I have concluded that the President just jumped the shark and his legacy is headed for LBJ territory.
I have been pretty quiet about the war, but the President just lost me here. "We're not winning, we're not losing" means "WE'RE NOT WINNING" and the President doesn't want to hear nor admit that. And while I understand you can't just beam however many troops and equipment out of Iraq, it's time to start running your endgame scenarios.
Look, I understand no one like to lose and the President is no different. But as highlighted above, this has turned into an "ideological war" and having U.S. troops with guns and rockets and mortars trying to prove to extremists that 'we're not bad guys' isn't going to work. And let's face it, it's the extremists on BOTH sides who grab the headlines. There's NEVER headlines that say "[insert group] moderates blow up bus terminal." It's always 'extremists' and 'radicals.'
12/20/06 is going to be a red letter day in the history of the Bush 43 Presidential legacy. That's going to be the day that George W. Bush lost the backing of most of the U.S. for the Iraq war. No one but the hardest of the hawks can still believe that "we're not winning, we're not losing" can mean anything but a stalemate [at best]. This is the day George "lost Walter Cronkite and middle America," as happened to LBJ after the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam.
Add to this a Pentagon request for almost $ 100 BILLION to continue the war, and I think Joe Public starts asking "When IS this thing going to end." I don't think you're going to see the protests of the 60s repeated; Generation X and Y are not that politically motivated. [And Cindy Sheehan still needs to GO HOME and GET A JOB.] But I think the President just lost all his momentum.
Get Ready for the Kansas City Penguins or the New Winnipeg Jets
Well, Mario Lemieux's bet on Isle of Capri getting the Pittsburgh slots license and building a new arena for the Penguins just came up bust. The NHL trying to strong arm Blackberry developer / Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie into keeping the team in Pittsburgh forced Balsillie to withdraw his bid [$ 175 million] for the team. The Pen's lease for Mellon Arena expiring in June 2007. Add it up and what do you get? A team on the move.
While I am against a sports team holding up a city for a new building, I will be sorry to see the Penguins leave Pittsburgh. There is history of hockey in the city and for a few years in the early 1990s, the team was THE BEST in the world. And the future looks bright with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury et al, I am glad to see someone finally stand up and NOT be held hostage to a damn game. It's my favorite game, but is JUST A GAME.
So it looks like Mario will be entertaining offers for the team from new owners in other cities unless someone wants to come in and build that new arena in Pittsburgh. Mark Cuban could do it, but I don't know if he would. So the Hockey news reports Kansas City, Winnepeg and Las Vegas to be front runners. In any of those cases, it means moving a team OUT of the Western conference to put the Pens in [Detroit? Five of the Original Six back together in the East?].
Anyway, you might want to grab up your PITTSBURGH Penguins stuff now. I have mine.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Christmas Specials
Yep, it's that time of year again. It's A Wonderful Life was on last night and A Charlie Brown Christmas is on tonight. And TCM ran A Christmas Story this afternoon. {I only saw the lighting of the tree and the opening of the presents.}
It helps to ease a little bit of the sting I got this week. And the absolutely pitiful day I has at work Friday night. Like the Christmas album your parents played, the Charlie Brown Christmas reminds us the joy, innocence and wonder of children [and that we all used to have], but also issues a warning about the Crass Commercialism that usually just ruins the whole holiday season for me. [It doesn't seem as bad this year; maybe the good weather helps my mind frame! Running around in shorts a week before Christmas... they're not doing THAT in Pittsburgh!]
And of course, It's A Wonderful Life just reminds me of how important we are to each other, whether we know it or like it or not. Loathe as I do to admit it, sometimes I need people. There, I said it, once a year whether I need to or not! It also reminds me of the people who aren't here who I miss, whether just physically / geographically separated like aunts and uncles and grandparents or those no longer on the mortal plane - Henry and Heather Meyer, Grandma Galupi, Uncle Suggie and cousin Harold... several of whom haunted my dreams last week.
So remember to tell everyone you love them and drink a toast with friends present to friends and relatives gone but never forgotten. And don't forget to leave some cookies out for Santa!
SALUD!
Yep, it's that time of year again. It's A Wonderful Life was on last night and A Charlie Brown Christmas is on tonight. And TCM ran A Christmas Story this afternoon. {I only saw the lighting of the tree and the opening of the presents.}
It helps to ease a little bit of the sting I got this week. And the absolutely pitiful day I has at work Friday night. Like the Christmas album your parents played, the Charlie Brown Christmas reminds us the joy, innocence and wonder of children [and that we all used to have], but also issues a warning about the Crass Commercialism that usually just ruins the whole holiday season for me. [It doesn't seem as bad this year; maybe the good weather helps my mind frame! Running around in shorts a week before Christmas... they're not doing THAT in Pittsburgh!]
And of course, It's A Wonderful Life just reminds me of how important we are to each other, whether we know it or like it or not. Loathe as I do to admit it, sometimes I need people. There, I said it, once a year whether I need to or not! It also reminds me of the people who aren't here who I miss, whether just physically / geographically separated like aunts and uncles and grandparents or those no longer on the mortal plane - Henry and Heather Meyer, Grandma Galupi, Uncle Suggie and cousin Harold... several of whom haunted my dreams last week.
So remember to tell everyone you love them and drink a toast with friends present to friends and relatives gone but never forgotten. And don't forget to leave some cookies out for Santa!
SALUD!
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Ahmet Ertegun, who helped define American music as the founder of Atlantic Records, a label that popularized the gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and the British rock of the Rolling Stones, died Thursday at 83, his spokesman said.
Ertegun remained connected to the music scene until his last days Â? it was at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones at the Beacon Theatre in New York where Ertegun fell, suffered a head injury and was hospitalized. He later slipped into a coma.
"He was in a coma and expired today with his family at his bedside," said Dr. Howard A. Riina, Ertegun's neurosurgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Ertegun, a Turkish ambassador's son, started collecting records for fun, but would later became one of the music industry's most powerful figures with Atlantic, which he founded in 1947.
The label first made its name with rhythm and blues by Charles and Big Joe Turner, but later diversified, making Franklin the Queen of Soul as well as carrying the banner of British rock (with the Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin) and American pop (with Sonny and Cher, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and others).
Today, the company, part of Warner Music Group, is the home to artists including Kid Rock, James Blunt, T.I., and Missy Elliott.
"Ahmet Ertegun was a true visionary whose life's work had a profound impact on our cultures musical landscape, as well as around the world," said Neil Portnow, president of The Recording Academy.
Ertegun's love of music began with jazz, back when he and his late brother Nesuhi (an esteemed producer of such jazz acts as Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman) used to hang around with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in the clubs of Washington, D.C.
Ertegun parlayed his love of music into a career when he founded Atlantic with partner Herb Abramson and a $10,000 loan. When the label first started, it made its name with blues-edged recordings by acts such as Ruth Brown.
Despite his privileged background, which included attending prep school and socializing with Washington's elite, Ertegun was able to mix with all kinds of people Â? an attribute that made him not just a marketer of black music, but a part of it, said Jerry Wexler.
"The transition between these two worlds is one of Ahmet's most distinguishing characteristics," Wexler said.
Black music was the backbone of the label for years Â? it was Atlantic, under Wexler's production genius, that helped make Franklin the top black female singer of her day.
But once music tastes changed, Ertegun switched gears and helped bring on the British invasion in the '60s.
"If Atlantic had restricted itself to R&B music, I have no doubt that it would be extinct today," Wexler said.
Instead, it became even bigger.
In later years, Ertegun signed Midler, Roberta Flack and ABBA. He had a gift for being able to pick out what would be a commercial smash, said the late producer Arif Mardin, who remembered one session where he was working with the Bee Gees on an album Â? but was unsure of what he had produced.
"Then Ahmet came and listened to it, and said, `You've got hits here, you've got dance hits,'" Mardin once told the AP. "I was involved in such a way that I didn't see the forest for the trees. ... He was like the steadying influence."
One strength of the company was Ertegun's close relationships with many of the artists Â? relationships that continued even after they left his label. Midler still called for advice, and he visited Franklin's home when he dropped into Detroit.
"He cared first and foremost about the artist and the music Â? much more than the business," Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates said. "He believed that if the artist was true to him or herself, good business would follow. Sadly in today's atmosphere, this isn't the case. But, during Ahmet's days of influence it was."
Although he was slowed by triple-bypass surgery in 2001, he still went into his office almost daily to listen for his next hit.
Finding those hits were among the most wonderful moments in his life, he said.
"I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging ... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit Â? and what you're working on suddenly has magic," he said. "That's the biggest."
* * *
The era of Ertegun is long gone - when label owners cared about the music and the artists and not JUST about the bottom line. Re-read Daryl Hall's quote [Hall and Oates signed to Atlantic, but had their hits for RCA]:
"He cared first and foremost about the artist and the music Â? much more than the business," Daryl Hall said. "He believed that if the artist was true to him or herself, good business would follow. Sadly in today's atmosphere, this isn't the case. But, during Ahmet's days of influence it was."
I could rail and rail about corporations owning the labels and not giving a shit about the music here, but I will take the high road that Ertegun took. I will look at the records and CDs with that A ad swirl logo and remember someone who had the vision and the guts to bring the music he loved to the rest of the masses.
R.I.P. Ahmet, the world will never know another like you. Saleh!
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Music Recommendations
Those of you who know me well know I tend to get a little melancholy as the seasons change. Winter brings time for introspection, slower thoughtful songs, even an occasional foray into the common "Classic Rock" of Pink Floyd, Bob Seger, Springsteen and songs that remind me of other times.
Those of you who know me VERY well know I think women can sing better than men. I have a soft spot [read: not a fetish or desire to have every picture disc and single and B-side like the Tori Amos and Madonna people] for expressive female singers like Tanya Donnelly [Belly], Johnette Napolitano / Concrete Blonde [well, Bloodletting anyway], Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders first three, a smattering of Joni Mitchell, Heather Nova, Roseanne Cash, Marie McKee and Lone Justice, a little Stevie Nicks [Sara and Storm from Tusk, Gypsy]... anyway, I have a couple more to add...
I have found two things to help me drift into this season's introspection: Martha Wainwright's self titled disc [2005] and Cat Power's The Greatest [2006]. Nate played me Cat Power this summer, but I found it at Borders for 9.99 on Sunday and I had to grab it. Cat Power [Chan Marshall] reminds me of Johnette doing Grant Lee Buffalo's Mighty Joe Moon. I have been reading that The Greatest is not Cat Power's best, though I find it hard to believe. Will have to be checking out this You Are Free next.
Martha Wainwright [daughter of Louden Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle (I have never heard any of Kate and Anna McGarrigle as far as I know) and sister of Rufus] sounds like a cross between Maria McKee and Tanya Donnelly with a touch of Emmylou Harris and PJ Harvey thrown in. The songs veer from the Harvey-ish G.P.T and Ball and Chain to the Man Out of Time era Dylanish Factory to the circular These Flowers to the folky Don't Forget to the almost laconic This Life and When the Day Is Short to the defiance of Bloody Motherfucking Asshole ["I will not pretend / I will not put on a smile / I will not say I am all right for you..."] to the sparse beauty of Who Was I Kidding. It has a power in simplicity and straightforwardness that reminds me somewhat of Patti Smith's Gone Again.
Stream them! Buy them!
Those of you who know me well know I tend to get a little melancholy as the seasons change. Winter brings time for introspection, slower thoughtful songs, even an occasional foray into the common "Classic Rock" of Pink Floyd, Bob Seger, Springsteen and songs that remind me of other times.
Those of you who know me VERY well know I think women can sing better than men. I have a soft spot [read: not a fetish or desire to have every picture disc and single and B-side like the Tori Amos and Madonna people] for expressive female singers like Tanya Donnelly [Belly], Johnette Napolitano / Concrete Blonde [well, Bloodletting anyway], Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders first three, a smattering of Joni Mitchell, Heather Nova, Roseanne Cash, Marie McKee and Lone Justice, a little Stevie Nicks [Sara and Storm from Tusk, Gypsy]... anyway, I have a couple more to add...
I have found two things to help me drift into this season's introspection: Martha Wainwright's self titled disc [2005] and Cat Power's The Greatest [2006]. Nate played me Cat Power this summer, but I found it at Borders for 9.99 on Sunday and I had to grab it. Cat Power [Chan Marshall] reminds me of Johnette doing Grant Lee Buffalo's Mighty Joe Moon. I have been reading that The Greatest is not Cat Power's best, though I find it hard to believe. Will have to be checking out this You Are Free next.
Martha Wainwright [daughter of Louden Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle (I have never heard any of Kate and Anna McGarrigle as far as I know) and sister of Rufus] sounds like a cross between Maria McKee and Tanya Donnelly with a touch of Emmylou Harris and PJ Harvey thrown in. The songs veer from the Harvey-ish G.P.T and Ball and Chain to the Man Out of Time era Dylanish Factory to the circular These Flowers to the folky Don't Forget to the almost laconic This Life and When the Day Is Short to the defiance of Bloody Motherfucking Asshole ["I will not pretend / I will not put on a smile / I will not say I am all right for you..."] to the sparse beauty of Who Was I Kidding. It has a power in simplicity and straightforwardness that reminds me somewhat of Patti Smith's Gone Again.
Stream them! Buy them!
Sunday, November 19, 2006
It's been a long week, fighting off a cold last weekend, staying up WAAYYY too late [to the point of literally not being able to see straight] converting all my 45s to my hard drive and not sleeping enough...
The 45 conversion was interesting. Putting the songs of my youth [and extended youth] onto my hard drive to be able to burn them to CD. Only one really required any computer doctoring to fix the sound. I didn't realize how off center my Stones Dandelion / We Love You 45 is. Some of them are such great songs, back when a 3 minute burst with a good hook was all you needed. Some of my favorites: Kiss' Sure know Something - yes, it's from the disco flavored Dynasty Lp, but god damn it's a great song. Great bass line, interesting guitar line, very few power chords until the chorus... the single of Joe Cocker's The Letter, the studio version with Leon Russell on piano and arranging the horns smokes the live version you always hear on the radio [because it's available on 'hits' and the Mad Dogs and Englishmen album. Simple pleasures like Nick Gilder's Hot Child in the City. I found interesting things on B sides like Blondie's Just Go Away [One Way or Another] or Gilder's Backstreet Noise. A few B side only things like the Stones' Everything's Turning to Gold, Led Zeppelin's Hey Hey What Can I Do and the fantastic Robert Plant B side Far Post.
Now I'm trying to pump out some Christmas CDs. Yeah, I said it, those of you who know me and my loathing of holidays put your tongues back in your mouth. My grandparents had some old 78s of Jimmy Boyd that I remember from way way back. My uncle Chris taped them for everyone a few years ago and I want to get them on CD for my Mom's family.
I'm all ready so beaten down by the Crass Commercialist Experience known as Christmas all ready. I saw some ad during the Star Trek marathon on TV Land that said "Only five days until the Holiday shopping season begins." HA HA. I've been pelted with the commercials for two weeks all ready. One of the ladies at work is all ready planning her shopping for 'Black Friday.' Why one would want to subject one's self to that, I do not understand. Deal or no deal.
