They don't call it Friday the 13th for no good reason.

Cannot begin to count the number of F-Bombs I dropped one week ago today. It's not easy loading an old-school 36" 200 lb Sony Trinitron into the back of the truck, but my son, Morgan, and I did it. I've dropped other electronics off at the Buncombe County landfill's Electronics Recycling center. Open every Friday, they say:

From the Landfill website.

Looks like the 36" TV is giving a lecture to the underlings.

I took the day off of work to do this, because I had the massive TV, smaller TV, couple of old computer monitors (16" Gateway, and 20" Princeton), old computer,old printer, and an even older portable Black and White TV that was probably from the 1970s, and well, it's Friday, and according to the website they're open every Friday. I had to ratchet-strap the whole shebang down, and tarp it, because all loads to the landfill must be covered or be fined, and also because it was raining to beat the band.

I'd done everything right.

Drive to the landfill, get out to tell the guy behind the glass what I had in the truck bed, and he says:
"Electronics recycling isn't open today."
"HUH?"
"We're only open every OTHER Friday during the Winter."
"It doesn't say that on your website. It says EVERY Friday."
"We'll, they're only open every OTHER Friday during the Winter. Here, here's a schedule," and he slides a piece of paper out through the little cash drawer under the window.
"You gotta be kidding?! I took a day off of work to haul this 200 pound TV here because your website says you're open EVERY Friday."
"Well, they're only open every OTHER Friday during the Winter. You should have called first."
I couldn't believe he said that. "MAYBE, you should update your website to say you're only open every OTHER Friday, since now I've taken a day off of work, and am going to have to turn around and come back NEXT Friday. Why would I think I have to call?"
"Sorry, Sir."

I turned my back to him and the F-Bombs started. I tried to get online with my iPhone to call up the Buncombe County Waste Disposal website and go back and show him the page, but the old 3G wasn't even getting -69G out there in the stix.

I texted my wife, Carol, to tell her what happened and dropped some more F-Bombs, much to her delight.

I went to the Handy Mart convenient store back in Weaverville to pick up a couple things, and was bitching to Sonny behind the counter about what had happened. Even asked him if he wanted a big busted TV. He wasn't having any of it. But the guy behind me in line said,
"Why don't you try the Mars Hill landfill. They take electronics every day."

He told me how to get there, since I'd never been before, and I started up I-26 the 6 miles to Mars Hill.

About 1.5 miles before the exit something in the rear-view mirror caught my eye. It was my tarp. It'd worked itself lose and was flapping like mad. More F-Bombs.

I pulled over into the breakdown lane just as it came totally lose and blew off, luckily, into the breakdown lane behind me. I got out, in the rain, and re-covered the mass of electronics and redid the straps. I crept up the road and then wound my way around 3 miles of backroad to get to the Mars Hill Landfill. Finally found the squatty little mud-covered collection of dumpsters, pulled in, got out.

The big burly Mars Hill Landfill watchdog came out:
"Can I help you?"
"Yeah, a guy down the road said you guys recycle electronics. I have a BigAss™ TV and a couple of computer monitors."
"Do you have a card?"
"A Card?"
"Yeah, a card."
"Uh, what kind of card?"
"A trash card. You can't drop off without a trash card,"
"No, I don't have a trash card. How can I get one?"
"You buy or rent?"
"Buy or rent what, the trash?"
"Property."
"I OWN."
"Where?"
"Weaverville."
"That's Buncombe. You'll have to take it to Buncombe Country Landfill."
"Son-Of-A-"
"Can't take Buncombe recyclin' in Madison County."

More F-Bombs as I explained Buncombe's Every Friday - Every OTHER Friday, but this man had no sympathy. I took my wet, rained-on-ass back in my truck and crept home in defeat, but not without looking for a nice deep ditch I could back up to. Don't think I wasn't tempted. But, conscience-guy that I am, I came back home, backed the truck halfway into the garage, and unloaded all that shit where it'll sit until the correct Every OTHER Friday arrives. Guess I'm parking outside the garage this week.

