Ignore My Errant Facial Hair

Us at the Blue MonkeyThe 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…

Warticle

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.

Directed by Rowdy Herrington

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?

The Porn Deficit

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…

Ill Communique

I’m sick. Wednesday night as I was finishing up watching Sunset Boulevard, (another in an increasing spate of Billy Wilder movies I’ve added to my collection) I got up and felt dizzy. Some kind of loss of equilibrium. I figured maybe I’d sleep it off, but no. I woke up Thursday even worse – moving around gave me motion sickness. I got ready for work, but my stomach complained too much when I got in the car. So I went back inside, called in sick and went to bed. And slept off and on until 5:30! I think all I ate that day was Honey Combs, Ramen noodles, cookies and toast. And orange juice. I woke up today somewhat better and made it to work. If I sit still, I’m OK. Getting up and around is like being a little drunk. Turns out Steve from Superflux has the same bug, so we cancelled band rehearsal last night – thank god, because not only did that mean I didn’t have to leave the house but also that I’m not alone in my suffering and it’s less likely to be the inner ear infection I had feared. Nevertheless, I think this is going to cancel my weekend trip to Fayetteville. Bleah. Maybe if I’ve improved enough by 5….

Happy birthdays to Robin, Tracy and Arika, who all have birthdays within a span of 3 days this month. Although none of you are reading this, I love you all to pieces and I wish you all lived closer to me.

Sucka MC’s be Bitin’ my Rhymes.

Today at work I thought to myself, “I wonder if anyone has ever taken content off my company’s site and presented it as their own?” So I grabbed a pretty unique sentence of my own composition from my company’s site and plugged it into google.

Sure enough, a company in Reading, PA, not only bit my content, but basically jenked the whole shebang! This is actually somewhat exciting to me as it means that A.) I’m writing stuff worth stealing and B.) we may well lay down the smack on them. So don’t go pester them or anything.

In other news, the weekend was spent in Memphis hanging out with Chris and Heather. I plumbed the depths of Shangri-La Records and came up with Dweezil Zappa’s first record, a Chet Atkins album, a collection of Bach played on Moog synthesizers, and some classic hip-hop 45’s: Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” and Kurtis Blow’s “The Breaks.”

I also got to meet a new friend. Turns out she’s even cuter in the 3rd dimension. Sadly, we had but an hour or two together, so we could not fully consummate our tryst. Or something.

Weatherman’s Hell

The meteorological quirks of this state never cease to amaze me…5 minutes ago I went to the bathroom and the weather was all grey, rainy and Seattle-esque….when I got back, it was sunny and clear.

Last night I went for a run around the neighborhood and the world was yellow-tinted. I love that – I feel like I’m in a 70’s B-movie. The sky was an orange silk quilt of clouds. By the time I was heading home, the sun had almost set and I felt the temperature drop 10 degrees as the lightning started and the grey clouds took over.

Deep in the Heat of Texas

I spent the weekend in the scenic Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex, where the temperatures are already into three digits. I ventured south to attend my friend Sarah’s wedding, and to hang out with fellow Hendrix grad Allison D’Auteuil. Did I mention the heat?

I was rewarded for my struggle with 50 cent CDs! Wherehouse Music in Lewisville had a big used CD sale, so I merrily partook of these bargain-bin wonders:

Emmet Swimming – Wake
Josh Clayton-Felt – Inarticulate Nature Boy
The Apples in Stereo – The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone
John McLaughlin – The Promise
The Spent Poets – The Spent Poets (4 copies of this gem I bought)
World Party – Egyptology (2 copies)
Jungle Funk – Jungle Funk (featuring Living Colour rhythm section Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun)
The Soup Dragons – Hotwired
Dan Reed Network – The Heat
Baby Animals – Shaved and Dangerous
Girl Bros. – Girl Bros. (Wendy and Lisa from Prince’s Revolution)
Tackhead – Strange Things
*at this point the entire stack just fell off my desk…fuck!*

Oh, but the joys don’t end there…shortly after that I found my way to Half Price Books, where I picked up the following:

The Crystal Method – Vegas (for $4, I’ll mail it to Tara since she said she wanted it)
Michael Hedges – Breakfast in the Field (For ONE DOLLAR – I mean, can you believe it??)
T-Ride – T-Ride (I already own it, but it’s so great and so tragically out of print)

Also got some fine books – a hardcover copy of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs, in paperback, and a hardcover copy of Jeanette Winterson’s Gut Symmetries. I feel mixed about reading English Patient after having seen the movie – all the images will be pre-formed in my head, which I’m not so sure I like. However, I do love the movie, and I can imagine few things as enjoyable as being lost in the desert with Kristin Scott Thomas, or spongebaths with Juliette
Binoche
, so…

A fine haul indeed. I almost bought Conversations with Wilder in hardcover, but a tiny voice inside my wallet said, "just stop."

Weekend in Review

What a weekend – canoeing in the rain! Driving in the rain! Shivering in shorts at Riverfest watching Nickel Creek! Sharing it all with Tara made it somewhat less painful. Plus we watched Almost Famous Saturday night and had brunch Sunday afternoon with the Morrisseys at Loca Luna. Monday DeLaine came over and we watched Hurlyburly which was really hard to watch so we stopped and watched the "Shoe Money Tonight" episode of Sports Night.