On a happy note, we did Thanksgiving here today since I will be working Thursday. I have all the leftovers to prove it. And we still watched football, talked about how stuffed we were and ate pie anyway. The plum wine is gone, but they left me the beer.
Cheers, everyone!
Chaz
The 45 conversion was interesting. Putting the songs of my youth [and extended youth] onto my hard drive to be able to burn them to CD. Only one really required any computer doctoring to fix the sound. I didn't realize how off center my Stones Dandelion / We Love You 45 is. Some of them are such great songs, back when a 3 minute burst with a good hook was all you needed. Some of my favorites: Kiss' Sure know Something - yes, it's from the disco flavored Dynasty Lp, but god damn it's a great song. Great bass line, interesting guitar line, very few power chords until the chorus... the single of Joe Cocker's The Letter, the studio version with Leon Russell on piano and arranging the horns smokes the live version you always hear on the radio [because it's available on 'hits' and the Mad Dogs and Englishmen album. Simple pleasures like Nick Gilder's Hot Child in the City. I found interesting things on B sides like Blondie's Just Go Away [One Way or Another] or Gilder's Backstreet Noise. A few B side only things like the Stones' Everything's Turning to Gold, Led Zeppelin's Hey Hey What Can I Do and the fantastic Robert Plant B side Far Post.
Now I'm trying to pump out some Christmas CDs. Yeah, I said it, those of you who know me and my loathing of holidays put your tongues back in your mouth. My grandparents had some old 78s of Jimmy Boyd that I remember from way way back. My uncle Chris taped them for everyone a few years ago and I want to get them on CD for my Mom's family.
I'm all ready so beaten down by the Crass Commercialist Experience known as Christmas all ready. I saw some ad during the Star Trek marathon on TV Land that said "Only five days until the Holiday shopping season begins." HA HA. I've been pelted with the commercials for two weeks all ready. One of the ladies at work is all ready planning her shopping for 'Black Friday.' Why one would want to subject one's self to that, I do not understand. Deal or no deal.
On a happy note, we did Thanksgiving here today since I will be working Thursday. I have all the leftovers to prove it. And we still watched football, talked about how stuffed we were and ate pie anyway. The plum wine is gone, but they left me the beer.
Cheers, everyone!
Chaz
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
It's Worse Than I Thought
What? No, not the mid-term elections! We're going to be looking at the biggest "Do Nothing" Congress since 1946. I'm talking about "Sports" on ESPN.
You've seen me rail about the National Spelling Bee and Poker on the big E. I've seen Darts tournaments. Monday [Monday?] I saw DOMINOES. That's right, Dominoes.
I'll give you Bowling as a "Sport." It has some physical activity. Those STUPID X-Games are some sort of "Sport." Those weird Lumberjack and World's Strongest Man competitions are some sort of "Sport." Horse racing is not a sport. Poker, Darts, Dominoes, Billiards / Nine Ball and Chess [I see it coming soon!] are not 'sports,' they are skills. They involve strategy and a little luck, but they're not "sports." If you can play it sitting in a chair, it's not a sport! If you can drink beer and /or smoke cigarettes [if you are so inclined] at the table while playing it, it's DEFINITELY not a sport!
I worry out loud again at what we are telling the youths of our society when we show them things like this. How are you going to react when your kid comes to you and says "Dad / Mom, I'm going out on the U.S. Pro Chess / Billiards/ Darts/ Checkers/ Backgammon/ Monopoly Tour to make my fortune and you can't stop me!"
I know, I am not the best example for a kid with my Jabba the Hut body, which probably means I could kick ass at some Skill. But I know what a sport is! And I know ESPN has hours and hours of programming to fill and God knows I'd rather watch Poker than Basketball [hey, that's just me!] or anything with Jabba the Hut Junior [a/k/a Chris Berman] or the hours and hours and HOURS of analysis of the upcoming and previous week's NFL action [though I do watch the old NFL Films shows once in a while]. The commercial where the player is getting some juice out of his fridge and slips and then it's on ESPN News? That's what they analize every week!
Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest. Show more hockey highlights! God bless Barry Melrose's mullet!
It IS Worse Than I Thought
Oh brother did W. cave in. The Dems aren't even in their seat yet and he jettisons Rumsfeld. Way to stand by your guy, Mr. President! 'The spirit of bi-partisanship' means giving Congress everything they want, eh?
Gates will be good - just read a great article on him in the new Texas Monthly. Too bad he won't get to finish reforming A&M.
What? No, not the mid-term elections! We're going to be looking at the biggest "Do Nothing" Congress since 1946. I'm talking about "Sports" on ESPN.
You've seen me rail about the National Spelling Bee and Poker on the big E. I've seen Darts tournaments. Monday [Monday?] I saw DOMINOES. That's right, Dominoes.
I'll give you Bowling as a "Sport." It has some physical activity. Those STUPID X-Games are some sort of "Sport." Those weird Lumberjack and World's Strongest Man competitions are some sort of "Sport." Horse racing is not a sport. Poker, Darts, Dominoes, Billiards / Nine Ball and Chess [I see it coming soon!] are not 'sports,' they are skills. They involve strategy and a little luck, but they're not "sports." If you can play it sitting in a chair, it's not a sport! If you can drink beer and /or smoke cigarettes [if you are so inclined] at the table while playing it, it's DEFINITELY not a sport!
I worry out loud again at what we are telling the youths of our society when we show them things like this. How are you going to react when your kid comes to you and says "Dad / Mom, I'm going out on the U.S. Pro Chess / Billiards/ Darts/ Checkers/ Backgammon/ Monopoly Tour to make my fortune and you can't stop me!"
I know, I am not the best example for a kid with my Jabba the Hut body, which probably means I could kick ass at some Skill. But I know what a sport is! And I know ESPN has hours and hours of programming to fill and God knows I'd rather watch Poker than Basketball [hey, that's just me!] or anything with Jabba the Hut Junior [a/k/a Chris Berman] or the hours and hours and HOURS of analysis of the upcoming and previous week's NFL action [though I do watch the old NFL Films shows once in a while]. The commercial where the player is getting some juice out of his fridge and slips and then it's on ESPN News? That's what they analize every week!
Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest. Show more hockey highlights! God bless Barry Melrose's mullet!
It IS Worse Than I Thought
Oh brother did W. cave in. The Dems aren't even in their seat yet and he jettisons Rumsfeld. Way to stand by your guy, Mr. President! 'The spirit of bi-partisanship' means giving Congress everything they want, eh?
Gates will be good - just read a great article on him in the new Texas Monthly. Too bad he won't get to finish reforming A&M.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Cast Your Ballots!
I don't know WHY I thought early voting would be a cinch. I don't know why waiting until the last day of early voting seemed so... well, I waited because I am lazy. So I stood in line for 45 minutes to get my ballot /log in/ ID # in Euless [as I have not changed my driver's license], I thought to myself "Democracy sure moves slowly." But I was in line and I wasn't getting out in spite of the wait and I was getting my ballot/ log in ID # when I was supposed to be clocking in at work. Work can wait, Democracy, though slow, couldn't.
Most of you think I am a pretty hard core Republican. Republican = eh [makes 'so-so' noise]. I call myself a moderate conservative. I am for smaller government and lower taxes and I think school vouchers are a pretty good idea. But I also believe in a person's right to choose, be it abortion or gay partnerships. [I do believe men have rights when it comes to abortion, too - it takes TWO to make a baby. And if gay couples want to have partnerships or unions, hey, welcome to the world of divorce lawyers, custody battles and alimony, but the word 'marriage'... another time perhaps.] Nothing turns me off faster than someone saying "God wants you to..." anything, but especially 'vote Republican to put the Bible back in charge of America.' P-U! Anyway, that makes me a fiscal conservative and a social moderate in my fuzzy math.
Anyway, I was pretty prepared to go in there [the polling place] and tick of Rick 'Mr Goodhair' Perry, though I seriously considered Richard 'Kinky' Friedman. But what if Kinky was/is elected? He has no power base and no way to deal with anybody and the legislature would just run right over him anyway. The governor in Texas is mostly a figurehead position, the real power lies in Speaker of the house and Lt. Gov.
But Mr.Goodhair last week turned me off in a major way. See, we're having a bit of a boom in Texas and the state, instead of running in the red is going to experience a surplus of somewhere between $ 4 and 15 Billion [with a 'B']. So Governor Rick says "well, since we're running in the black, let's not implement the 1% business tax that's supposed to kick in next year," while still implementing the spending cuts he's called for!
We've been through this surplus bullshit before - weren't we looking at a billion dollar surplus just before Mr Bush took off for Washington, D.C.? We saw how quick that dried up too, huh? And wasn't that 1% [one Abraham Lincoln, costs more to make than it is worth penny to the George Washington American greenback dollar] was Perry's property tax relief solution? That's supposed to be your tax cut. Not that you're seeing relief anyway - the tax RATE is frozen, but the APPRAISALS are going through the roof, aren't they?
Anyway, I would up NOT voting for governor at all. Bell didn't appeal to me [sorry Mom] and Strayhorn left her party for what? Shades of John Anderson! So my protest was not to vote Kinky, but not to vote at all on that one. If Perry loses by one vote, then you can come yell at me.
I was surprised at the number of Republicans in Tarrant County running unopposed or only opposed by Libertarians, especially for judgeship! How do Democrats plan on keeping any base if they're not building it at the city and county level? I know Texas is a pretty conservative state, but to just concede?
I also voted against a tax freeze for seasoned citizens in Tarrant County [sorry Dad]. I guess my idea of smaller government doesn't include shifting the burden to ... well, me! I would have voted for the Ft Worth police meet and confer because they only need ONE union to negotiate for them. Do you know the cops have the Fraternal Order, then they have sub unions for Latino and African American officers? Is there a separate "left handed pipe fitters' wing of the Teamsters? Is there a AFL-CIO Latino?
Anyway, don't forget to vote. I did and now I can't wait for these name calling, he said-she said ads to get off the damn airwaves.
I don't know WHY I thought early voting would be a cinch. I don't know why waiting until the last day of early voting seemed so... well, I waited because I am lazy. So I stood in line for 45 minutes to get my ballot /log in/ ID # in Euless [as I have not changed my driver's license], I thought to myself "Democracy sure moves slowly." But I was in line and I wasn't getting out in spite of the wait and I was getting my ballot/ log in ID # when I was supposed to be clocking in at work. Work can wait, Democracy, though slow, couldn't.
Most of you think I am a pretty hard core Republican. Republican = eh [makes 'so-so' noise]. I call myself a moderate conservative. I am for smaller government and lower taxes and I think school vouchers are a pretty good idea. But I also believe in a person's right to choose, be it abortion or gay partnerships. [I do believe men have rights when it comes to abortion, too - it takes TWO to make a baby. And if gay couples want to have partnerships or unions, hey, welcome to the world of divorce lawyers, custody battles and alimony, but the word 'marriage'... another time perhaps.] Nothing turns me off faster than someone saying "God wants you to..." anything, but especially 'vote Republican to put the Bible back in charge of America.' P-U! Anyway, that makes me a fiscal conservative and a social moderate in my fuzzy math.
Anyway, I was pretty prepared to go in there [the polling place] and tick of Rick 'Mr Goodhair' Perry, though I seriously considered Richard 'Kinky' Friedman. But what if Kinky was/is elected? He has no power base and no way to deal with anybody and the legislature would just run right over him anyway. The governor in Texas is mostly a figurehead position, the real power lies in Speaker of the house and Lt. Gov.
But Mr.Goodhair last week turned me off in a major way. See, we're having a bit of a boom in Texas and the state, instead of running in the red is going to experience a surplus of somewhere between $ 4 and 15 Billion [with a 'B']. So Governor Rick says "well, since we're running in the black, let's not implement the 1% business tax that's supposed to kick in next year," while still implementing the spending cuts he's called for!
We've been through this surplus bullshit before - weren't we looking at a billion dollar surplus just before Mr Bush took off for Washington, D.C.? We saw how quick that dried up too, huh? And wasn't that 1% [one Abraham Lincoln, costs more to make than it is worth penny to the George Washington American greenback dollar] was Perry's property tax relief solution? That's supposed to be your tax cut. Not that you're seeing relief anyway - the tax RATE is frozen, but the APPRAISALS are going through the roof, aren't they?
Anyway, I would up NOT voting for governor at all. Bell didn't appeal to me [sorry Mom] and Strayhorn left her party for what? Shades of John Anderson! So my protest was not to vote Kinky, but not to vote at all on that one. If Perry loses by one vote, then you can come yell at me.
I was surprised at the number of Republicans in Tarrant County running unopposed or only opposed by Libertarians, especially for judgeship! How do Democrats plan on keeping any base if they're not building it at the city and county level? I know Texas is a pretty conservative state, but to just concede?
I also voted against a tax freeze for seasoned citizens in Tarrant County [sorry Dad]. I guess my idea of smaller government doesn't include shifting the burden to ... well, me! I would have voted for the Ft Worth police meet and confer because they only need ONE union to negotiate for them. Do you know the cops have the Fraternal Order, then they have sub unions for Latino and African American officers? Is there a separate "left handed pipe fitters' wing of the Teamsters? Is there a AFL-CIO Latino?
Anyway, don't forget to vote. I did and now I can't wait for these name calling, he said-she said ads to get off the damn airwaves.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Guilty Pleasures - Hall and Oates
Okay, so I went into Best Buy the other day for a Y cord and the new Lindsey Buckingham and I saw Rock and Soul [Hits] on sale. And I've been blasting it for the last three days. And I am not ashamed.
Sure some of the keyboard parts sound dated, but for vocal harmony Hall and Oates [and band! What an under-rated band! G.E.Smith and T-Bone Wolk would lead the Saturday Night Live band for a few years in the late 80s - early 90s...] are untouchable! Okay, John Oates' moustache is cheesy deluxe and makes one wonder what he's doing in those videos... but Oates is probably the one who comes up with the hook in the song or the clever vocal turn that makes the song go. I Can't Go for That [No Can Do] just came up - the 'No Nos' counterpoints in the background seem cheesy, but can you imagine the song without them?
These guys were a hit machine in the early 80s, but don't forget the mid 70s classics like Sara Smile, Rich Girl and especially the wonderful She's Gone. There have been times I'd throw on the vinyl just to hear She's Gone about six times in a row - it's such a great piece of blue eyed Philly soul, great drums and bass line and those famous harmonies. Takes me back to a time when AM radio ruled me life, before I knew what the songs were about.
Okay, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling and Adult Education I CAN do without [yeah. yeah] but the reissue finally erases a bad mistake and puts Family Man in with their other great hits. Hey, I like it! But if that's all I have to put up with to hear great things like One on One and Say It Isn't So, that's okay.
Okay, so I went into Best Buy the other day for a Y cord and the new Lindsey Buckingham and I saw Rock and Soul [Hits] on sale. And I've been blasting it for the last three days. And I am not ashamed.