But I'm having a beer, now.

Happy Friday the 13th.

I HATE iTUNES 11!

I hate iTunes 11...

Bring me back iTunes 10. They fooled me once - I updated to 11 when it first came out, and within 3 hours I had that sucker uninstalled and had 10 loaded on again. Until now.

Seems I needed to upgrade my mac system software up a couple notches so that I could stay Adobe CC compatible with some remote location colleagues (I am NOT on Mavericks yet - when the reviews are evenly split between 5 star and 1 star, with hardly any 4,3, or 2 stars, I know something's up). So when I updated the system software it secretly snuck that damn iTunes 11 in there, after 2 years of keeping it at bay.

I'm not 14 years old. I don't need my computer programs to look like my iPhone, only bigger and clunkier. I make a lot of mixes for people, for parties, get togethers, compilations, and the main feature was to have separate playlist windows open so that I could mix and match/make sure I had no duplications/swap songs with relative ease.  GONE.

Coverflow, GONE

I used to be able to collapse the full view window the mini viewer with the click of a button. GONE. To get the mini player now you have to hold down 3 or 4 keys to get it to appear, and then it floats around on the screen while your redundant main redundant window is redundantly still open with all the same redundant controls as the mini player.  STUPID.

That's enough bitching for now.  WTF, Apple???

Love Is Three Months Salary

In an online forum, of which I've been a member of for roughly 19 years (Back before the Flash Player, even!), someone brought up the subject of TV ads designed to make us feel guilty - because we're not spending enough money on gifts and vacations for our family and loved ones. Disneyworld, anyone? New cars for Christmas and Valentine's Day? It brought up a memory of the De Beers diamond company and there -oh-so-rich-beautiful-people commercials back in the early 1990s. An old friend of mine, Bob, and a friend of his (can't remember the guy's name - maybe Chuck?) started this riff on the commercial when I was visiting Bob one weekend up in the High Country of Western North Carolina. I never forgot the basis for it, thought it was brilliant, and repeated/sang it often for friends afterwards. And when I finally began to write it down and make it match the commercial (thanks, YouTube!) I had to add a few elements to the ending section to make it fit the music. Hope Bob and Friend don't mind... 

Sing along if you like...



Ten Thousand Bucks
And Maybe More
Ten Thousand Bucks
And Maybe More

Ten Thousand Bucks
And Maybe More
Ten Thousand Bucks
And Not A Penny Less

Then when they get through with you
they take you in the back room and they
sit you down and make you sign your
life away and empty out your
bank account and tell you that
forever more your life and soul
belong to them and then you know you're
toast and that your now it debt for
three months salary - three months salary - three months salary - three months salary - three months salary - (fade out)

A Groundhog Day Meta-Moment

Earlier this week my wife, who normally stays up past my bedtime, stated she was tired and was going to bed around 9pm. I used the opportunity to catch up on some of my DVR'd shows. I got through one show, but then my bedtime was fast approaching, so I gave up on catching up, as I didn't want to fall asleep halfway through the next show. So for the consolation prize, I flipped through the guide and found 'Groundhog Day' had just started on The Sundance Channel. Love the movie, perfect to fade out to on the couch.

I probably got about 40 minutes into it (Murray kidnapped the Groundhog and headed out to the mine quarry in the old pickup truck - you know the scene). I dozed off.

I woke up at 1-something AM, looked up at the TV, and Murray was finishing his newscast, kidnapped the Groundhog in the pickup truck again, and drove out to the mine quarry. WTF? Was I having my own Groundhog Day?

Then I realized Sundance was just repeating the movie for a second time. Wonder if that Deja-Vu all over again happened to anyone else that night?

Icons of Extraordinary Size (IoES)

Dang, I've got to start posting more than once every three or four years.

