Category: Life

The details of my road trip plan mentioned below are to venture forth to these destinations and persons west:

Dallas: Owenses, Odegards, Allison/Rodney
Austin: Rixes
Dalhart: To witness and photograph John Todd Drive, named for my grandfather
San Diego: Meredith
Los Angeles: David, Mary, Nikki, Erin
San Francisco: Erika, Amy
Seattle: Matthewses, Eberts
UPDATE: Roslyn, Washington – aka Cicely, Alaska from TV’s Northern Exposure
Salt Lake City: Matt, Zoe
Laramie, WY: Heather
Oklahoma City: Harrelsons
Kansas City: Kevin, Michelle
St. Louis: Durhams
Blytheville: Molly
Memphis: Chris, Christy and newborn Colter

And then back to Little Rock. On the way out east I’ll probably stop in Memphis a bit, then:

Nashville: Shelley, Glen, Bryan (he may still be on tour with Steve Vai, though!)
Huntsville: Amy/Jeff
Logansport, Indiana: Jamie
Pittsburgh: Nikki
Roanoke: Trina
Washington, D.C.: Tracy

So there you have it. It will all most likely take a month or so if I can afford a leisurely pace.

The trouble with having an eventful space of time in your life is that you’re generally too wrapped up in it to stop and write about it.

Weekend before last I went down to Flora-bama with my mom, sister, brother and their kids. A full day of driving, there and back. Two actual days for me of vacation. During that time, I had the opportunity to talk with my family about…where I am.

Ever since October I’ve been debating the relative merits of moving to New York. I’ve always thought about moving to a major city. The primary impediments were: no network of friends, no money to make the shift, and a reluctance to give up what I have here. Over the last 10 months, each barrier has been slowly peeled away. In October I fell in with a bunch of musicians and made new friends. In February my grandfather passed away, leaving each of us kids a tidy sum of money. And June brings my brother’s divorce and the sale of his house, meaning that he can take over my mortgage and I don’t necessarily have to sell my house, plus I can store my stuff in the garage. I have the option to take it back. In addition, I told my boss about all this last week and he said the door would always be open if I wanted to return. So now I have a substantial safety net, and no reason not to try.

So I’m going. As soon as my office can find and train my replacement.

I’ll delay my actual departure for a few weeks to take a road trip out west, before packing up a few basics and taking a leisurely jaunt to various destinations before landing in the city.

In other news, last weekend we had a yard sale at Heather’s on Saturday, and I went up to Harrison to see my friends Tiffany and Jessie, who were in town from Rhode Island. Pictures here on Flickr.

I’ve been a subscriber to Guitar One since 2000 or 2001. I always appreciated its dedication to lessons and learning, where Guitar World is more of a rock rag aimed at guitarists, and Guitar Player until recently skewed toward an older demographic. Guitar One in many ways took the place of my favorite magazine, Guitar (formerly Guitar for the Practicing Musician, which died around 1997). And so now Guitar One is dead. I learned this when I received a copy of Guitar World in the mail. The second page insert informed me of the demise of my preferred magazine, and that the two magazines, owned by the same publisher, have been fused to some degree.

But it’s just not the same, and now I have a subscription through November 2008 to the crappiest guitar magazine in the world. This is a rag that regularly hosts beer chugging contests between its staff and famous guitarists. This is a magazine that I subscribed to up until 1993 when Frank Zappa died, and they put Dimebag Darrell on the cover. Dime’s cover article featured a list of his tour-bus supplies in which he listed “acid – for long bus trips.” That so incensed me that I tore off the cover.

Granted, I was 17 and prone to melodrama. Now I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’ll probably test drive a few issues. There’s an offer for a refund, so maybe I’ll look into that.

Last weekend, Katherine and I went exploring in northern Arkansas in search of a town called Welcome Home. We found it southwest of Marhsall. We took the scenic route, mostly old country roads, and we diverted from our destination often in hopes of finding other oddly named villages (like Beverage Town, which we sadly failed to decisively locate).

We goofed off in the antique stores in Leslie, ate terrible things at the Daisy Queen in Marshall, and decided against seeing a drive-in movie at the Kenda there as we had both already seen Spider-man 3. We did descend the steep hills to find the Natural Bridge of Arkansas, a roadside attraction that I have neglected to witness for 31 years now.

We also found scads of Hendrix College dorm furniture for sale at an antique mall. $50 and you can take home a set. I have to admit I really enjoyed seeing those things again. I marvel at what they’ve seen: awkward romances, drug experimentation, late-night studying, deep conversations among new friends, and surely more. Goodbye, dorm furniture. We’ll miss you as you travel on to your new lives among the rural stepchildren you’ll support and the kindling you’ll eventually become.

I’ve recently discovered that breakfast is, in fact, the least important meal of the day. I know this because after a decade of eating cereal every weekday morning, I’ve switched to just wheat toast and orange juice, and I don’t get noticeably hungrier around lunchtime. So all those bowls of cereal really weren’t accomplishing much.

Also, I’ve found that, if you’re the type of guy who showers in the morning and shaves immediately afterward, you really don’t need to use shaving cream. It’s pretty unnecessary if your shower has sufficiently cleansed and moisturized your face, and if the facial hair growth isn’t very extensive after 24 hours. After a few days’ growth, then sure, you’ll want some shaving cream. But not daily.