Sure some of the keyboard parts sound dated, but for vocal harmony Hall and Oates [and band! What an under-rated band! G.E.Smith and T-Bone Wolk would lead the Saturday Night Live band for a few years in the late 80s - early 90s...] are untouchable! Okay, John Oates' moustache is cheesy deluxe and makes one wonder what he's doing in those videos... but Oates is probably the one who comes up with the hook in the song or the clever vocal turn that makes the song go. I Can't Go for That [No Can Do] just came up - the 'No Nos' counterpoints in the background seem cheesy, but can you imagine the song without them?
These guys were a hit machine in the early 80s, but don't forget the mid 70s classics like Sara Smile, Rich Girl and especially the wonderful She's Gone. There have been times I'd throw on the vinyl just to hear She's Gone about six times in a row - it's such a great piece of blue eyed Philly soul, great drums and bass line and those famous harmonies. Takes me back to a time when AM radio ruled me life, before I knew what the songs were about.
Okay, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling and Adult Education I CAN do without [yeah. yeah] but the reissue finally erases a bad mistake and puts Family Man in with their other great hits. Hey, I like it! But if that's all I have to put up with to hear great things like One on One and Say It Isn't So, that's okay.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
FYI...
Nothing brings home one's loneliness like coming home, see all the cars parked for blocks and wondering Who's having the party? and finding out it's your neighbors.
It's not that I'd hang with their crowd - they're students - law students, I hear - but I mean I can hear the hubbub of the crowd in my kitchen, the talking, some laughing and some squeals [decidedly female]... And I'm in my kitchen - me and Evan Williams black on the rocks. Me and my computer. Me, my computer and my record collection... What would one play to drown out the party next door? So Lonely by the Police, Lonely Teardrops by Jackie Wilson, Alone Again [Naturally] by Gilbert O'Sullivan [?] ....
So I'm Watching VH1 Classic's The Vault....
... after the time change [anybody else know there was a video for Keith Richards' Make No Mistake from Talk Is Cheap? Why isn't Waddy Wachtel in it?] and the bourbon and waters, waiting for the sandman to club me over the head and they're playing god awful 80's hair/lipstick metal like Dangerhouse and E'Nuff Z'Nuff and it hits me about what killed hair metal: Guns N' fuckin' Roses.
When Appetite hit with its songs about dope and hookers and life on the streets, suddenly it wasn't cool to be singing about Nothin' But A Good Time anymore. Except for drummer Steven Addler, none of those guys had stiffed up hair and only Axl would think about spandex [though he did have some ass-less chaps that scared the fuck out of straight men, "What the hell's that shit?!?"]. Suddenly you had to have SUBSTANCE to your music again. You had to mean something again.
Of course that's been taken to the extreme, too. There's nothing wrong with something just out and out fun like I wanna rock and roll all nite / and party every day or We're not gonna take it in small doses. But you can't build an industry on it, which was what the 80's glam craze was.
I'll say it again about today's 'New Country:' right now it's not about the music, it's about how you look. And they're headed for the same fate as Danger Danger, Dangerous Toys, Winger and Band Tango; the cut out rack.
Nothing brings home one's loneliness like coming home, see all the cars parked for blocks and wondering Who's having the party? and finding out it's your neighbors.
It's not that I'd hang with their crowd - they're students - law students, I hear - but I mean I can hear the hubbub of the crowd in my kitchen, the talking, some laughing and some squeals [decidedly female]... And I'm in my kitchen - me and Evan Williams black on the rocks. Me and my computer. Me, my computer and my record collection... What would one play to drown out the party next door? So Lonely by the Police, Lonely Teardrops by Jackie Wilson, Alone Again [Naturally] by Gilbert O'Sullivan [?] ....
So I'm Watching VH1 Classic's The Vault....
... after the time change [anybody else know there was a video for Keith Richards' Make No Mistake from Talk Is Cheap? Why isn't Waddy Wachtel in it?] and the bourbon and waters, waiting for the sandman to club me over the head and they're playing god awful 80's hair/lipstick metal like Dangerhouse and E'Nuff Z'Nuff and it hits me about what killed hair metal: Guns N' fuckin' Roses.
When Appetite hit with its songs about dope and hookers and life on the streets, suddenly it wasn't cool to be singing about Nothin' But A Good Time anymore. Except for drummer Steven Addler, none of those guys had stiffed up hair and only Axl would think about spandex [though he did have some ass-less chaps that scared the fuck out of straight men, "What the hell's that shit?!?"]. Suddenly you had to have SUBSTANCE to your music again. You had to mean something again.
Of course that's been taken to the extreme, too. There's nothing wrong with something just out and out fun like I wanna rock and roll all nite / and party every day or We're not gonna take it in small doses. But you can't build an industry on it, which was what the 80's glam craze was.
I'll say it again about today's 'New Country:' right now it's not about the music, it's about how you look. And they're headed for the same fate as Danger Danger, Dangerous Toys, Winger and Band Tango; the cut out rack.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
A NIght Like This
It was a night like this, sometime around two years ago. The wind was blowing cold out of the north and the stars shined though on a jet black sky, even through the city lights. She called me up on a Monday night to meet her at a bar near the house she was staying. I know it was Monday night because we watched an improbable comeback on Monday Night Football. She'd gotten off early from her waitressing job and she owed me a couple drinks.
I was drinking vodka and tonics. She ate some cheese sticks and potato skins, I don't remember what she was drinking, but she would have about three too many before the night was over. She was hiding out from her latest relationship disaster, I'd heard the stories when she called a few weeks before out of the blue after not hearing from her for about three years. It seemed to be a pattern; she'd call me after her latest marriage/ long term relationship crashed and burned, we'd laugh and cry about it, we'd start moving towards each other, then she'd disappear after getting my heart and libido into a first gear and revving it up. She was so beautiful and I'd look into those wide blue eyes and see hope and sparkle and my brain would quit working.
We talked about it again that night, before the drinks really got going. She said to me "I feel so comfortable with you and I look at you and wonder if I keep missing out on true love" or something similar. And of course, she was/ is /did. I thought back to the last time we'd met in an apartment in southwest Arlington and I told her, despite my normal reservations about children when she had two then, that I was ready to give it serious go, that I would set aside my reservations for HER. Then she became unreachable and disappeared into the ether again. It's funny [sad, not ha ha] how one can dismiss those alarm bells and tornado sirens going off in your memory when you don't want to remember, when you want this time to be the time she says 'yes' and you go off into the twilight [or the dawn] together for better or worse, but you give it a real try, which you have never let yourself do before....
She didn't even leave with me that night. She had about a half a drink left and was talking to some people we'd been talking to and shooting pool with when I decided I needed to get out. I kissed her goodnight, not realizing that I was kissing her goodbye again. It was the next to the next to the last time I saw her. The next to last time, she called and asked for a favor, which I did against my better judgment, assured of payback within a few days. I got a message a couple days later advising me to stand by in case she needed a rescue which caused the captain to light the "Royal Dumbass" sign in my head and cut me deeper than I'd felt in a while. The last time I saw her was ten days later when I went way out of my way to find out what happened to my promised repayment and I got a headful of excuses and tales of woe and broken down vehicles which I knew were only half true because the damning evidence was in the living room that had been bare the week before.
Why does the memory play tricks and remind you of things like this when you're tired but wired from a couple extra hours working and a couple extra cups of coffee and hornier than a hound dog? Why her? Why not one of the other disasters of my love life? But I know why.... Because it was a night like this about two years ago.....
Do you believe in ghosts?
No?
How about memories?
- Me, 1997
It was a night like this, sometime around two years ago. The wind was blowing cold out of the north and the stars shined though on a jet black sky, even through the city lights. She called me up on a Monday night to meet her at a bar near the house she was staying. I know it was Monday night because we watched an improbable comeback on Monday Night Football. She'd gotten off early from her waitressing job and she owed me a couple drinks.
I was drinking vodka and tonics. She ate some cheese sticks and potato skins, I don't remember what she was drinking, but she would have about three too many before the night was over. She was hiding out from her latest relationship disaster, I'd heard the stories when she called a few weeks before out of the blue after not hearing from her for about three years. It seemed to be a pattern; she'd call me after her latest marriage/ long term relationship crashed and burned, we'd laugh and cry about it, we'd start moving towards each other, then she'd disappear after getting my heart and libido into a first gear and revving it up. She was so beautiful and I'd look into those wide blue eyes and see hope and sparkle and my brain would quit working.
We talked about it again that night, before the drinks really got going. She said to me "I feel so comfortable with you and I look at you and wonder if I keep missing out on true love" or something similar. And of course, she was/ is /did. I thought back to the last time we'd met in an apartment in southwest Arlington and I told her, despite my normal reservations about children when she had two then, that I was ready to give it serious go, that I would set aside my reservations for HER. Then she became unreachable and disappeared into the ether again. It's funny [sad, not ha ha] how one can dismiss those alarm bells and tornado sirens going off in your memory when you don't want to remember, when you want this time to be the time she says 'yes' and you go off into the twilight [or the dawn] together for better or worse, but you give it a real try, which you have never let yourself do before....
She didn't even leave with me that night. She had about a half a drink left and was talking to some people we'd been talking to and shooting pool with when I decided I needed to get out. I kissed her goodnight, not realizing that I was kissing her goodbye again. It was the next to the next to the last time I saw her. The next to last time, she called and asked for a favor, which I did against my better judgment, assured of payback within a few days. I got a message a couple days later advising me to stand by in case she needed a rescue which caused the captain to light the "Royal Dumbass" sign in my head and cut me deeper than I'd felt in a while. The last time I saw her was ten days later when I went way out of my way to find out what happened to my promised repayment and I got a headful of excuses and tales of woe and broken down vehicles which I knew were only half true because the damning evidence was in the living room that had been bare the week before.
Why does the memory play tricks and remind you of things like this when you're tired but wired from a couple extra hours working and a couple extra cups of coffee and hornier than a hound dog? Why her? Why not one of the other disasters of my love life? But I know why.... Because it was a night like this about two years ago.....
Do you believe in ghosts?
No?
How about memories?
- Me, 1997
Friday, October 13, 2006
Preparing Some Crow [On Tortillas with Eggs and Tabasco and Cheddar Cheese]
Okay, it's only THREE GAMES, but Eric Lindros seems to be fitting in and helping the Stars. He's injury prone and it's very very early... that doesn't mean I LIKE him, but begrudgingly accept his presence in the same state as me.
Carolina can't win, Nashville looks sluggish, Pittsburgh looks like world beaters... what the hell happened this off season?
Then you look at the Steelers... is there as Super Bowl hangover like a Stanley Cup hangover?
Chris Berman - What An Annoying Loud Mouth
Anybody out there remember how people hated How-ard Co-Sell because he was a know it all? Well, I hate watching ESPN Sportscenter [Sportcentre for any Canadians reading this] on the weekends because of the overpowering presence ESPN's resident shouter Chris Berman. Can someone please explain the appeal of this guy? He with his girlish "WHOOOOP" when someone makes a move in a football highlight? Or the grunt that sounds like he is trying to push a two pounder out in the can "HE [pause] COULD [pause] GO [pause once more for dramatic effect] ALL THE WAAAAY!"
From ESPN's homepage:
In October 1979 - one month after its inception - ESPN hired a little known 24-year-old sports anchor named Chris Berman. For the next quarter century and running, Berman has become one of America's most respected, popular, and in many ways, most beloved sportscasters of his era. With his trademark combination of genuine enthusiasm, knowledge and wit, he has come to embody ESPN in its dedication to entertaining and informing sports fans across the country. He is best known for his signature delivery of highlights of every sport, most notably on NFL Sundays. Six times the versatile Berman has been selected the National Sportscaster of the Year (1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 2001) by the members of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
I don't know - maybe this guy had appeal, or maybe, like the early Billy Idol, Def Leppard and Thompson Twins videos on MTV - he was all we had back then. I guess maybe some people are used to him and maybe he knows his stuff, but the highlights segements that feature Berman will just drill my nerve and force me to seek information elsewhere. Like Fox.
Hidden Treasures?
Oh my gosh, I got boxes of records from Cory's Mom's cousin and the stuff I have found! Okay three or four copies of the first Village People record, six copies of one Leif Garrett record [and three of another, but most are in great shape... but piles of Johnny Cash, Barbara Striesand [I will put some on just to hear it. I've never heard much and I know she has style... but I probably won't KEEP it!], some early Van Cliburn, Chet Atkins, Glen Campbell, Don Williams [oh, what a vocal style he has!], Marty Robbins, oodles of 60s comedy [Bob Newhart and the Smothers Brothers]... I will not be keeping it all; aside from piles of duplicates and some not in such great shape, most I am not interested in. Jackie Gleason? But I may check some of it out just to hear it. It comes back to the argument: am I a MUSIC collector or a RECORD collector? I prefer to think I am a music aficionado [?]. I mean Glen Campbell's Galveston is a mediocre record beyond the title track... but a relic in great shape... what should I do?
Okay, it's only THREE GAMES, but Eric Lindros seems to be fitting in and helping the Stars. He's injury prone and it's very very early... that doesn't mean I LIKE him, but begrudgingly accept his presence in the same state as me.
Carolina can't win, Nashville looks sluggish, Pittsburgh looks like world beaters... what the hell happened this off season?
Then you look at the Steelers... is there as Super Bowl hangover like a Stanley Cup hangover?
Chris Berman - What An Annoying Loud Mouth
Anybody out there remember how people hated How-ard Co-Sell because he was a know it all? Well, I hate watching ESPN Sportscenter [Sportcentre for any Canadians reading this] on the weekends because of the overpowering presence ESPN's resident shouter Chris Berman. Can someone please explain the appeal of this guy? He with his girlish "WHOOOOP" when someone makes a move in a football highlight? Or the grunt that sounds like he is trying to push a two pounder out in the can "HE [pause] COULD [pause] GO [pause once more for dramatic effect] ALL THE WAAAAY!"
From ESPN's homepage:
In October 1979 - one month after its inception - ESPN hired a little known 24-year-old sports anchor named Chris Berman. For the next quarter century and running, Berman has become one of America's most respected, popular, and in many ways, most beloved sportscasters of his era. With his trademark combination of genuine enthusiasm, knowledge and wit, he has come to embody ESPN in its dedication to entertaining and informing sports fans across the country. He is best known for his signature delivery of highlights of every sport, most notably on NFL Sundays. Six times the versatile Berman has been selected the National Sportscaster of the Year (1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 2001) by the members of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
I don't know - maybe this guy had appeal, or maybe, like the early Billy Idol, Def Leppard and Thompson Twins videos on MTV - he was all we had back then. I guess maybe some people are used to him and maybe he knows his stuff, but the highlights segements that feature Berman will just drill my nerve and force me to seek information elsewhere. Like Fox.
Hidden Treasures?