Recently some of my work colleagues were looking at a web design that featured the biggest icon buttons I've ever seen. We laughed and derided the skills (or lack thereof) of the designer, and then went back about our work.

Few minutes later the idea of a new Big Icon meme rolled around in my head and so I used a portion of my lunch break to do some quick photoshop ideas. It was a fun throw-away idea, and my ideas for memes never get picked up anyway.

Big Icons, bitches!

Peabody, Here. Let's step in the Wayback Machine...

If you could go back 10 years in time. what would you do?

Bet on a Superbowl? Relive a great point in your life, make subtle or enormous changes, hoping to make your present life a little better?

Well, Sherman. Dr. Peabody here, let's step into the Wayback Machine and head to the year 2000 and see what this 'kicking myself in the ass for the last 10 years buffoon' would do....

I'd buy Apple stock for $7 a share.
Spend $1000 and get roughly 143 shares. Apple was hurting at the time, and had been for most of the 90s.. Steve Jobs had been ousted during the late 80s and most of the 90s, but was back at Apple trying to get them back to their roots: iNnovation.

Apple stock split in April, 2001. It was the year of the first iPod and iMac.

Apple stock split again in Feb, 2005.

Apple was back and kicking some ass. We now had multiple versions of the iPod, some that even shot video, the iPhone, and the iMacs just got better and sleeker through each model revision.

My family of 3 owns 3 iPods of various models, a big, honkin' iMac, 3 older retired macs in the basement that date as far back as 1991 (and they still work-more for nostalgia's sake "Oooh, that II-ci kicks butt with a whopping 40 MB hard drive and 32 MB of RAM" Amazing that I was running Photoshop and Quark Xpress on it and doing quite impressive work, if I do say so). I work on a Mac Pro tower at work, and it's a pleasure to use.

Today, with the introduction of the iPad, each share is worth 207.78.
If I'd have bought that initial 1000 bucks worth of stock, it would be worth $118,850.16 today.

AND, if I'd been just a bit braver, and taken out a loan for 5k I'd have started with 714 shares of stock, and would now have stock worth over half a million ($593,419.68). Crap, I could be working part time doing something less stressful and using the dividend checks to help supplement my income.

Good story on the 'Decade of Jobs' here:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/04/technology/steve_jobs_ceo_decade.fortune/index.htm

I'd work on creating an ass-kicking machine right now, but someone's beaten me to that, too...

First post in almost 4 years. Class Reunion upon me. Where does the time go?

Been busy with life for awhile. The following is a quick, 8 minute stream of conscience outpouring of...I don't know what. I should do this more often.

I'm one week away from my 30th high school reunion. I only live a couple of hours away, and strangely I'm on the reunion committee. Telecommuting. The wave of the plugged-in. The other 8-10 people on the committee have been meeting for months, I get the email updates, and even skyped in on one meeting.

Ain't the same as being there. I'm looking forward to finally shaking hands and giving bear hugs to these people - most of whom I've known since I was 5 or 6 years old.

That's what happens with small towns, and small town reunions. Even though we may have been apart for the last 30 years, we're attached at the hip. One guy on the committee was born the day before me in the same hospital. We've known each other since birth. We were in scouts together, roommates in college, even (god forbid) had an entaglement with the law together when we were dumbass teenagers. I was a groomsman in his wedding, and then life intervened and we haven't laid eyes on each other since around 1985. I will enjoy seeing him again.

I could write a paragraph like that about a couple dozen people, MOST who will be there next weekend. Late weekend nights, midnight movies, pranks, FM radio, cruising, concerts, more pranks, water towers, camping, outdoor adventures, life, loves, crushes, heartache, fights, the list goes on.

