New Photo Album. Drawn mainly from pictures that have been sitting inside various cameras waiting for their rolls to be filled up. Mostly road pictures from July’s Nashville trip and May’s Dallas trip.
Isn’t this a swell picture of Nica? She’s all orange now. It works.
 |
Tonight I discovered the joys of Turner Classic Movies. I watched most of “Witness for the Prosecution” (still on a Billy Wilder kick I guess) and it was great. Plus I dug up an interview with Gregory Peck that’s just beautiful. I need to go get “To Kill a Mockingbird” on DVD.
Last weekend I played a dive called Ultrashock in Levy with my friend Thelton’s band Jacobin Club. The band played from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. I had to drink a tall cup of EZ Mart coffee to stay awake. Luckily I only played two of the four sets, since they just needed someone to fill in on the songs that required the extra guitar. Their main guitarist recently departed, leaving them only with Andy, who is a keyboardist first and a guitarist second. The venue was…downtrodden. I knew I was in for a fun night when I saw that the soundman had a handgun and Pantera CD on his deck. But it wasn’t as bad as, say, Patrick Swayze’s Road House. But then, what venue can ever aspire to that level of skank? I forget if it was Tom Servo or Crow who was so fond of the line “I’m gonna make you my main Saturday night thing,” but it was my Saturday and Friday night thing last weekend.
Free mix CD to the first person who can tell me to what “Jacobin Club” refers AND tell me the name of the titular road house in which Patrick Swayze was employed. Without looking it up on the Net.
Evidently I’m subconsciously trying to emulate Doyle Bramhall II.
 |
 |
Should I shave the mini-goatee/"soul patch"?
The world needs more pictures of Heather.
Sheesh – where the hell have I been??
Last night I had a blast from the past as one of my oldest friends, Carl Hinrichs, came over to the house. Turns out he’s been living in Little Rock for 3 months on assignment from his company in Tampa, and he leaves tomorrow. Natch. He only recently thought to dig up my website to see if I lived in LR. It was great to see he’s changed very little – not only does he look the same but he’s been buying up GI Joe figures on ebay and is close to a comprehensive collection. Glad to know I’m not the only person that refuses to be a grown-up.
Tuesday I rehearsed with my friend Thelton’s band – I’m going to fill in with them for a couple of sets Friday and Saturday night this weekend. We’re playing from 11-3 or some ungodly approximation of that. I hope I can hack it.
Monday Superflux was audtioning bass players. We tried out this jazz chick named Natalie, who’s a fantastic player. Not to mention cute as twenty buttons. She’s got my vote, although her competition is my friend Jeff…so for me either choice is a win-win deal.
Over the weekend I went to Memphis, starting Thursday night to catch my man Ross Rice. Then Friday and Saturday I went to various music stores and bookstores with Jo. We went to nifty junk shop that was just a catacomb of 20th century artifacts. I also found Xanadu – a store consisting mainly of books and guitars. Two of my favorite things! Later that day I stumbled upon a 99-cent CD sale and went to work buying multiple copies of CDs I already own. Chief among them being World Partys Egyptology. I bought 5 or 6 of those – some with the “Best of” bonus disc. Rock on. At a cool bookstore/coffeshop on Madison I bought a Son of Fletch hardcover, a Steven Soderbergh book, and a Stephen King paperback collection that features the stories that became the major motion pictures Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption, and Apt Pupil. There’s also a great place called Bookstar that’s basically a Barnes and Noble inside a converted movie theater. And no trip to Memphis would be complete without stopping by Shangri-La at least twice.
Also over the weekend, Roy moved off to Memphis. I hauled some of his stuff with me to Thursday and helped him move in a bit on Friday. There are still a few odds and ends to pick up, but I’m officially roommate-free. So if you know anybody looking for a roommate, let me know. I’m not going to actively search for one, though. I’m going to go solo for awhile. Trey and I are still sorta looking at houses…
A new-old Two-Bit Opinion. I dug up an old column I wrote for the Hendrix paper back in the day. I found it not altogether cringe-inducing and even somewhat informative for today’s times.