Oh my gosh, I got boxes of records from Cory's Mom's cousin and the stuff I have found! Okay three or four copies of the first Village People record, six copies of one Leif Garrett record [and three of another, but most are in great shape... but piles of Johnny Cash, Barbara Striesand [I will put some on just to hear it. I've never heard much and I know she has style... but I probably won't KEEP it!], some early Van Cliburn, Chet Atkins, Glen Campbell, Don Williams [oh, what a vocal style he has!], Marty Robbins, oodles of 60s comedy [Bob Newhart and the Smothers Brothers]... I will not be keeping it all; aside from piles of duplicates and some not in such great shape, most I am not interested in. Jackie Gleason? But I may check some of it out just to hear it. It comes back to the argument: am I a MUSIC collector or a RECORD collector? I prefer to think I am a music aficionado [?]. I mean Glen Campbell's Galveston is a mediocre record beyond the title track... but a relic in great shape... what should I do?
Saturday, September 30, 2006
All Hail My Superior Knowledge
My arm hurts from patting myself on the back...
AP Today 9/30/06:
MONTREAL -- The Montreal Canadiens acquired defenseman Janne Niinimaa from Dallas on Saturday in a trade that sent center Mike Ribeiro to the Stars.
ME 07/05/06
...Dallas picks up Daryl Sydor from Tampa Bay, who also lost Pavel Kubina but picked up the youger Sydor started kit in Andy Delmore and Phillip Kuba from Minnesota, for a draft pick giving them 8 NHL level defensemen, but [Dallas has] no second line center with Jason Arnott off to Nashville... [obviously prior to Lindross signing... oh, they still have no second line center] sorry, Jeff Halpern from the Caps DOESN'T impress me, but they still have someone to trade - bye bye Janne Niinimaa!
My arm hurts from patting myself on the back...
AP Today 9/30/06:
MONTREAL -- The Montreal Canadiens acquired defenseman Janne Niinimaa from Dallas on Saturday in a trade that sent center Mike Ribeiro to the Stars.
ME 07/05/06
...Dallas picks up Daryl Sydor from Tampa Bay, who also lost Pavel Kubina but picked up the youger Sydor started kit in Andy Delmore and Phillip Kuba from Minnesota, for a draft pick giving them 8 NHL level defensemen, but [Dallas has] no second line center with Jason Arnott off to Nashville... [obviously prior to Lindross signing... oh, they still have no second line center] sorry, Jeff Halpern from the Caps DOESN'T impress me, but they still have someone to trade - bye bye Janne Niinimaa!
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Confessin' the Blues
I could feel it all around me the last few nights... it's not scary, just depressing and it's seemed worse the last few days. I guess I noticed Thursday... was there any moon Thursday? Maybe early and I missed it... but I looked out of the building and all there was was inky blackness broken by the streetlamps inadequately lighting the parking lot...
I felt it worse tonight - I got off early [900] and from about 730 on it felt like it should be midnight, stillness inside and outside the building...
It's coming. Another winter with those long nights, my life a series of rooms artificially lighted by GE 100 watters or fluorescent tubes. I'll get up and the sun will be bright over head, drive in and the sun will just be turning into the western sky, but when I take my lunch at 700, it will be dark as midnight. And it will almost be midnight when I open my door and set my briefcase down.
It's been a long few weeks setting up house. I'm just so frustrated that I haven't found that space for all my stuff yet. God, moving is like fucking WORK! I'm so down I almost called two people I should not be calling just to have someone to get a drink with. Maybe get my crank yanked, but at what cost? It wouldn't be worth it.
On the one bright side, I've been reading J.R. Moehringer's The Tender Bar and it's grabbed me like James Frye did. I've hardly put it down in four days, will probably finish tonight. Read Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs and HATED it. Might have made a good short story, but not a novel. This guy's supposed to be funny? Explain please Amanda the Bookworm!
I'm sorting out ideas in my head for something. And I need a good Sinatra Capitol years collection. Recommendations?
I could feel it all around me the last few nights... it's not scary, just depressing and it's seemed worse the last few days. I guess I noticed Thursday... was there any moon Thursday? Maybe early and I missed it... but I looked out of the building and all there was was inky blackness broken by the streetlamps inadequately lighting the parking lot...
I felt it worse tonight - I got off early [900] and from about 730 on it felt like it should be midnight, stillness inside and outside the building...
It's coming. Another winter with those long nights, my life a series of rooms artificially lighted by GE 100 watters or fluorescent tubes. I'll get up and the sun will be bright over head, drive in and the sun will just be turning into the western sky, but when I take my lunch at 700, it will be dark as midnight. And it will almost be midnight when I open my door and set my briefcase down.
It's been a long few weeks setting up house. I'm just so frustrated that I haven't found that space for all my stuff yet. God, moving is like fucking WORK! I'm so down I almost called two people I should not be calling just to have someone to get a drink with. Maybe get my crank yanked, but at what cost? It wouldn't be worth it.
On the one bright side, I've been reading J.R. Moehringer's The Tender Bar and it's grabbed me like James Frye did. I've hardly put it down in four days, will probably finish tonight. Read Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs and HATED it. Might have made a good short story, but not a novel. This guy's supposed to be funny? Explain please Amanda the Bookworm!
I'm sorting out ideas in my head for something. And I need a good Sinatra Capitol years collection. Recommendations?
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
For CJF
I only caught a glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
And for a few seconds
It was light the Ghost of Christmas passed
A quick sight of denim skirt
Mid thigh on tanned legs
Bosom pushing out so proud
Dirty blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail
And a flash of a toothy grin
Double take and the illusion is gone
God knows where you are now
But for a few seconds my heart stopped again
And I flashed back to our one crazy summer...
I only caught a glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
And for a few seconds
It was light the Ghost of Christmas passed
A quick sight of denim skirt
Mid thigh on tanned legs
Bosom pushing out so proud
Dirty blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail
And a flash of a toothy grin
Double take and the illusion is gone
God knows where you are now
But for a few seconds my heart stopped again
And I flashed back to our one crazy summer...
Monday, September 18, 2006
Nick Hornby and Bruce Springsteen and Me
Okay, in my light reading in the 'Reading Room,' I picked up Nick Hornby's Songbook, thinking those short essays would be good for...
Anyway, the first song listed in Nick's book is a song I talked about a while back: Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road. And it started the gears going in my head again.
Now for my money, Thunder Road is the magnum opus of Springsteen's whole career, with the possible exception of My Hometown for raw emotional nerve touching. It's a moving slice of Americana, Steinbeck with it's own built in soundtrack. Thunder Road hit me my senior year of high school. It's a song about beginning something, of change and motion. You've hit one of those milestones that ends your innocent adolescence ["your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet"] and you're at the end of one road - the dead end where the road makes a T and you have to go left or right. It's fairly positive and optimistic, though it's really a declaration of freedom, a big F-U to the teachers, parents and the squares.
It appealed to me a lot at the time because I was the down and out kid. All my friends had busted ass and were off to college, giving that one horse town the finger and I was the one left behind praying [in vain] for some savior to rise from the streets. I understood Springsteen's wide eyed view and maybe even shared it in my small town in Texas kind of way. We hadn't yet seen Badlands or Jungleland, been caught in Tenth Avenue Freezeouts... I didn't realize what a disillusioned record Born In the U.S.A. was, but I knew the emptiness of missing friends he was singing about in Bobby Jean. I wanted to get out but I guess not enough to ever get off my ass and DO anything. I preferred to sit in my room and listen to Bruce sing about it and read Hunter Thompson or whomever describe people and places and experiences instead of having them.
Just like Bob Seger's Night Moves. Night Moves is a brilliant, aching, Springsteen inspired bit of nostalgia for the romanticism of being young and carefree and being so bored in your small town all you did was make out and try to score. It's a look back from a vantage point where that can put a lump in your throat and a name in your brain that needs a late night shot of whiskey to kill it.
These are the song that appealed to me more than Free Bird. Free Bird, Don McLean's American Pie, You Can't Always Get What You Want ... they seem to be just so over the top after only a few listens that they're sad. There's a few I can still do - Zep's Stairway to Heaven and Ten Years Gone [but NOT Kashmir] Bohemian Rhapsody, Like A Rolling Stone [there's still no other record that sounds like that], the whole Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell album, Billy Joel's Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, the Crowes' Thorn In My Pride... the first part of Hey Jude. Hey Jude was my first favorite Beatles song and it's one of McCartney's best lyrics ever, but after a while four minutes of NA NA NA NA NA NA NA get old. But Sympathy for the Devil, Light My Fire, Layla, Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, Do You Feel Like We Do [and Baby I Love Your Ways, too] or Ted Nugent's Stranglehold... forget it.
Some other of the most important songs in my life:
I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
This song is so different form anything else in the Motown catalog along with Rare Earth doing I Know I'm Losing You, the Temps I Can't Get Next to You. The snap of the tambourine that starts this record, then those evil electric piano chords that HAD to inspire Gimme Shelter then the dry thump of the kick drum and the swish of the high hat and then the tambourine again coming back at you like a rattlesnake then the quick strikes of that snake in the guitar line and then the horns kick in with that warning and then drums kick it up and the bass rumbles to life under it all and then that tribal beat... and then Marvin is on, spitting the words out like a man done so wrong he's got to spit these words out like poison... OOOH Betcha wonder how I knew 'bout your plans to make me blue with some other guy that you knew before.... it's just almost indescribable!
Melissa - Allman Brothers
Greg Allman says this was Duane's favorite song that Greg ever wrote... ironically he didn't get to play on it, though Dickie Betts certainly channels Duane through for those lovely slide parts. They always did seem to have some sort of telepathy going on anyway. I remember discoving this in my uncle Rich's record cabinet and I was just knocked sideways by it. It was so breathtakingly beautiful and it doesn't get old.
Tell Her No - Zombies
This fals into that Lester Bangs / Phillip Seymour Hoffman rant from Almost Famous. It's three minutes of pop nothing that says more to me than anything in the whole Yes catalog. And with no guitars on it.
High School Football on National TV
The Southlake Carroll [Tx] Dragons were once again featured on ESPN this week playing some team from Louisiana... I just have to wonder what we're teaching kids about when we're featuring high school football on national TV. It's bad enough that we have the 'unpaid professionals' in college football [right Reggie Bush?], but if you start putting high school football on TV, how many kids and coaches are going to want to exploit that for their 15 seconds in the spotlight. {By the way, Andy Warhol had it wrong - my new saying is that everyone will have a fifteen second blurb / mention on television; there are almost enough channels to do it!}
I mean those high school kids are all ready screwed up from X Box and they think they don't have to finish school, they'll be professional poker players... Kids thinking that repeating Columbine is a 'way to go out - in a blaze of glory!' How badly desensitived have we as a nation become, but especially the kids who had TV and Playstation as they're babysitter the last 15 years? Are we headed for the hyper-violent society of Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange?
But hey, they can always give up school and become professional poker players.
Okay, in my light reading in the 'Reading Room,' I picked up Nick Hornby's Songbook, thinking those short essays would be good for...
Anyway, the first song listed in Nick's book is a song I talked about a while back: Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road. And it started the gears going in my head again.
Now for my money, Thunder Road is the magnum opus of Springsteen's whole career, with the possible exception of My Hometown for raw emotional nerve touching. It's a moving slice of Americana, Steinbeck with it's own built in soundtrack. Thunder Road hit me my senior year of high school. It's a song about beginning something, of change and motion. You've hit one of those milestones that ends your innocent adolescence ["your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet"] and you're at the end of one road - the dead end where the road makes a T and you have to go left or right. It's fairly positive and optimistic, though it's really a declaration of freedom, a big F-U to the teachers, parents and the squares.
It appealed to me a lot at the time because I was the down and out kid. All my friends had busted ass and were off to college, giving that one horse town the finger and I was the one left behind praying [in vain] for some savior to rise from the streets. I understood Springsteen's wide eyed view and maybe even shared it in my small town in Texas kind of way. We hadn't yet seen Badlands or Jungleland, been caught in Tenth Avenue Freezeouts... I didn't realize what a disillusioned record Born In the U.S.A. was, but I knew the emptiness of missing friends he was singing about in Bobby Jean. I wanted to get out but I guess not enough to ever get off my ass and DO anything. I preferred to sit in my room and listen to Bruce sing about it and read Hunter Thompson or whomever describe people and places and experiences instead of having them.
Just like Bob Seger's Night Moves. Night Moves is a brilliant, aching, Springsteen inspired bit of nostalgia for the romanticism of being young and carefree and being so bored in your small town all you did was make out and try to score. It's a look back from a vantage point where that can put a lump in your throat and a name in your brain that needs a late night shot of whiskey to kill it.
These are the song that appealed to me more than Free Bird. Free Bird, Don McLean's American Pie, You Can't Always Get What You Want ... they seem to be just so over the top after only a few listens that they're sad. There's a few I can still do - Zep's Stairway to Heaven and Ten Years Gone [but NOT Kashmir] Bohemian Rhapsody, Like A Rolling Stone [there's still no other record that sounds like that], the whole Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell album, Billy Joel's Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, the Crowes' Thorn In My Pride... the first part of Hey Jude. Hey Jude was my first favorite Beatles song and it's one of McCartney's best lyrics ever, but after a while four minutes of NA NA NA NA NA NA NA get old. But Sympathy for the Devil, Light My Fire, Layla, Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, Do You Feel Like We Do [and Baby I Love Your Ways, too] or Ted Nugent's Stranglehold... forget it.
Some other of the most important songs in my life:
I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
This song is so different form anything else in the Motown catalog along with Rare Earth doing I Know I'm Losing You, the Temps I Can't Get Next to You. The snap of the tambourine that starts this record, then those evil electric piano chords that HAD to inspire Gimme Shelter then the dry thump of the kick drum and the swish of the high hat and then the tambourine again coming back at you like a rattlesnake then the quick strikes of that snake in the guitar line and then the horns kick in with that warning and then drums kick it up and the bass rumbles to life under it all and then that tribal beat... and then Marvin is on, spitting the words out like a man done so wrong he's got to spit these words out like poison... OOOH Betcha wonder how I knew 'bout your plans to make me blue with some other guy that you knew before.... it's just almost indescribable!
Melissa - Allman Brothers
Greg Allman says this was Duane's favorite song that Greg ever wrote... ironically he didn't get to play on it, though Dickie Betts certainly channels Duane through for those lovely slide parts. They always did seem to have some sort of telepathy going on anyway. I remember discoving this in my uncle Rich's record cabinet and I was just knocked sideways by it. It was so breathtakingly beautiful and it doesn't get old.
Tell Her No - Zombies
This fals into that Lester Bangs / Phillip Seymour Hoffman rant from Almost Famous. It's three minutes of pop nothing that says more to me than anything in the whole Yes catalog. And with no guitars on it.
High School Football on National TV
The Southlake Carroll [Tx] Dragons were once again featured on ESPN this week playing some team from Louisiana... I just have to wonder what we're teaching kids about when we're featuring high school football on national TV. It's bad enough that we have the 'unpaid professionals' in college football [right Reggie Bush?], but if you start putting high school football on TV, how many kids and coaches are going to want to exploit that for their 15 seconds in the spotlight. {By the way, Andy Warhol had it wrong - my new saying is that everyone will have a fifteen second blurb / mention on television; there are almost enough channels to do it!}
I mean those high school kids are all ready screwed up from X Box and they think they don't have to finish school, they'll be professional poker players... Kids thinking that repeating Columbine is a 'way to go out - in a blaze of glory!' How badly desensitived have we as a nation become, but especially the kids who had TV and Playstation as they're babysitter the last 15 years? Are we headed for the hyper-violent society of Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange?