A few of us aren't around anymore. Disease, accidents, Stuff happens. Denis Leary said "Life's not fair, get a helmet." and it's true. We get a lump in our throats, we think back on "I remember when he/she did so-and-so in Ms. So-in-so's class..." We thought we were invulnerable. We see ourselves at 49-47 years old at this brief moment in time and hopefully, as I do, think "NO F#%ING WAY! I still feel....at least....in my 30s...?...please?" But all of us with kids, husbands and wives, partners, mortgages, debt, businesses, careers, these tough times, how the hell do we stay sane? God, what a knife edge. It helps when you love and respect your spouse/partner/children, and it's returned. That's the strength that can get you through the hard times. AND the ability to laugh. Never stop laughing, folks. That's when you really start to age.

It's interesting, at these reunions, to see who acts their age, and who still acts their heart. I've always acted my heart, and maybe that's why, at the 25th reunion, I was in the middle of a group of classmates trying to tie firecrackers to balloons using a cigarette fuse, and seeing how far we could get them to float over the Country Club before exploding. Other folks looked at us like we were crazy.

I hope someone brings firecrackers this year.

Damn Useless Pieces of Plastic

Damn kids and their Legos.

I've just stepped, for the 1069th time, on a damn four-pegger lego piece that one of the cats has kidnapped out of the kid's room and played hockey down the hall with.

You walk down the hall in the dark night hours and feel the stab of some small piece of plastic-ass bullshit driving into the soft meat of your arch--and you immediatly pull your foot up wondering if you've stepped on some piece of cat vomit/cat shit/rusty nail, or one of the young buck's play things.

I usually have a 50% success rate of it being one of the kid's pieces of plastic bullshit. The other half of the time I end up with my foot in the hall bathroom sink washing something foul from between my toes.

This evening it was another Lego piece. The night before it was an Anakin Skywalker (Volcano Damage Version--Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith) that caused me to jump 3 feet into the air.

It takes at least 30 minutes to clean out the hall bathroom's bathtub when guests show up, as it houses a cornucopia of 'action figures' and their various accessories. The kid is 2 degrees past spoiled.

I blame his grandparents. Between my family and my wife's there was one family unit separation, which has resulted in, at the end of the day, 3 grandmothers for this kid. And the kid's the ONLY grandchild between the three blended families. My sis never had kids, nor did my wife's brother. He's the SOLE LONE GRANDCHILD. And you know how Grandmothers are, and you know how Aunts can be, too (my sister). Kid's spoiled more than a gallon of milk with last week's date.

This kid's nickname is "The Boy King" - He wants for nothing.

His Kingdom is the damn bathtub.

He knows not what toys he owns, as they number the thousands.

I was lucky to have a single GI Joe, a Major Matt Mason, and a half-dozen Hot Wheels.

But still, growing up has its advantages.
Bourbon.

The Rumble of the Ages

Halloween's over.

My eight year old son made the big candy haul last night, whoofed down a few chocolate nuggets of some tooth-decaying matter, and crashed like a big dog around 8:15.

I remember well acting the same way 36 years ago, and it got me thinking about the 'memories of youth' that are framed in golden-hued nostalgia that probably isn't real, but that's the difference between memories and film.

The place:
My old home town- Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

The memory:
1973. There I was, age 12, exiting the 50 year-old Joy Theater after a Saturday matinee movie.

The Rat Palace, we called it, where fifty cents would gain you admittance to the latest badly dubbed Godzilla flick or Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.

Where your feet stuck to the seldom-cleaned floor; sticky with the Sprite of Ages- and the popcorn was the only fresh thing you could depend on for a cinematic munchy.

Where the padlocked door on the right side of the main entrance was a vague reminder of a time when it was the only portal the black folks of this town had for gaining entry to the theater. The doorway led to a separate stairway that offered them seating in the balcony of the theater.

But that was six years earlier and now I'm twelve, everyone uses the same set of doors no matter what color they are, and we're going to the theater without a parental watchdog (those were the safe days). Just my friends and I, our feet raised up on the seat backs in front of us, throwing Milk Duds at the screen until Mac, the big, tall, gruff manager, made his rounds and slapped our feet down. Mac's office, just to the right of the lobby, had a huge, stuffed albatrose that hung from the ceiling. It was pretty damn creepy.