And I finally got off my butt and wrote some articles for Little Rock Guitar dot com.
For several months now I’ve been contemplating a roadtrip vacation to Wyoming and California. Initially the idea was to meet up with my old chum Heather Cox (the first in a collectible series of Heathers I know) in Wyoming and then we would drive to San Francisco. Lately I’ve been getting the feeling that Californy is the place I oughta be. In the last 4 months, I know three people who’ve moved there. Plus the Bay Area is home to some of my most favorite musicians: Jellyfish, Michael Manring, Joe Satriani, Geoff Tyson, Primus, Faith No More, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Tower of Power, even Huey Lewis and the News. So I’ve always wanted to see it.
But then Heather said she couldn’t afford it. And then DeLaine said she couldn’t be my co-pilot. And my car, well, I just don’t trust it lately. It’s plotting something. I can feel it.
Check out this postcard from Heather and dig her wicked handwriting. Font-makers take note.
Since Amy and Heath talk about the various exploits of their cats, I feel it necessary to relate to you that my cats are completely retarded. Billie for whatever reason is unwilling to lap water with her tongue – she digs water out with her paw and laps it from there. She makes a terrific mess at it. Stinkfoot is basically a dog; thoroughly without grace or elegance, he gets so excited when I give him some tuna that he eats too quickly and two times out of five he barfs it back up. I have to pull him away for bit to let the tuna digest. The dork. He’s also endlessly fascinated by shadows and plumbing.
So I have one cat who has a drinking problem and another who’s bulimic. What kind of parent will I ever hope to be?
With the deficit at a record high and set to only get higher, I have to ask, is there some fundamental division between Republican and Democrat economics such that Republicans like to borrow money and Democrats like to tax? Which method works better? Isn’t it kind of like buying stuff with a credit card versus making yourself work harder for more money? When the US borrows billions, from whom are we borrowing and what are the interest rates?
And if we’re going to finance a $48 billion-a-year war, shouldn’t we tax the populace more? I think that would make us far less likely to support the war effort. We can tolerate our troops being in danger but if we had to pay for them to go, I think we’d be much more reticent to get involved. Death we can handle, it’s taxes we really seem to have a problem with.
Our deficit for this last fiscal year stands at 455 billion. Divide that by our population of 291 million and it would mean that each of us would have to pay $1,563.00 in tax to pay it off. Ouch. And that’s just the deficit, so add that to your regular annual taxes.
“The new generation really needs to reach out for romance, because we’re spending too much time in front of screens and radiation and lights and blips and blurbs. We need romance and flowers and wind.”
– Matt Drudge
Amen, brother (I say as I stare blankly at my screen). This quote came from a great article on him by my Camille Paglia in Radar Magazine. I can’t recommend enough that everyone in the world read more Paglia. She’s a genius.
Though we may be a country of plenty, there are still those who live without the bounty we enjoy every day. Sadder still, those most in need are those who actively refuse the assistance that they so desperately require. This man for example. I ask you, brethren, is there one among us who is in need of good porn more than this man? We can only pray that he seeks help soon.
In other news, informative commentary from Amy on last weekend’s Pointed Stick/Domesticat annual summit. Pics from the Cajun’s show here and forthcoming from Amy. That show marked the professional debut of the new OLP guitar. It sounded OK. Everything sounded much better since I reset all the patches on the POD. And whaddya know, there’s an article on the Line6 site (POD’s maker) about Evanescence. Aren’t they just everywhere? It’s so weird to see Ben Moody and Amy Lee in places like that – seems like just the other day John Lee was in the music store telling us about his daughter’s new record…
This is the greatest resource for designers. And it’s such a simple idea – just slide the colors around until you see a combination you like. I’m smacking myself in the forehead for not thinking of something like this. Pure genius.