But hey, they can always give up school and become professional poker players.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
After a grueling three weeks, things are starting to come into shape in my new, humble abode. Now that the outlets are set up in my reading / computer / music room and everything is where I think it will stay. The wires run under a threshold, not tackily [?] strung across walls, curtain rods and door jams and the stereo separation set up pretty well. My reading lamp for draping across the love seat here with a book and my amp set for any immediate need to strum along to the Clash, Faces or Lou Reed...I only need now to complete one more rack for CDs to have all my LPs and CDs out of boxes to be weeded through for the 'Move Purge.'
My kitchen no longer looks like a refugee camp for lost dishes, the boxes slowly making their way out to the garage for the inevitable garage sale. I've cooked [eggs and Rice A Roni] on a gas stove, my first adventures with gas. The floor now cleaned after tracking mud all across the place the last weekend [two weeks?] it really rained. One good thing about moving into a house where someone lived is I found lots of things here all ready, like cleaners - Lysol, Pine Sol, Comet... having two full kitchens was a pain in the neck. My sister came over the week I moved in and really helped me get the kitchen into almost working order. I still don't like where my coffee pot wound up, but short cords, low 1930s cabinets and few outlets lead one to occasionally compromise [though an idea JUST struck me!].
I can actually walk around and find things in my master bedroom. I put the screens back on and washed windows last weekend. Found out which windows open and which do not. Straighten and planned for the laundry room.
My sitting / living / TV room is pretty well set up also, new TV in place and TiVo. Will have cable in time for the NHL season Oct 6. It needs painted. The kitchen needs painted too. Flat yellow in the kitchen? No. I have been told I have carte blanche, so I will be taking advantage in spots.
The second bedroom is an organized disaster, the inevitable catch all room. My pictures still cover the bed, boxes of books on the floor by the book case, which is all ready full. A couple of spare lamps, which may come in handy if I change the lay of the master - I think the feng shui is wrong, but we'll see. It's only sweat and cursing and it can be put back in a few minutes.
The drive is about 40 minutes and they're starting the overnight repave of 183 from Euless to North East Mall / 820. I can cut across Euless on highway 10 by Bell; the lights are timed just right.
Tonight I have a few of the windows open for the cool air [59 for the low?]; having a snack and listening to a quiet CD of my own making. I was sitting down before I got on the computer and I noticed the trains. I don't have the airport close by, though the FWPD helicopter seems to be around a lot, but I have railroad tracks about 1/4 mile behind me. It's a quiet neighborhood and I can hear the train horns as they head in and out of the downtown switchyard. It's a lot nicer than the UPS/ Fed Ex jets taking off at 100 - 200 - 300 in the morning.
I am working on a Saturday for a housewarming. Details to follow.
My kitchen no longer looks like a refugee camp for lost dishes, the boxes slowly making their way out to the garage for the inevitable garage sale. I've cooked [eggs and Rice A Roni] on a gas stove, my first adventures with gas. The floor now cleaned after tracking mud all across the place the last weekend [two weeks?] it really rained. One good thing about moving into a house where someone lived is I found lots of things here all ready, like cleaners - Lysol, Pine Sol, Comet... having two full kitchens was a pain in the neck. My sister came over the week I moved in and really helped me get the kitchen into almost working order. I still don't like where my coffee pot wound up, but short cords, low 1930s cabinets and few outlets lead one to occasionally compromise [though an idea JUST struck me!].
I can actually walk around and find things in my master bedroom. I put the screens back on and washed windows last weekend. Found out which windows open and which do not. Straighten and planned for the laundry room.
My sitting / living / TV room is pretty well set up also, new TV in place and TiVo. Will have cable in time for the NHL season Oct 6. It needs painted. The kitchen needs painted too. Flat yellow in the kitchen? No. I have been told I have carte blanche, so I will be taking advantage in spots.
The second bedroom is an organized disaster, the inevitable catch all room. My pictures still cover the bed, boxes of books on the floor by the book case, which is all ready full. A couple of spare lamps, which may come in handy if I change the lay of the master - I think the feng shui is wrong, but we'll see. It's only sweat and cursing and it can be put back in a few minutes.
The drive is about 40 minutes and they're starting the overnight repave of 183 from Euless to North East Mall / 820. I can cut across Euless on highway 10 by Bell; the lights are timed just right.
Tonight I have a few of the windows open for the cool air [59 for the low?]; having a snack and listening to a quiet CD of my own making. I was sitting down before I got on the computer and I noticed the trains. I don't have the airport close by, though the FWPD helicopter seems to be around a lot, but I have railroad tracks about 1/4 mile behind me. It's a quiet neighborhood and I can hear the train horns as they head in and out of the downtown switchyard. It's a lot nicer than the UPS/ Fed Ex jets taking off at 100 - 200 - 300 in the morning.
I am working on a Saturday for a housewarming. Details to follow.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Fake Sports and Fake Stars
So I turn on the ESPN World Series of Poker - yeah, I know what you're gonna say, but it was just background noise while I finished reading Omar Bradley's A General's Life so I can start on one of the other bios now cluttering my 'next read' pile - though I think I will finish David McCullough's Truman next. I also have McCullough's James Madison here, a George Marshall bio Called General of the Army and I bought a new LBJ bio at Borders tonight [Architect of American Ambition] along with SE Hinton's The Outsiders, JR Moehringer's The Tender Bar and Augusten Burrough's Running with Scissors for light reading...
Anyway, so I am finishing my book and occasionally watching a hand when they start showing some of the other people playing in this tournament - Dead Cain, Hank Azaria and former heavyweight boxing champ Lennox Lewis and the singer from Godsmack, whatever THEY are... and a thought strikes me [ouch!].
First of all, poker is not a SPORT - it's a skill. Racing is not a sport, either. Horseracing DAMN sure isn't a sport. Now ESPN is filling time with DARTS and poker all the time. Darts is a skill. Billiards and nine-ball are skills. Blackjack, too.
But it struck me all of a sudden how, oh five years ago you couldn't name a professional poker player - hell I'll BET you didn't even know such people existed until you saw Rounders. [Great movie by the way; Ed Norton rocks in it and Matt Damon is actually pretty good.] Now every damn channel on the dial has some sort of poker program [someone runs celebrity blackjack which is kind of neat because it's got a limit - 21 hands only!] and we can reel off four of five of the usual suspects - Johnny Chaing, Phil Helmouth, Daniel Negraneau, Howard Ledderer, Annie Duke and now the overly loud Jennifer Tilly and the Cathy lady whose face got hit by the ugly truck but who plays MEAN MEAN poker...
And suddenly these people are stars, sort of. And because it's the hot thing and because it is a place to see and be seen, you have B,C and D list stars showing up at these things to get fifteen seconds of screen time and name mention on TV. Or you have Bravo running Celebrity Poker Showdown, which is fun because those people play LIKE ME. And the money will at least go to charity, not into someone's pocket. But they get mostly B-List people, too. I think Dave Navarro has given up music and Carmen Electra to be on every damn one of them.
I know we Americans are SO BORED by our mundane, everyday lives that we have to make heroes of people who are living outside the 'Normal' system and making it pay. You know what, I'd rather study odds and make my living at playing cards or pool... but let's get real for a second. If you think those people are not working a lot of hours studying, folding, watching people play, learning to read players and odds, you are kidding yourself. This is just like the lottery - you could win 3 or 7 or 9 or 12 million with a little luck... all you have to do is pay your $ 10,000 entry fee [or work your win in thorough a lot of hours winning 'satellite tournaments]. You're gonna sweat a lotta bullets for your millions. Then, the target is on you for another year. And then there's LOSING. You can LOSE at this.
You know what, my job is about as unglamorous as they come. I have to deal with paranoids, crackpots and idiots. And yeah, I could lose my job. But it has set hours, I know what days I'll be off and it lets me afford most of what I want out of life. I'll stick with what I have. Unless someone wants to bankroll me, of course.
So I turn on the ESPN World Series of Poker - yeah, I know what you're gonna say, but it was just background noise while I finished reading Omar Bradley's A General's Life so I can start on one of the other bios now cluttering my 'next read' pile - though I think I will finish David McCullough's Truman next. I also have McCullough's James Madison here, a George Marshall bio Called General of the Army and I bought a new LBJ bio at Borders tonight [Architect of American Ambition] along with SE Hinton's The Outsiders, JR Moehringer's The Tender Bar and Augusten Burrough's Running with Scissors for light reading...
Anyway, so I am finishing my book and occasionally watching a hand when they start showing some of the other people playing in this tournament - Dead Cain, Hank Azaria and former heavyweight boxing champ Lennox Lewis and the singer from Godsmack, whatever THEY are... and a thought strikes me [ouch!].
First of all, poker is not a SPORT - it's a skill. Racing is not a sport, either. Horseracing DAMN sure isn't a sport. Now ESPN is filling time with DARTS and poker all the time. Darts is a skill. Billiards and nine-ball are skills. Blackjack, too.
But it struck me all of a sudden how, oh five years ago you couldn't name a professional poker player - hell I'll BET you didn't even know such people existed until you saw Rounders. [Great movie by the way; Ed Norton rocks in it and Matt Damon is actually pretty good.] Now every damn channel on the dial has some sort of poker program [someone runs celebrity blackjack which is kind of neat because it's got a limit - 21 hands only!] and we can reel off four of five of the usual suspects - Johnny Chaing, Phil Helmouth, Daniel Negraneau, Howard Ledderer, Annie Duke and now the overly loud Jennifer Tilly and the Cathy lady whose face got hit by the ugly truck but who plays MEAN MEAN poker...
And suddenly these people are stars, sort of. And because it's the hot thing and because it is a place to see and be seen, you have B,C and D list stars showing up at these things to get fifteen seconds of screen time and name mention on TV. Or you have Bravo running Celebrity Poker Showdown, which is fun because those people play LIKE ME. And the money will at least go to charity, not into someone's pocket. But they get mostly B-List people, too. I think Dave Navarro has given up music and Carmen Electra to be on every damn one of them.
I know we Americans are SO BORED by our mundane, everyday lives that we have to make heroes of people who are living outside the 'Normal' system and making it pay. You know what, I'd rather study odds and make my living at playing cards or pool... but let's get real for a second. If you think those people are not working a lot of hours studying, folding, watching people play, learning to read players and odds, you are kidding yourself. This is just like the lottery - you could win 3 or 7 or 9 or 12 million with a little luck... all you have to do is pay your $ 10,000 entry fee [or work your win in thorough a lot of hours winning 'satellite tournaments]. You're gonna sweat a lotta bullets for your millions. Then, the target is on you for another year. And then there's LOSING. You can LOSE at this.
You know what, my job is about as unglamorous as they come. I have to deal with paranoids, crackpots and idiots. And yeah, I could lose my job. But it has set hours, I know what days I'll be off and it lets me afford most of what I want out of life. I'll stick with what I have. Unless someone wants to bankroll me, of course.
Monday, September 04, 2006
I was watching Antiques Roadshow Saturday afternoon while having brunch and getting ready for work. Go ahead, slam away.I sometimes watch the home repair shows and This Old House, though too many Saturdays at Jim's watching Jacques Pappan has turned me off to most cooking shows. Face it, I AM a nearly 40 year old man.
Anyway, I watching this parade of garage sale rescues and family heirlooms parade before the experts to attach some monetary value to this trash / treasure and I just started thinking about things I treasure. You know what some of the things I treasure most are? JUNK. Knick knacks. Roadrunners made of scrap metal and old washers, a genuine whittled from a tree limb slingshot, a "bunch of boards" that when put together make a foot stool, a one piece rolling pin... all things made for me by my grandfather. Not some "mass produced, still in the original carton" thing, but a piece of work had crafted by one man in his basement almost especially for me. [All the grandkids got the rolling pins].
My grandfather worked or years as a carpenter and he still has a basement full of tools and things I'll never know what they are or what they're for. But I'd love to have one of his old style tape measures - they're folding rulers, 6" or whatever and they fold out eight or ten times. I'd love to have it because HE used it. It was a part of his life day in and day out.
I would love one day to have his old rocking chair. It's an old 1970s chair with wear marks all down the arms and for many years it was His Chair, just like Archie Bunker's chair. Most of the grandkids and probably a lot of the great grandchildren have sat on his lap and been rubbed raw by a five o'clock shadow that still had a whiff of Old Spice in it or been pinched or knuckled, then he's give you a kiss. As we got older and taller we'd sneak into the room from behind and kiss him on his bald head. Jerry Jeff Walker has a song on A Man Must Carry On called Rockin' Chair; the chorus goes
If a rocking chair could read
The thoughts from people's minds
Oh the stories it could tell time after time
Of the stories others never hear
Of the thoughts one holds so dear
Oh how I wish I could've read my Grandpa's mind
As he rocked me in the rocking chair that don't rock no more
One day, his rocking chair will rock no more and I will be all the sadder for it... having that chair would be like having another piece of him. But I doubt that will be my luxury...
The same thing applies to my Dad. I don't treasure expensive carpets or vintage paintings [as if he had such things]. But when I was younger, I had his Navy star charts from when he was a navigator and I thought that was neat. I even had his sailor cap for a lot of years [sorry Dad, it's gone now].
Recently I came into possession of his old tool cabinet and tools. Yes, they're 30 year old Craftsman tools, but I had to leap at the chance to get them. Not just because they're tools: box and closed wrenches and more screwdrivers - but because they're my Dad's tools. I've all ready been using them for 25 years. They will always remind me of fixing alternators and oil changes and the transmission pan I put a hole in and hanging new fixtures in my parents bathroom. And the upside down outlet in the kitchen.
I think about these things and they mean almost nothing to anybody, but they're things I have to hold onto from two men who mean a lot to me, who taught me to take pride in my work and do it right the first time.
Anyway, I watching this parade of garage sale rescues and family heirlooms parade before the experts to attach some monetary value to this trash / treasure and I just started thinking about things I treasure. You know what some of the things I treasure most are? JUNK. Knick knacks. Roadrunners made of scrap metal and old washers, a genuine whittled from a tree limb slingshot, a "bunch of boards" that when put together make a foot stool, a one piece rolling pin... all things made for me by my grandfather. Not some "mass produced, still in the original carton" thing, but a piece of work had crafted by one man in his basement almost especially for me. [All the grandkids got the rolling pins].
My grandfather worked or years as a carpenter and he still has a basement full of tools and things I'll never know what they are or what they're for. But I'd love to have one of his old style tape measures - they're folding rulers, 6" or whatever and they fold out eight or ten times. I'd love to have it because HE used it. It was a part of his life day in and day out.