After the movies would end we’d wait across the street where the Southern Railroad Line ran straight through the middle of town. The National Guard Armory had a monument set up there-a small cannon from World War II. I have no idea of the caliber. It was large in my preteen eyes. It was mounted on a big concrete platform with chains around it. Of course the chains never stopped us. We’d climb around on it and play GI Joe, feigning gunshot wounds to the chest and legs and throwing ourselves off the cannon’s base onto the ground.

Playtime stopped at the sound of an approaching train.
Quick! Get you pennies out! Hurry!

We’d place our remaining coins on the rails and then lie on the ground some five or six feet away from the track. We’d focus on the location of our coins and wait.

The rumble and crunch of the approaching locomotive would shake our prone bodies and the always-excitable minds housed in our small skulls would race with thoughts of the train jumping the tracks if it didn’t hit the pennies just so. The freight whistle would blast loud enough to make us squint our eyes shut and grip the grassy bank with tight fists as the train thundered ever closer.

A hundred feet, twenty, then with a deafening roar and thunderous shake it would pass us, and we’d catch a brief glimpse of our coins flying hither and yon.

After a mile of boxcars and the caboose passed we’d rush up and search the gravel between the rails for our coins. Sometimes we’d not find a single one and then there were times when one of us would raise our hand in triumph.
“I FOUND ONE! IT’S MINE! I KNOW IT’S MINE!”

We’d all gather round and examine it as if it were found treasure from an uncharted island. No longer resembling a penny, it was now an inch and a half-long ellipse of smooth copper, slightly curved like a crescent.

The brotherhood would then be broken up by one of the mothers showing up to shuttle us back to our homes.

The trains still run through the middle of my hometown. The cannon is now gone, and the old Joy Theater has at times been an evangelical church, and most recently refurbished as the new Little Theater for our local thespians. And as sure as the tracks still carry the thundering trains of my youth through the middle of that small town, there’s still roughly a buck fifty in stretched-out pennies lying amidst the gravel of the early 70s.

Death of our Culture. Or, Shopping at WallyWorld

The mosquitoes had been pretty bad this year.
Big ones that actually cast a shadow upon you before they strike.
I’d spent Saturday trimming the shrubbery around the house with the hand clippers, and I wanted to enjoy a nice early fall evening on my back deck, playing a little music, but the little blood sucking vampires wouldn’t leave me alone. They zoned in on me with deadly blood-sensing accuracy and I was nearly eaten alive.

I figured I needed some of those stinky green mosquito coils—the ones that look like the burner eye on your grandma’s stove. The local grocery store didn’t have any, so I was forced to make the 17-mile drive into Asheville, NC. My destination—the place where you can find anything you want—the new Super Wal-Mart. And this trip taught me something that still makes me shake my head in disgust:

The Saturday night highlight in Asheville is not the Mall, not one of the blues/alternative/folk bars and nightclubs, not one of our cool, trendy restaurants. It’s the Super Wal-Mart.

Man, this place was rockin’.
The parking lot was packed. I spent more time in the queue at the stoplight leading into the parking lot than I did getting into the Paul Simon concert down in Charlotte North Carolina during the summer of ’92.

Hell, if this place wasn’t doing business 24 hours a day there would be people tailgating with boom boxes and grilled chicken just waiting for the store to open on Saturday mornings.

I bounded in to get the mosquito coils, fueled by the anxious rush of adrenalin at watching their fumigated little parasitic bodies falling towards ground zero. Hit-Hard, run fast is my shopping motto.

Immediately, the shopping center’s gravity pulled me in further. Whoa. Look at the four aisles of snacks—Geeze! Macadamia Nuts! Guacamole Doritos! I grabbed one of each.

The Tim Allen gleam hit my eye when I passed the saws, drills, shelves, screws, nails, nuts, bolts, brackets, sockets, sledge hammers, hand axes, extension cords, ceiling fans. But I was strong. I kept to my course. Kill The Mosquitoes.