I’ll be saving some money now with these new bits of information. My milk intake will drop to near zero, so I’ll be sure to get the orange juice with the calcium added.

I’m tired. The last few weeks have been a lot of work. The first gigs of the new Bryan Frazier band went well. Riverfest was a lot of fun to play – the weather was perfect and the stage guys totally made me feel like a rockstar by providing me with a guitar stand and by taping down my setlist. Bryan got a good recording of the show so hopefully I can make that available to people soon.

Working Riverfest wasn’t as eventful as previous years. Pat Benetar was a diva who didn’t consort with the help. Keb Mo was laid back and cool, though. I didn’t take many pictures at all this time. On Sunday Trey and I drove up to Harrison for my grandmother’s 93rd birthday. She’s been dealing with cancer for over a year now and beating everyone’s expectations.

This morning I posted several things on Freecycle, which is something everyone needs to know about. It’s a way to get rid of things by giving them to people rather than taking them to the landfill. You post a message with what you’ve got, someone responds and they come pick it up. I got responses in less than an hour. I’m glad to finally be cleaning out the garage. It’s my first step toward the large-scale divestiture that I’ll need to consider if I’m serious about moving.

Did I say moving? Yes, I’m debating moving to New York City. Have I mentioned that? It’s been in the back of my mind since Arika encouraged me to consider it last February when I stayed with her. I’ve got a lot of friends there now, and money isn’t the obstacle it once was. The thing is, Little Rock is comfortable and I have a lot of stuff I’d have to live without were I to move.

In other news I’ve been catching up with an old high school acquaintance, Michelle Arcand, via MySpace. She’s really done well for herself creatively; she has come a long way from the girl I remember. I’m always interested in how people change over time because I still don’t feel like I’ve ever really changed since junior high.

Here are several small things hardly worth full blog entries, but that nevertheless need to be said:

• The Under the Influence of Giants show at Vino’s Tuesday was canceled. I am sad.
• I’m rediscovering Led Zeppelin’s “That’s the Way” and “Tangerine.” I listen to side 2 of Led Zeppelin 3 constantly now. As I listen to more vinyl I find myself becoming attached to sides. Like Side 3 of The Allman Brothers’ Eat a Peach.
• Bryan and our new band will debut at Sticky Fingerz next Wednesday, in preparation for our gig at Riverfest at 1:30 next Saturday at the Triple S Alarm stage.
• I was going to post a video from youtube of my friend Elizabeth playing on Conan O’Brien last week but NBC Universal already pulled it down. I swear they must pay somebody to scour youtube looking for NBC stuff. Why can’t I have that job?
• I haven’t mentioned my new friend Jody McCall. She’s a singer-songwriter guitarist/pianist. She rules.

Also, I added new products to CafePress, Mostly artwork from high school and from this book of Japanese advertising art from 1957 that I got at the Arkansas Art Center’s book sale some years ago:

• www.cafepress.com/birdface
• www.cafepress.com/suntorytoon
  
• www.cafepress.com/runestonecob
• www.cafepress.com/runestonecrab

I’m writing this here because I cannot find this particular version of it anywhere else on the web. I’ve found many, many variations on the theme, but this is the one I grew up with:

Suzy had a sailboat.
The sailboat had a bell.
Suzy went to heaven, the sailboat went to
hello operator, give me number 9.
If you disconnect me, I’ll kick you in the
Behind the ‘frigerator, there lay a piece of glass.
Suzy sat on top of it, and cut her little
Ask me no more questions, I’ll tell you no more lies.
The boys are in the girls room, playing with their
Flies are in the city, the bees are in the park.
Suzy is with her boyfriend, kissing in the dark.

I’m continually fascinated by playground rhymes and urban legends and how they change slightly from person to person, region to region. Today I was reminded of a rhyme that never made it to my school, but of which Nelly wrote his own version in “Country Grammar.” I remember hearing it in the movie Big, and was glad to find it transcribed at IMDb.com:

The space goes down, down baby, down, down the roller coaster. Sweet, sweet baby, sweet, sweet, don’t let me go. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. Shimmy, shimmy, rock. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. Shimmy, shimmy, rock. I met a girlfriend – a triscuit. She said, a triscuit – a biscuit. Ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top. Ooh, Shelly’s out, walking down the street, ten times a week. I read it. I said it. I stole my momma’s credit. I’m cool. I’m hot. Sock me in the stomach three more times.

I finally got off my duff and made some t-shirts and bumper stickers at CafePress.com. The statement is “Humble to be an American” because I’m really sick of this whole “Proud to be an American” and “Power of Pride” thing I see on bumper stickers. I’m tired of pride. It’s supposed to be a sin. Fat lot of good it’s done us thus far. I may add some more designs later about “Fighting for Responsibility,” because everyone seems to really get caught up in the idea of Fighting for Freedom but few seem to remember that freedom demands responsibility. Here’s my store address:

www.cafepress.com/humbleamerican

Buy some stuff! I only marked it up for a $1 profit. Let me know if you think I should make buttons and mugs, etc.