I would love one day to have his old rocking chair. It's an old 1970s chair with wear marks all down the arms and for many years it was His Chair, just like Archie Bunker's chair. Most of the grandkids and probably a lot of the great grandchildren have sat on his lap and been rubbed raw by a five o'clock shadow that still had a whiff of Old Spice in it or been pinched or knuckled, then he's give you a kiss. As we got older and taller we'd sneak into the room from behind and kiss him on his bald head. Jerry Jeff Walker has a song on A Man Must Carry On called Rockin' Chair; the chorus goes
If a rocking chair could read
The thoughts from people's minds
Oh the stories it could tell time after time
Of the stories others never hear
Of the thoughts one holds so dear
Oh how I wish I could've read my Grandpa's mind
As he rocked me in the rocking chair that don't rock no more
One day, his rocking chair will rock no more and I will be all the sadder for it... having that chair would be like having another piece of him. But I doubt that will be my luxury...
The same thing applies to my Dad. I don't treasure expensive carpets or vintage paintings [as if he had such things]. But when I was younger, I had his Navy star charts from when he was a navigator and I thought that was neat. I even had his sailor cap for a lot of years [sorry Dad, it's gone now].
Recently I came into possession of his old tool cabinet and tools. Yes, they're 30 year old Craftsman tools, but I had to leap at the chance to get them. Not just because they're tools: box and closed wrenches and more screwdrivers - but because they're my Dad's tools. I've all ready been using them for 25 years. They will always remind me of fixing alternators and oil changes and the transmission pan I put a hole in and hanging new fixtures in my parents bathroom. And the upside down outlet in the kitchen.
I think about these things and they mean almost nothing to anybody, but they're things I have to hold onto from two men who mean a lot to me, who taught me to take pride in my work and do it right the first time.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Another Music Snob Gives Me Pause
There's a web site I frequent to see what other music snobs think and to discuss various music snobberies [though some of these people are Vinyl Collector Snobs, sometimes they're pretty funny] called the Record Collector's Guild. I haven't posted in a while, but I cruise by every few days to see if anything catches my fancy [and boy are they people DOWN DOWN DOWN on EBay!].
Anyway, I saw today someone posting on getting the new Who single. Now I am one of those people who thinks Townsend and Daltrey should hang up the Who name, especially now that Ox [John Entwhistle] has passed away. It's not the Who without Ox and Moon the Loon. [But somehow I am still contemplating seeing the Rolling Stones again.]
But RC liked the new single, but it got him to thinking. He says in his post [View the whole post here]:
So I guess what I?m getting at here is this: does this music still have relevance in todayÂ?s marketplace among today?s listeners? To me, a large part of the rock & roll experience is that it symbolizes youth. The rebellious, f-you streak that many of us still hold dear in spite of our age. This is why rockers are usually hammered by the press as they get older, but musicians in other forms of music (jazz, for example) are viewed as mature, seasoned professionals who just get better (not always the rule, I know). Bottom line in blunt terms: do old people belong in rock & roll?
My instinct at this juncture is to jump up and shout "NO!!!! Call it a day! Bow out gracefully you old farts!" [Did I mention I am thinking of seeing the Stones again?]
A few replies down I came across this from Captain Vague and I had to stop myself:
Did you enjoy listening to it? Did it let you forget about life's daily struggles for a few short minutes? If the answer is yes, then that's all the relevance that rock and roll has ever had, or ever will have, no matter how old the person is who bends the string or sings a note.
I AM a music snob. If you like something blatantly commercial and don't like my off the wall not popular favorite [Replacements, Superchunk] I WILL give it to you with both barrells. But after reading this, I may have to re-think that. A lot.
There's a web site I frequent to see what other music snobs think and to discuss various music snobberies [though some of these people are Vinyl Collector Snobs, sometimes they're pretty funny] called the Record Collector's Guild. I haven't posted in a while, but I cruise by every few days to see if anything catches my fancy [and boy are they people DOWN DOWN DOWN on EBay!].
Anyway, I saw today someone posting on getting the new Who single. Now I am one of those people who thinks Townsend and Daltrey should hang up the Who name, especially now that Ox [John Entwhistle] has passed away. It's not the Who without Ox and Moon the Loon. [But somehow I am still contemplating seeing the Rolling Stones again.]
But RC liked the new single, but it got him to thinking. He says in his post [View the whole post here]:
So I guess what I?m getting at here is this: does this music still have relevance in todayÂ?s marketplace among today?s listeners? To me, a large part of the rock & roll experience is that it symbolizes youth. The rebellious, f-you streak that many of us still hold dear in spite of our age. This is why rockers are usually hammered by the press as they get older, but musicians in other forms of music (jazz, for example) are viewed as mature, seasoned professionals who just get better (not always the rule, I know). Bottom line in blunt terms: do old people belong in rock & roll?
My instinct at this juncture is to jump up and shout "NO!!!! Call it a day! Bow out gracefully you old farts!" [Did I mention I am thinking of seeing the Stones again?]
A few replies down I came across this from Captain Vague and I had to stop myself:
Did you enjoy listening to it? Did it let you forget about life's daily struggles for a few short minutes? If the answer is yes, then that's all the relevance that rock and roll has ever had, or ever will have, no matter how old the person is who bends the string or sings a note.
I AM a music snob. If you like something blatantly commercial and don't like my off the wall not popular favorite [Replacements, Superchunk] I WILL give it to you with both barrells. But after reading this, I may have to re-think that. A lot.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
How I Wish That It Would Rain
How sad to hear the thunder all around you
But never feel the good cool rain
The breeze is slight refreshment
And you can smell the air charged with ozone and ions
From lightning
And you can feel the rain surrounding you
But the windshield of the truck
Parked outside the window of the new home
Shows only a few sad, pathetic hits
Not enough to even settle the dust
Not enough to raise the humidity as the street gets wet
I miss the smell of rain in the summertime
I long to dance under a cloudburst
[well, maybe just stand under it and let it soak through my t shirt]
And smell the rain and listen to the patter on a roof
And hear the runoff splashing on the side walk
And dripping heavily from leaf to leaf
But the thunder getting more distant
And the radar shows the storms dying and driving away north east
And I sit in my half finished homestead
Wishing for a cool cool rain
How sad to hear the thunder all around you
But never feel the good cool rain
The breeze is slight refreshment
And you can smell the air charged with ozone and ions
From lightning
And you can feel the rain surrounding you
But the windshield of the truck
Parked outside the window of the new home
Shows only a few sad, pathetic hits
Not enough to even settle the dust
Not enough to raise the humidity as the street gets wet
I miss the smell of rain in the summertime
I long to dance under a cloudburst
[well, maybe just stand under it and let it soak through my t shirt]
And smell the rain and listen to the patter on a roof
And hear the runoff splashing on the side walk
And dripping heavily from leaf to leaf
But the thunder getting more distant
And the radar shows the storms dying and driving away north east
And I sit in my half finished homestead
Wishing for a cool cool rain
Friday, August 25, 2006
Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton is recovering from radiation treatment for throat cancer and will skip the beginning of the band's upcoming tour, the band's publicist said.
Hamilton, 55, will be recovering with his family after a seven-week radiation treatment he just completed, publicist Marcee Rondan said Thursday. He will join the "Route of All Evil" tour in mid-October.
Rondan said she had no further information about Hamilton's condition.
David Hull, a longtime friend of the band who played in the Joe Perry Project, will fill in as bassist, she said.
Okay, so Aerosmith's music the last decade and a half is corporate and slick and sell out and just BAD. But I will keep a good thought for Tom Hamilton because it's not his fault. Probably. Where IS that Steven Tyler solo album, by the way? Is he holding it because Joe Perry's stiffed so bad? Did I ever mention I found it finally at the used CD store and was almost excited because I hoped it would be an old school rock and roll album ala the first two Joe Perry Project records? I listened to about 30 seconds each of the first three songs and put it back. I had thought Steven Tyler drove that band to the commercial slick and unappealing, but apparently Joe bought into it too. Too bad. I know the guy still has riffs like Combination, Rats in the Cellar and Toys in the Attic in him somewhere.
On a similar note, I was talking with Tracey the other day about Tom Petty when I bought that anthology about why Tom's all pissed off at the music business. Tracey said in the last Rolling Stone interview [aka "Tom's Last Interview Ever" - is he following more and more in Bob Dylan's footsteps?] that he's really fed up with the music corporations and we speculated that they really give 'The Artist' no more power over his releases, as if Tom gave them a record and they rejected it for not being commercial. I know that happened to Aerosmith with Get A Grip or Nine Lives. So Tom's decided he's not going to play anymore. Not that that's a bad thing, maybe a few years off and Tom becomes Dylan or Johnny Cash...
All Over But the Shouting
I got the last few things out of my apartment, did the clean up and turned in my keys today. It's all over now, baby blue. Remind me in a few years how badly moving sucks.
All Over But the Shouting
I got the last few things out of my apartment, did the clean up and turned in my keys today. It's all over now, baby blue. Remind me in a few years how badly moving sucks.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Anthology
I bought the Tom Petty best of Anthology - Thru the Years yesterday, along with a Tom T Hall hits CD and Marvin Gaye's Super Hits [60's hits] on vinyl. [Everything else is packed and I got a good deal.]
The Petty is a good collection and even though this ia s 'TP & the Heartbreakers" collection, there's still 4 or 5 TP solo tracks from Full Moon Fever, which pisses me off a little. While this collection does have some deeper cuts [including, Deb, the "It's just the normal noises in here" opening on Even the Losers, Hometown Blues, Rebels, Straight Into Darkness], you take those five cuts off [and Jammin' Me - BLECH!, ] and you can add Insider from Hard Promises, Southern Accents from that album, Fooled Again from the first, Magnolia from You're Gonna Get It and Shadow of a Doubt from Damn the Torpedoes. Take off the add on tracks Waiting for Tonight from the Replay Box and the new cut Surrender and add two of your favorites missing from this set. Maybe Let Me Up [I've Had Enough] from that album...
See, that's why I still prefer to make my own mixes. In most cases the record company wants to have all the hits jammed on, even though there's all ready a Greatest Hits collection out - make you spend your money again for the same songs, right?
The only band that ever got it right - and this was, I am sure, a contractual obligation thing, was fucking Aerosmith. There's the CBS/Sony Greatest Hits and then there's a great album of album cuts, Gems.You don't need and you don't get Dream On again, but you need Rats in the Cellar, Lick and A Promise, Chip Away the Stone, Nobody's Fault and Jailbait - it's truly a kick ass collection. Makes up for them putting on the shorter single mix of Sweet Emotion on Greatest Hits. Almost.
I mean, yes some of those anthology / hits collections were essential to my picking up some more by some groups: The Beatles 1962-1966 and 1967 - 1970 sets, the Stones' Hot Rocks 1964- 1971, Jefferson Airplane's Flight Log and 2400 Fulton Street collections, the Doors ' Greatest Hits [the 1980 single Lp]. These were vital for me discovering some things. But usually once I got beyond that, I'd find much odder, more interesting things and file the best of away. Like getting Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's at Sound Warehouse when I was 19. Weird? Hell yes! Trippy, before I knew what that ment but sooooo cool. Somebody to Love? Forget that, check THIS out!
I bought the Petty because it puts a lot of the songs I still love on a couple CDs I can enjoy. But it could be better. Why isn't there someone other than Rhino paying attention to things like this? Yeah, those hits will keep filling the coffers of the record company pricks, but why not have someone say "we can put these album cuts on a CD on a limited run and sell 100,000 and make a little bread." Why does it always have to be about making the most money and not leaving the artist a little integrity?
Well, I take that back - Sony / CBS does do that on their Essential series. Those are about 50/50. Check out the Essential Sly and the Family Stone and see what I mean. Or the Essential Cheap Trick.
I bought the Tom Petty best of Anthology - Thru the Years yesterday, along with a Tom T Hall hits CD and Marvin Gaye's Super Hits [60's hits] on vinyl. [Everything else is packed and I got a good deal.]
The Petty is a good collection and even though this ia s 'TP & the Heartbreakers" collection, there's still 4 or 5 TP solo tracks from Full Moon Fever, which pisses me off a little. While this collection does have some deeper cuts [including, Deb, the "It's just the normal noises in here" opening on Even the Losers, Hometown Blues, Rebels, Straight Into Darkness], you take those five cuts off [and Jammin' Me - BLECH!, ] and you can add Insider from Hard Promises, Southern Accents from that album, Fooled Again from the first, Magnolia from You're Gonna Get It and Shadow of a Doubt from Damn the Torpedoes. Take off the add on tracks Waiting for Tonight from the Replay Box and the new cut Surrender and add two of your favorites missing from this set. Maybe Let Me Up [I've Had Enough] from that album...
See, that's why I still prefer to make my own mixes. In most cases the record company wants to have all the hits jammed on, even though there's all ready a Greatest Hits collection out - make you spend your money again for the same songs, right?
The only band that ever got it right - and this was, I am sure, a contractual obligation thing, was fucking Aerosmith. There's the CBS/Sony Greatest Hits and then there's a great album of album cuts, Gems.You don't need and you don't get Dream On again, but you need Rats in the Cellar, Lick and A Promise, Chip Away the Stone, Nobody's Fault and Jailbait - it's truly a kick ass collection. Makes up for them putting on the shorter single mix of Sweet Emotion on Greatest Hits. Almost.
I mean, yes some of those anthology / hits collections were essential to my picking up some more by some groups: The Beatles 1962-1966 and 1967 - 1970 sets, the Stones' Hot Rocks 1964- 1971, Jefferson Airplane's Flight Log and 2400 Fulton Street collections, the Doors ' Greatest Hits [the 1980 single Lp]. These were vital for me discovering some things. But usually once I got beyond that, I'd find much odder, more interesting things and file the best of away. Like getting Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's at Sound Warehouse when I was 19. Weird? Hell yes! Trippy, before I knew what that ment but sooooo cool. Somebody to Love? Forget that, check THIS out!
I bought the Petty because it puts a lot of the songs I still love on a couple CDs I can enjoy. But it could be better. Why isn't there someone other than Rhino paying attention to things like this? Yeah, those hits will keep filling the coffers of the record company pricks, but why not have someone say "we can put these album cuts on a CD on a limited run and sell 100,000 and make a little bread." Why does it always have to be about making the most money and not leaving the artist a little integrity?
Well, I take that back - Sony / CBS does do that on their Essential series. Those are about 50/50. Check out the Essential Sly and the Family Stone and see what I mean. Or the Essential Cheap Trick.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Moving and Other Blues
The apartment is about 2/3 empty now - down to just the essentials for the next few days: some clothes, dishes, coffee maker, TV, jambox, bed, couch, computer obviously and some heavy stuff.
I know I've not been really enthused about this place for a year or so, but it's been HOME. I'm sure in a few weeks my new place will be comfortable and after a few months it will be home, but it's the transition period that makes you feel weird. Kind of like flying for me - being home is great, being at your destination is great, it's the part in the air I don't like. It's kind of like being nowhere.
Anyway, the movers come Wednesday. Then it'll be time to vacuum it up, clean the showers down one last time, empty the fridge and start a new chapter of this journey.
Some people use real shelf paper - bachelors use newspapers. The papers under the dishes are dated Weds August 26, 2002. I guess that sounds about right. I am still tired from that move and I only moved about 200 yards. I got it all done in one day only because my sister and brother in law went back over and brought everything from my closet and bathroom. Thanks Dana and Cory!