Finally I made it to the camping/outdoor equipment section. Two big guys are standing in front of the mosquito coils discussing which type of aerosol bug repellent smelled sweatiest, so to kill a few minutes I bounced over a couple of rows and I struck oil.
Motor oil, that is.

Well, I’d been telling myself to change the oil for the last few weeks and by golly, when that spur of the moment bug hits ya….

So at this point I was carrying around five quarts of oil, an oil filter, a bottle of slick 50, the nuts and Doritos, and I was trying, for the love of Pete, to balance it on top of an air filter that I picked up as another spur of the moment non-decision.

This proved to be very tricky. I didn’t get a cart or basket at the front of the store because I only thought I was picking up a 4.4 ounce package of noxious mosquito coils.
Now I had six pounds of little boxes and containers doing a Weeble impersonation on an air filter stage and—Whoa! I saw all the videos on sale. I’m a sucker for a bargain video, let’s see…buns of steel, thighmaster, Jessica Simpson’s workout video, Jane Fonda’s, Donald Sutherland’s—Oh— that was a copy of Klute.

I scanned the rack hoping to find a Monty Python comedy or an old sci-fi movie. This guy with bad breath stood beside me slowly chanting to no one: “Lethal…Weapon…3, Lethal…Weapon…3, Lethal…Weapon…3.” His wife comes up the aisle holding a copy of Thelma & Louise.
“You’ve already got that, you id-jeet!” he snipped.
“No I Ain’t.” she sassed back.
“I was right thar when your sister gave it to ya at the barbecue two months ago!
“That was Milo & Otis Mr. smart mouth!” she said. I moved on and kept browsing. Not only were they smelly and crass, but they were looking for bad-to-OK movies that were 15 years old.

A minute later I was out of the electronics department with a $5.98 copy of “Tin Cup.”

I made a mental count of my merchandise as I closed in on the checkout quadrant. two, three, four…eleven items! I headed for the express line. Two people in front of me, not bad. I figured I’d be out of there in three minutes.

I scanned the last minute, spur-of-the-moment rack. Shoelaces, double A Batteries, horoscope mini-books, Bicycle playing cards…

The clerk called in for a price check on the person in front of me, my second biggest shopping pet peeve. I’m starting to get hungry. I guess all that hedge trimming I’d done that afternoon was catching up with me and my blood sugar had dropped. I gaze back to the rack: Blank cassettes, Lip Balm, twin packs of disposable razors-hey that’s not a bad looking flashlight. Hmmm. What’s this? Yu-Gi-Oh toothpaste—Oh No! The Lady In Front Of Me Is Writing A Check In The Express Line!! Agggggh! If only crucifixion was back in style. And what kills me about check writers is that they have all this time to ‘pre-fill-out’ the darn thing. You KNOW what store you’re in, You KNOW the date, and You KNOW how to sign your name. All that should be done and you should just be waiting on the total to fill in. I send her death rays with my eyes.

Man, I was hungry. I was starting to feel weak. And as luck would have it the candy bars are on the next isle.

So I jumped over to the next line, which had just opened, grabbed a Snickers bar (they satisfy!) and I got through faster. Looking over to the check-writing lady, with an evil glint in my eye, I whipped out my debit card, slide it, slam it, bang it, and I’m out of there.

Ah the excitement of a Saturday night. I headed for home with a smile on my face. Then about a hundred feet from my drive I suddenly remembered the damn Mosquito coils…the ones I never picked up.

They make things for times like these. It’s called bourbon.

Music on the Airwaves blows

I'm talking Binford Leaf Blower. Lots of horsepower.
I've had enough of the oldies that play the 'safe' 269 focus-group approved songs ad-nauseum. Feel-good oldies, lite oldies, flacid rock, classic rock (If you're under 25 did you know The Who actually wrote more songs than 'Won't Get Fooled Again' and 'Baba O'Riley'? And no, there's not a song called 'Teenage Wasteland.') And any station playing new, current music plays the worst corporate candy schlock with a shelf life shorter than my ADHD son's attention span while doing his math homework.