I am trying to get it all done myself this time, though I have Mom coming up tomorrow to give a hand and have some lunch. This time Wednesday it should be all over but the shouting. Take the cable box back up to Grapevine, turn in the keys and let the chips fall where they may.
Speaking of starting new chapters, it's about time for a new address book. Not that the old one is beat up or anything, but there's so many... I don't know. People I've lost, by their choice or mine. It's true, sometimes I just STOP calling people back [which reminds me I need to call Ed!] and let them go on about their business. Some people have stopped calling me back. It happens.
SOME people change their address every year whether I like it or not. That's kind of fun to see people crossed out and new addresses as they keep beginning new chapters in their own life / adventures. Some try new places and find they don't like them or their jobs move them on or they have kids and need bigger spaces, a couple of divorces... Some people build their dream house, some people just find their comfortable spot and set down roots. A few souls that are no longer on the mortal plane...
Looking on some of the other pages I find directions to new addresses, quick notes to myself, one sad page with funeral information...
Anyway, just updating looking back on one chapter in this long day's journey into night...
The apartment is about 2/3 empty now - down to just the essentials for the next few days: some clothes, dishes, coffee maker, TV, jambox, bed, couch, computer obviously and some heavy stuff.
I know I've not been really enthused about this place for a year or so, but it's been HOME. I'm sure in a few weeks my new place will be comfortable and after a few months it will be home, but it's the transition period that makes you feel weird. Kind of like flying for me - being home is great, being at your destination is great, it's the part in the air I don't like. It's kind of like being nowhere.
Anyway, the movers come Wednesday. Then it'll be time to vacuum it up, clean the showers down one last time, empty the fridge and start a new chapter of this journey.
Some people use real shelf paper - bachelors use newspapers. The papers under the dishes are dated Weds August 26, 2002. I guess that sounds about right. I am still tired from that move and I only moved about 200 yards. I got it all done in one day only because my sister and brother in law went back over and brought everything from my closet and bathroom. Thanks Dana and Cory!
I am trying to get it all done myself this time, though I have Mom coming up tomorrow to give a hand and have some lunch. This time Wednesday it should be all over but the shouting. Take the cable box back up to Grapevine, turn in the keys and let the chips fall where they may.
Speaking of starting new chapters, it's about time for a new address book. Not that the old one is beat up or anything, but there's so many... I don't know. People I've lost, by their choice or mine. It's true, sometimes I just STOP calling people back [which reminds me I need to call Ed!] and let them go on about their business. Some people have stopped calling me back. It happens.
SOME people change their address every year whether I like it or not. That's kind of fun to see people crossed out and new addresses as they keep beginning new chapters in their own life / adventures. Some try new places and find they don't like them or their jobs move them on or they have kids and need bigger spaces, a couple of divorces... Some people build their dream house, some people just find their comfortable spot and set down roots. A few souls that are no longer on the mortal plane...
Looking on some of the other pages I find directions to new addresses, quick notes to myself, one sad page with funeral information...
Anyway, just updating looking back on one chapter in this long day's journey into night...
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Flush the Flashback... or Not
[Add bitter old man to my growing list of titles, I guess...]
The VH1 Classic Rock of the 80s tour hits Dallas this weekend and I am disgusted [as usual] at this big 80s nostalgia trip people want to go on. Last week the Steve Perry-less Journey and Def Leppard, this week, the Spares on Tour.
Okay, Lepp has some great stuff; why do they want to release an album of covers? Isn't that the first sign of a bands demise? Where does Def Leppard fit into the current scene? I don't think they're one of those bands like Rush or AC/DC who can keep NOT changing and doing it. When's the last time Lep had a hit? Journey without Steve Perry - well, I never liked Journey anyway [well, maybe The Party's Over and The Girl Can't Help It] so big fuckin' bag of nothin' for me. Same story - when's the last time they did something that made you sit up and take notice?
So this week it's Rick Springfield [classic bubblegum power pop - Cheap Trick does it better], Loverboy [What were we thinking? Oh, yeah, we didn't know any better! Ditto Foreigner!], Scandal [first EP is a killer, I can live without ever hearing The Warrior again] and Eddie Money. Eddie was good for one good single an album, what has he done lately? Even Joe Cocker uncorks a great one every ten years or so!
What was it a few years ago? The B52s, Go-Gos and the Fixx? Not a bad bunch if they were in their prime - 20 years later, no, thanks! Sammy Hagar? Never was a huge fan.
It begs the question - would I go see any show simply for nostalgia? Faster Pussycat at the Granada... the Smithereens. I'd like to see The Alarm if they come through. The Georgia Satelites if Dan Baird came back to the band... where are you, Dan?
It's like watching the first hours of MTV on VH1 Classic last weekend. Some of that shit just reeks -April Wine? .38 Special? But we didn't know any better at the time. Look at those Def Leppard videos from the Pyromania era and see how horrible they are. Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself? Horrible cheesy. But we didn't know!
I have nostalgia. Sure I still crank it up when Photograph comes on. But those days are dead, for better or worse. I don't want to pretend I'm back in high school drinking beer at someone's houseparty jamming to the Miami Vice soundtrack anymore. I don't want to relive passing out in the 120 degree heat on the floor of the Cotton Bowl at the Texxas Jam. I don't want to be cruising Johnson or Camp Bowie in my Dad's '85 Cutlass Supreme blasting whatever was in the mix that day. I've grown up, I guess.
But again, here I sit marvelling at Unfinished Sweet from Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies as I put the vinyl on my hard drive. So what do I know?
Flush the [Your] Flashback - I need to write this song for Alice to do. 26h Anniversary of the Flush The Fashion album...
[Add bitter old man to my growing list of titles, I guess...]
The VH1 Classic Rock of the 80s tour hits Dallas this weekend and I am disgusted [as usual] at this big 80s nostalgia trip people want to go on. Last week the Steve Perry-less Journey and Def Leppard, this week, the Spares on Tour.
Okay, Lepp has some great stuff; why do they want to release an album of covers? Isn't that the first sign of a bands demise? Where does Def Leppard fit into the current scene? I don't think they're one of those bands like Rush or AC/DC who can keep NOT changing and doing it. When's the last time Lep had a hit? Journey without Steve Perry - well, I never liked Journey anyway [well, maybe The Party's Over and The Girl Can't Help It] so big fuckin' bag of nothin' for me. Same story - when's the last time they did something that made you sit up and take notice?
So this week it's Rick Springfield [classic bubblegum power pop - Cheap Trick does it better], Loverboy [What were we thinking? Oh, yeah, we didn't know any better! Ditto Foreigner!], Scandal [first EP is a killer, I can live without ever hearing The Warrior again] and Eddie Money. Eddie was good for one good single an album, what has he done lately? Even Joe Cocker uncorks a great one every ten years or so!
What was it a few years ago? The B52s, Go-Gos and the Fixx? Not a bad bunch if they were in their prime - 20 years later, no, thanks! Sammy Hagar? Never was a huge fan.
It begs the question - would I go see any show simply for nostalgia? Faster Pussycat at the Granada... the Smithereens. I'd like to see The Alarm if they come through. The Georgia Satelites if Dan Baird came back to the band... where are you, Dan?
It's like watching the first hours of MTV on VH1 Classic last weekend. Some of that shit just reeks -April Wine? .38 Special? But we didn't know any better at the time. Look at those Def Leppard videos from the Pyromania era and see how horrible they are. Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself? Horrible cheesy. But we didn't know!
I have nostalgia. Sure I still crank it up when Photograph comes on. But those days are dead, for better or worse. I don't want to pretend I'm back in high school drinking beer at someone's houseparty jamming to the Miami Vice soundtrack anymore. I don't want to relive passing out in the 120 degree heat on the floor of the Cotton Bowl at the Texxas Jam. I don't want to be cruising Johnson or Camp Bowie in my Dad's '85 Cutlass Supreme blasting whatever was in the mix that day. I've grown up, I guess.
But again, here I sit marvelling at Unfinished Sweet from Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies as I put the vinyl on my hard drive. So what do I know?
Flush the [Your] Flashback - I need to write this song for Alice to do. 26h Anniversary of the Flush The Fashion album...
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Moving Blues
I started packing up things for the move. I hate moving. I moved Oliver half a dozen times over the years, not under the best conditions physically or mentally sometimes. I've moved me a few times now and I am just amazed how much junk [call them knick knacks and decorations and whatever, but they're junk] one acquires just by NOT MOVING. O course Zottolas have moved a half a million times and they have a lot of junk, too [some of it very ice, though] so there goes that theory.
I spent part of last Sunday packing boxes and cleaning out my closet for the Big Move 2006. I finally went through all the posters I have been storing all these years, kept about 50-60 and junked the rest in the recycle bin. I junked promo posters for lots of late 80s stuff - Def Leppard Hysteria, Guns 'N Roses Appetite, Rush Hold Your Fire, Kiss Crazy Nights, McCauley Schenker, Eric Clapton August [one I have never seen again] and Crossroads, tons of old Aerosmith, Stevie Ray Vaughn Live Alive... old Star Trek, Star Wars and Kiss posters from the 70s. I thought briefly about Ebay, but they all have damage, even if only from pinholes, but lots of tears taking them off displays, some from being torn down. If anybody wants to go digging thru the paper recycling bin at the complex, you're welcome to them.
Most of my pictures are down except above my computer desk here. Bare white walls make me sad. I know a few will not be going up again - the signed numbered Grateful Dead Spring and Fall 95 [or 96? whatever year it was, the year they never had the fall tour due to Jerry Garcia's death], probably the Nagel, some of the Kimball museum posters I have framed... we'll see.
I have so many books it's not even funny. A box of kitchen glass and knick knoack, nothing I need for everyday use. In theory, I could start packing my Lp records, seeing as they're rarely played [though I did whip out Dylan's Blood on the Tracks this week; I also realized Alice Cooper needs to go under 'A' since it was the name of the BAND].
It just leads one to thinking: How many coffee mugs and cups does one need? How come I never have enough spoons? Do I really want to haul around all these things? Good God, I am going to have to tear down and rewire the damn stereo and TVs and Tivo and DVD and shit! I know I am smart enough to hire someone to lift the big [large, bulky and/or and heavy] things but how many trips for little shit?
And then there's moving notices to Visa and my other cards and magazines and cancelling and changing the cable and the phone... lovely!
But I'll be somewhere new, learning the shopping, off the main drag, not by the gate listening to every car fly down the road or every damn 25 year old blasting his sub woofers by the gates... and less than 5 blocks from the fire station so I have to hear everytime they leave the damn place! I will not miss the sirens. decorating, arranging furniture and pictures and books and albums... there's some challenges to take the edges off, I guess.
I just watched Galaxy Quest [at my sister's insistance]. It's cute. I was a Star Trek geek back in the 70s. We watched Star Trek and Space: 1999. We'd make phasers and communicators out of milk cartons and save the playground from the Klingons and the Romulans. Space:1999 - the moon was suppposed to have blasted out of orbit and be hurtling through the glaxy with an Earth base on it. Cheesy, made to cash in on the Star Trek revival.
What was it with 1999? Price was going to party like it was 1999, Space: 1999... my friend Dee Dee at work popped a priceless one a few months ago and I am going to use it for an album cover one day: Picture Elroy Jetson with his little jet pack on his back, maybe Astro with him and the title: Isn't It the Future Yet?!?
I started packing up things for the move. I hate moving. I moved Oliver half a dozen times over the years, not under the best conditions physically or mentally sometimes. I've moved me a few times now and I am just amazed how much junk [call them knick knacks and decorations and whatever, but they're junk] one acquires just by NOT MOVING. O course Zottolas have moved a half a million times and they have a lot of junk, too [some of it very ice, though] so there goes that theory.
I spent part of last Sunday packing boxes and cleaning out my closet for the Big Move 2006. I finally went through all the posters I have been storing all these years, kept about 50-60 and junked the rest in the recycle bin. I junked promo posters for lots of late 80s stuff - Def Leppard Hysteria, Guns 'N Roses Appetite, Rush Hold Your Fire, Kiss Crazy Nights, McCauley Schenker, Eric Clapton August [one I have never seen again] and Crossroads, tons of old Aerosmith, Stevie Ray Vaughn Live Alive... old Star Trek, Star Wars and Kiss posters from the 70s. I thought briefly about Ebay, but they all have damage, even if only from pinholes, but lots of tears taking them off displays, some from being torn down. If anybody wants to go digging thru the paper recycling bin at the complex, you're welcome to them.
Most of my pictures are down except above my computer desk here. Bare white walls make me sad. I know a few will not be going up again - the signed numbered Grateful Dead Spring and Fall 95 [or 96? whatever year it was, the year they never had the fall tour due to Jerry Garcia's death], probably the Nagel, some of the Kimball museum posters I have framed... we'll see.
I have so many books it's not even funny. A box of kitchen glass and knick knoack, nothing I need for everyday use. In theory, I could start packing my Lp records, seeing as they're rarely played [though I did whip out Dylan's Blood on the Tracks this week; I also realized Alice Cooper needs to go under 'A' since it was the name of the BAND].
It just leads one to thinking: How many coffee mugs and cups does one need? How come I never have enough spoons? Do I really want to haul around all these things? Good God, I am going to have to tear down and rewire the damn stereo and TVs and Tivo and DVD and shit! I know I am smart enough to hire someone to lift the big [large, bulky and/or and heavy] things but how many trips for little shit?
And then there's moving notices to Visa and my other cards and magazines and cancelling and changing the cable and the phone... lovely!
But I'll be somewhere new, learning the shopping, off the main drag, not by the gate listening to every car fly down the road or every damn 25 year old blasting his sub woofers by the gates... and less than 5 blocks from the fire station so I have to hear everytime they leave the damn place! I will not miss the sirens. decorating, arranging furniture and pictures and books and albums... there's some challenges to take the edges off, I guess.
I just watched Galaxy Quest [at my sister's insistance]. It's cute. I was a Star Trek geek back in the 70s. We watched Star Trek and Space: 1999. We'd make phasers and communicators out of milk cartons and save the playground from the Klingons and the Romulans. Space:1999 - the moon was suppposed to have blasted out of orbit and be hurtling through the glaxy with an Earth base on it. Cheesy, made to cash in on the Star Trek revival.
What was it with 1999? Price was going to party like it was 1999, Space: 1999... my friend Dee Dee at work popped a priceless one a few months ago and I am going to use it for an album cover one day: Picture Elroy Jetson with his little jet pack on his back, maybe Astro with him and the title: Isn't It the Future Yet?!?
Friday, July 21, 2006
"Soaking Heat Up Thru Their Feet"
- Summer In the City / Dallas Texas 7/15/06
Good God it's hot. Even for Texas. You'd think after 30 years in this state you'd get used to the heat - well you don't. You just learn to tolerate it. And you sweat a lot. But you never get used to it.
It's a good 90 degrees even at 1100 at night when I step out of my nice air conditioned building, working hard and keeping the country free. I know Nate [Nate Fowler's Elixer] is playing tonight at the Bar of Soap, but it's a whip getting down there and I'll bet they're off when I do get down there - what is it 45 minutes from here [DFW Airport North] to there?