Here in my hometown we finally got a new station that promised the best new music of the 90s and the 00s. And for about a week it was really good. Coldplay, Keane, Dave Matthews, etc., but soon I realized they were going to keep a revolving list of about 200 songs and play them over and over and over. Got stale like a 2 liter coke with the lid left off all night. So screw them.

But there is hope, the podcast music available here, Sirrus and XM satellite radio (over a hundred commercial free stations), and internet radio stations. The latter of which I'm a big fan. The deal? Nothing's free anymore and you get what you pay for. I gotta pay for my internet connection so why not enjoy the music available there? I hope the commercial stations all get run over by a bus and taste their own blood. Indie stations get bought up and force fed playlists that bears little resmeblance to my musical thirst.

But Looovvvve that internet radio. 3WK Underground, Live 365 Radio, Aural Moon, and Radio Paradise. Radioparadise.com gets me through my day. I've been turned onto so many new (and old) groups I never knew existed. What a mix, and I love that even familiar artists get played, but it's usually not the standard 'classic cuts' you've heard until your ears bleed. For example, here's a list of stuff I heard today:

Beck - Broken Drum (Boards of Canada Remix)
Van Morrison - The Way Young Lovers Do
Anna Ternheim - To Be Gone
Santana - Incident At Neshabur
The BoDeans - Fadeaway
16 Horsepower - Cinder Alley
The Wailin' Jennys - Take it Down
Colin Hay - Beautiful World
Matson Belle - Float
Devlins - Strangest Things
Concrete Blonde - Mexican Moon
Toots & The Maytals - Pomp & Pride
G. Love & Special Sauce - Honor and Harmony
Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
Jem - Finally Woken
Smashing Pumpkins - Crush
Beth Orton - Anywhere (Two Lone Swordsman Remix)

Give'em a try if you haven't already. And support them!

I leave you now with the prophetic lyrics of an old King Crimson song, from the Starless and Bible Black album. Sums up the death of the creative artist and the rise of commercial radio.

Lament

(Fripp, Wetton, Palmer-James)

I guess I tried to show you how
I'd take the crowd with my guitar
And business men would clap their hands
And clip another fat cigar
And publishers would spread the news
And print my music far and wide
And all the kids who played the blues
Would learn my licks with a bottle neck slide

But now it seems the bubble's burst
Although you know there was a time
When love songs gathered in my head
With poetry in every line
And strong men strove to hold the doors
While with my friends I passed the age
When people stomped on dirty floors
Before I trod the rock'n'roll stage

I'll thank the man who's on the 'phone
And if he has the time to spend
The problem I'll explain once more
And indicate a sum to lend
That ten percent is now a joke
Maybe thirty, even thirty-five
I'll say my daddy's had a stroke
He'd have one now, if he only was alive

I like the way you look at me
You're laughing too down there inside
I took my chance and you took yours
You crewed my ship, we missed the tide
I like the way the music goes
There's a few good guys who can play it right
I like the way it moves my toes
Just say when you want to go and dance all night...

Cheese Whiz, Have I been asleep?

OK, I'll admit. I don't know what I'm doing. Been hearing about blogs, followed other peoples links to specific blog entries for a couple of years, but never thought about starting one of these rat bastige things. So, consider this my 'under construction' post until I can find my rear with both hands and a flashlight.

I don't want to just use this as a place to complain about the stuff that drives me nuts, but ranting on about life's curveballs is one of the things that makes me feel good. I'd like for this to be free and creative and all over the map (as I am in my carbon-based life form). I might raise cain at the gas prices, considering my hometown has tied for third-highest prices in the United States (behind Hawaii and Washington DC), but not today.

Tune in again soon, and I hope to have something to talk about...or at least I may have learned a bit about navigating around this corksucker.