But what else are you going to do, go get a six pack and stare at your own four walls again? You know the TV is on the fritz, too. And if nothing else, I can get a DRINK and a vodka and tonic or three sounds mighty refreshing.
The drive from Irving to downtown Dallas is hot, but I have my window rolled down getting some fresh air and blasting the Kinks, trying to get pumped up for the Ray Davies show [tonight 7/21]. Between the airport and the Trinity is not too bad with the car moving - it's even slightly cool as one crosses the Trinity by Texas Stadium. But not five minutes down the road, one rolls into the heart of downtown and the ride from the I-35 / 114 merge down to the I-35E / I-30 mixmaster is the nastiest, hottest stretch of concrete this side of Houston. The cars never stop rolling on this stretch and the exhaust and constant rolling rubber never lets it cool off. I can honestly feel the heat coming up through the floorboards.
[How come no one talks about the miles and miles of concrete poured every day all over the world when they talk of global warming? Covering so much of the Earth with an insulating, heat absorbing material like this cannot be good for the Earth's cooling, though I still say it runs in cycles. But no, all you ever hear about is Greenhouse Gases. Hey, I got a Greenhouse Gas Emission for you - pull my finger!
And one more thing- you want to complain about the deteriorating roads? Look no further than all that green grass everyone wants. We're overwatering and all that runoff is going right into the streets and right under the streets. When I go home at night there's a river - okay a small stream running across Freeport Parkway where it's being over watered. And the chuckholes get a few inches of asphalt every few months, but it's buckled again and deeper this time. And every time that excess water runs into the street it gets a little worse...]
As a matter of fact, it only takes me 35 minutes to get from work to Exposition/ Fair Park where the Bar of Soap is. Exposition is at the far end of Deep Ellum, really just an afterthought as it relates to the 'Dallas Music Scene" way down at the end of Commerce, but it's a little area of lofts and bars that used to be a little sub culture back in the Deep Ellum heydays of the late 80's and the 90's. As the scene shrunk though, Exposition kind of fell off the map and died, though the Bar of Soap, a combination Laundromat and bar, kept having live music the whole time. Nate says they lost the little courtyard a while back, but they keep on keeping on. I can't count the nights Fowler and his various bands [Sixty Six, Atomic Rodeo, American Fuse, the Elixer] have played and we'd come down for drinks and pinball in the laundry room. A while back there was discussion when Tree's closed down of the Grungiest Club Bathrooms In Dallas - Bar of Soap ranks high. But it's a cool little place.
I wound up parking a few blocks away - the free lot behind was pretty full and I am not paying to park my dingy and dinged up little black pick up. There's a lot of cars lining Exposition and down Commerce. The little club that used to be the punk Club No [where we saw NOFX on the White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean tour] is now some sort of dance club called MINC. The unmistakable thump and thud of four on the floor pooey Industrial music rattles through the walls. Pretty people head here. I keep walking. There's a few bars, small old fashioned watering holes open. I walk past a couple of art galleries which makes me smile. This is a sign that things may be coming around again. The corner is now some sort of restaurant with a big patio area that will be nice in the fall for sitting on and having drinks, but not this time of year.
I thought Nate told me that they had moved the bands to the back by the laundry machines, but as I walk in, the band is right there by the door in the right window [as you face out at the street] where they've always been. I whack him on the arm as I walk by and he gives me a "What's Up?" look as I go by. I immediately go to the bar. Hot as it is, there's only ONE bartender working. He serves about three people around me, goes down the other end of the bar serves about three people, comes back down, serves two more people around me hen back to the other end of the bar - 4 songs, 12-15 minutes and can't get a drink. I put my $20 back in my pocket at that point.
The band is LOUD as always [people literally had to get up on the bar rail and shout their orders into the bartender's ear] Fowler plays loud to begin with and Mike's drums crack light lightning and Kinley's bass rumbles around under them like thunder. I just settle back to watch the band and people watch. The band plows thru a familiar set list, then throws a few surprises out - Cheap Trick's He's A Whore, AC/DC's Shot Down in Flames... one guy is begging Nate and bassist Kinley Wolfe to do the Fuse's Don't Chingale My Chevrolet - Nate keeps deferring to Kinley since he will have to sing it and Kinley just keeps telling the guy "No time, man." Then they wind up the set with a loud version of the Stooges' Loose. Has anybody else noticed that Nate turns his back when he solos?
It's a sweaty show and the crowd is an old school cut across the Deep Ellum scene - some old scenesters hanging out, some long hairs, some younger kids just checking out a band on Saturday night the way me and my friends used to do, a wild girl in a plaid mini and some sort of high heeled Doc Martins and showing off her tattoos. A pretty Hispanic girl with very long hair down to her waist making out with a platinum blonde dude with Statue of Liberty spiked hair in one of the booths. I smile to myself feeling like I am only 30 again hanging out in a bar listening to a real rock and roll band. Only without the white crosses, driving to Dallas in Jim's car with no radio, singing Kiss and Alice Cooper songs and drinking 12 packs on the way to get a buzz started. No drunken driving home. No drama. Just a quick hour's worth of no bullshit rock and roll, one beer Nate managed to get while I help Mike load his drums up and then home, back across a slightly less oppressive heat...
- Summer In the City / Dallas Texas 7/15/06
Good God it's hot. Even for Texas. You'd think after 30 years in this state you'd get used to the heat - well you don't. You just learn to tolerate it. And you sweat a lot. But you never get used to it.
It's a good 90 degrees even at 1100 at night when I step out of my nice air conditioned building, working hard and keeping the country free. I know Nate [Nate Fowler's Elixer] is playing tonight at the Bar of Soap, but it's a whip getting down there and I'll bet they're off when I do get down there - what is it 45 minutes from here [DFW Airport North] to there?
But what else are you going to do, go get a six pack and stare at your own four walls again? You know the TV is on the fritz, too. And if nothing else, I can get a DRINK and a vodka and tonic or three sounds mighty refreshing.
The drive from Irving to downtown Dallas is hot, but I have my window rolled down getting some fresh air and blasting the Kinks, trying to get pumped up for the Ray Davies show [tonight 7/21]. Between the airport and the Trinity is not too bad with the car moving - it's even slightly cool as one crosses the Trinity by Texas Stadium. But not five minutes down the road, one rolls into the heart of downtown and the ride from the I-35 / 114 merge down to the I-35E / I-30 mixmaster is the nastiest, hottest stretch of concrete this side of Houston. The cars never stop rolling on this stretch and the exhaust and constant rolling rubber never lets it cool off. I can honestly feel the heat coming up through the floorboards.
[How come no one talks about the miles and miles of concrete poured every day all over the world when they talk of global warming? Covering so much of the Earth with an insulating, heat absorbing material like this cannot be good for the Earth's cooling, though I still say it runs in cycles. But no, all you ever hear about is Greenhouse Gases. Hey, I got a Greenhouse Gas Emission for you - pull my finger!
And one more thing- you want to complain about the deteriorating roads? Look no further than all that green grass everyone wants. We're overwatering and all that runoff is going right into the streets and right under the streets. When I go home at night there's a river - okay a small stream running across Freeport Parkway where it's being over watered. And the chuckholes get a few inches of asphalt every few months, but it's buckled again and deeper this time. And every time that excess water runs into the street it gets a little worse...]
As a matter of fact, it only takes me 35 minutes to get from work to Exposition/ Fair Park where the Bar of Soap is. Exposition is at the far end of Deep Ellum, really just an afterthought as it relates to the 'Dallas Music Scene" way down at the end of Commerce, but it's a little area of lofts and bars that used to be a little sub culture back in the Deep Ellum heydays of the late 80's and the 90's. As the scene shrunk though, Exposition kind of fell off the map and died, though the Bar of Soap, a combination Laundromat and bar, kept having live music the whole time. Nate says they lost the little courtyard a while back, but they keep on keeping on. I can't count the nights Fowler and his various bands [Sixty Six, Atomic Rodeo, American Fuse, the Elixer] have played and we'd come down for drinks and pinball in the laundry room. A while back there was discussion when Tree's closed down of the Grungiest Club Bathrooms In Dallas - Bar of Soap ranks high. But it's a cool little place.
I wound up parking a few blocks away - the free lot behind was pretty full and I am not paying to park my dingy and dinged up little black pick up. There's a lot of cars lining Exposition and down Commerce. The little club that used to be the punk Club No [where we saw NOFX on the White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean tour] is now some sort of dance club called MINC. The unmistakable thump and thud of four on the floor pooey Industrial music rattles through the walls. Pretty people head here. I keep walking. There's a few bars, small old fashioned watering holes open. I walk past a couple of art galleries which makes me smile. This is a sign that things may be coming around again. The corner is now some sort of restaurant with a big patio area that will be nice in the fall for sitting on and having drinks, but not this time of year.
I thought Nate told me that they had moved the bands to the back by the laundry machines, but as I walk in, the band is right there by the door in the right window [as you face out at the street] where they've always been. I whack him on the arm as I walk by and he gives me a "What's Up?" look as I go by. I immediately go to the bar. Hot as it is, there's only ONE bartender working. He serves about three people around me, goes down the other end of the bar serves about three people, comes back down, serves two more people around me hen back to the other end of the bar - 4 songs, 12-15 minutes and can't get a drink. I put my $20 back in my pocket at that point.
The band is LOUD as always [people literally had to get up on the bar rail and shout their orders into the bartender's ear] Fowler plays loud to begin with and Mike's drums crack light lightning and Kinley's bass rumbles around under them like thunder. I just settle back to watch the band and people watch. The band plows thru a familiar set list, then throws a few surprises out - Cheap Trick's He's A Whore, AC/DC's Shot Down in Flames... one guy is begging Nate and bassist Kinley Wolfe to do the Fuse's Don't Chingale My Chevrolet - Nate keeps deferring to Kinley since he will have to sing it and Kinley just keeps telling the guy "No time, man." Then they wind up the set with a loud version of the Stooges' Loose. Has anybody else noticed that Nate turns his back when he solos?
It's a sweaty show and the crowd is an old school cut across the Deep Ellum scene - some old scenesters hanging out, some long hairs, some younger kids just checking out a band on Saturday night the way me and my friends used to do, a wild girl in a plaid mini and some sort of high heeled Doc Martins and showing off her tattoos. A pretty Hispanic girl with very long hair down to her waist making out with a platinum blonde dude with Statue of Liberty spiked hair in one of the booths. I smile to myself feeling like I am only 30 again hanging out in a bar listening to a real rock and roll band. Only without the white crosses, driving to Dallas in Jim's car with no radio, singing Kiss and Alice Cooper songs and drinking 12 packs on the way to get a buzz started. No drunken driving home. No drama. Just a quick hour's worth of no bullshit rock and roll, one beer Nate managed to get while I help Mike load his drums up and then home, back across a slightly less oppressive heat...
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Add 'Hockey Snob' To My Titles
What are you doing, Dallas Stars? You coulda had Jason Arnott, Matt Cullen, Marc Savard, Marty reason, Mike LeClerc, Jim Dowd, Rem Murray, Jeremy Roenick, Greg Johnson, Yanni Perrault [best faceoff guy in the league], Mike Sillinger, Jamie Langenbrunner [again], Steve Rucchin, Martin Straka, Jason Allison, or EVEN THE OVER-RATED Doug Weight, but you had to bring Eric "I'm-Not-Playing-For-Quebec, Big Baby, the Whiners" Lindros to Dallas.
Thanks, but NO THANKS. I don't hate many players in the NHL, but I HATE Eric Lindros. I COULD wish him another happy concussion, but I am not going to do that. But it MAY effect my Dallas Stars watching and interest level a whole lot.
Now I am just ONE PERSON and the Stars are still going to sell tickets and get their 1.whatever TV rating, but they're going to do it without me.
BOOOOO, Doug Armstrong. Boooooo.
On the Road Again
What are you doing, Dallas Stars? You coulda had Jason Arnott, Matt Cullen, Marc Savard, Marty reason, Mike LeClerc, Jim Dowd, Rem Murray, Jeremy Roenick, Greg Johnson, Yanni Perrault [best faceoff guy in the league], Mike Sillinger, Jamie Langenbrunner [again], Steve Rucchin, Martin Straka, Jason Allison, or EVEN THE OVER-RATED Doug Weight, but you had to bring Eric "I'm-Not-Playing-For-Quebec, Big Baby, the Whiners" Lindros to Dallas.
Thanks, but NO THANKS. I don't hate many players in the NHL, but I HATE Eric Lindros. I COULD wish him another happy concussion, but I am not going to do that. But it MAY effect my Dallas Stars watching and interest level a whole lot.
Now I am just ONE PERSON and the Stars are still going to sell tickets and get their 1.whatever TV rating, but they're going to do it without me.
BOOOOO, Doug Armstrong. Boooooo.
On the Road Again
As I have complained to numbers of you over the last couple of years, I have been fed up with living in my apartment for some time. The street and gate noise get rediculous sometimes, but moving sucks. I've been in this unit for going on three years now. [My cousin Sherri laughs at this; she will say "We moved 4 times in 3 years between 1982 - 1985!"]
Well I got me new lease notice about two weeks back. And the rent is going up [as it probably should]. But it's going up $ 50.00 AND I am still going to be individually billed for water/sewer/gas for the complex [formulated to the size and occupacy of my apartment and among the current renter base]. This is how apartments in Texas keep saying 'low rent;' by tacking this utility fee on every month. Mine generally runs $35 - 45. If it were up to me I'd rather pay another $ 30- 35 bucks a month to cover this instead of writing a separate check. And no offer of a deal for re-upping; no 'one month free, no $ X 'Loyalty Discount.' [I re-read my lease before turning in my notice - I was set at $ 635 and paying $ 560/month ] I think this is going to cause a lot of defections; I am keeping an eye out for my former downstairs neighbor to ask if he got a new deal notice, but I haven't seen his car for a week. He'd been here about a year longer than ME!
Anyway, $ 50.00 is a lot of money - it eats up the resst of my nice raise that gas and my newfound devotion to my 401k [matched at $1.25/1.00] have not. So I have decided to move. I turned in my notice Saturday.
TODAY [Monday] I got a notice on my door about 'repeated warnings" and being in "violation of the community policies regarding satelites, patios and/or grills." Did I have a satelite dish threatening to fall onto my neighbor? Was I recklessly grilling and endangering the community by almost setting the building on fire with my Hibachi? No, I don't have those things.
I had left my floor washing pail [blue] out on the patio. For this they are threatening a $ 25 fine, plus $ 10/day.
I am now PISSED OFF. I am glad to be leaving this community and the new uptight managers. To Hell with The Enclave at Bear Creek. Never mind that the "Security Gate" hasn't worked right in six months. Never mind that in 8 years I paid rent late ONCE [on the 4th and I forked over my fee without hesitation]. PFFFT.
So now it begins. The art is coming down, and I am all ready starting to pack now. Books, tools, knickknacks, non essentials all going into boxes. I will be out by/on Aug 31st. More details to follow.