Category: general

Seldom do I have a more enjoyable few hours than I did this Sunday. The weather outside was amazing: sunny, warm, and breezy. After Keaton went down for her nap, I decided to do the same. I put on the XM “deep cuts” classic rock station and drifted of into to some perfectly temperate and breezy dreams. The Deep Cuts was on-point too, not shuffling up a bad song in the bunch. Was a little glimpse of what I hope I get to do with some of the relaxin’ time I have on my upcoming sabbatical (which, incidentally, is just a mere twenty days from today). Even better, I awoke and decide to pour a nice glass of white wine, still chilled from last night’s dinner. Ahhh….

Called my mom Friday night and offered to buy her a ticket to Hawaii with us when we go in October, asked if she’d want the free trip for the part-time responsibility of playing nanny to Keaton. The thought being that Sharaun and I could get some sneak-away time where we could do some of the less baby-friendly things we’ve been eying online: snorkeling, helicopter riding, going-out-at-night-and-getting-crunk-ing, etc. She said she’d consider it, and then called back early Saturday morning to confirm she’d be down as long as she could get the time off work. Sharaun and I are both hoping that won’t be an issue, and that she’ll be able to accompany us. I’ve held off pre-booking admission to the Old Lahaina Luau until she’s confirmed, as I think it’d be an awesome thing for us all to do.

Meanwhile, Anthony is off in Italy on his sabbatical, and that leaves all the planning for our (now abbreviated) John Muir Trail hike up to me alone. However, if you ask me, I’ve been doing a pretty bangup job. We’ll hit the trail a mere two days after Sharaun and I return from Florida, starting our journey at the more than familiar Happy Isles trailhead in beautiful Yosemite valley and ending our six day, ~110mi trek somewhere south of Lake Edison (at the Muir Trail Ranch/Camp area, for those in the know). This ends up being pretty much dead-on half of the original ~220mi Muir Trail thru-hike we’d planned to do, which I think is a good compromise considering the late planning and lack of hardcore training on both our parts. We’re still looking at some seriously rough ~20mi/2,000ft days, the worst day being the first of them all – and absolutely grueling seeming indoctrination: where we’re slated to climb a staggering 5,500ft over a scant ~14mi.

Anyway, if you can’t tell by the increased frequency with which I’ve been referencing my sabbatical plans – I’m damn ready for those two months to roll around the ol’ calendar. We can move on though, I’m capable of progress…

Lately, I’ve been having a problem with my hands. To be more specific, my fingers. I have a general “tightness” in them at the end of the day and in the morning, and every couple days I get downright an intensely painful sensation in the middle fingers on each hand – like theres a cramping the elastic “string” part that controls the flexing and bending. I am nearly 100% convinced that this finger pain is due to two things: 1) the amount of time per day I spend typing, and 2) the unnatural, ridiculous way I type. My self-taught modified hunt-and-peck method actually allows me to type at a fair clip, but it ignores the pinky fingers altogether and uses only my index, middle, and, occasionally, ring fingers. In what I’m sure is no coincidence, my middle and index fingers do 80% of the typing, and are also the ones that hurt most. I have this feeling that I should make an attempt to learn how to type correctly, or that I’ll be useless at my job, which is heavily e-mail reliant, by the time I’m forty.

Goodnight y’all.

A good Friday to you, folks. I’m not gonna do a huge exposition here, because I saved the most voluminous of my canned entries for the week for today, and it’s gonna take you 10min to read it anyway. But, before I do, please let me express my disbelief that the “Now That’s What I Call Music” compilation series is coming out with a “Now That’s What I Call Indie” comp. What is this world coming too? Here we go.

When we went camping recently, we had an interesting wilderness encounter. However, it wasn’t a bear or a bobcat we ran afoul of, but another kind of wild animal: a classic lost American youth. That’s right, a prime example of what this nation can turn out: the lost soul, the brainless, the wandering loser. Let me back up, and start from the beginning.

It was Friday night, and the camping crew, which consisted of about eight of us (and two toddlers), was busy enjoying our time away from the city. At some point in the middle of the afternoon, a pickup truck pulled into a campsite which was somewhat adjacent to the two sites we’d claimed. Almost immediately, a young kid came ambling down to our site. I happened to meet him first, “Hey, can I park me truck here?,” he asked around the cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Yeah,” I reply, “But it is a campsite, so if the ranger comes down she may make you move unless you plan on staying the night.” After exchanging a few more pleasantries, I said we could care less if he hung out, and he trudged back up to his truck. Upon returning, he cranked up some country music on his truck’s stereo, filling the immediate area with sound. I didn’t mind, as we were camped far enough away for it not to bother us, and I returned to whatever I was doing.

Soon, the kid would wander back down again, this time clutching one of those five liter mini-kegs of Coors Lite , the kind with the little tap on the side and everything. He was pouring himself a cup of beer from the thing as he again approached me. He asked, genuinely, “Hey man, that music isn’t bothering you guys, is it?” “Nah,” I said, “We have some music of our own going down where we’re cooking, so we’re OK.” “Cool,” he replied. And then, instead of leaving it at that, he continued.

“How’s it going, man?” “Fine,” I said, being friendly enough, “How about you?” “Man, I’m just sitting here drinking this warm Coors Lite. My friends left me.” “Left you?,” I ask. “Yeah, we were all gonna go rafting down the river, but at the last mine while walking down with our innertubes, mine got snagged on a blackberry bush and popped. I told those guys to go on ahead, since we’d already left a truck up where we’d get out, and that I’d wait for them here. So here I am with this beer and my dog and two trucks.” “Oh man,” I say, “That sucks.” “Yeah,” he says, alternately puffing on a cigarette and sipping from his keg-cup, “It’s kinda lonely up there with just that dog, you know.” “I bet,” I replied, not extending the offer I’m certain he was fishing for. At this point, I knew we hadn’t seen the last of of the guy – he was lonely and he’d come around again now that we’d proven friendly enough.

Turns out we wouldn’t have to wait long, as he showed up midway through the cooking of our communal dinner, the mini-keg looking a little lighter and his disposition a little looser. At this point, he began introducing himself to the campers. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Phil, but my friends all call me ‘Filthy.'” Filthy struck up drunken conversations with everyone at the campsite, regaling them with whatever stories came to mind (mostly retelling the same stories over and over, as well as re-introducing himself and forgetting our names many, many times).

Sure, I was a bit put-off by this interloper who had invaded our camping clique, but I had already judged him completely harmless, and so didn’t mind him hanging around as long as I didn’t have to talk to him too much. Anyway, he’d already told me he would be pulling up stakes as soon as his friends arrived, so I just busied myself doing this and that to keep him off me. Soon enough though, Filthy cornered me, and we began talking about things. Actually, speaking to him wasn’t that bad, I’m always interested in hearing how people talk to other people, and those with no internal “mental filter” are always intriguing. At one point, Filthy commented on how nice it was to run into friendly people out in the wilderness. I liked this, and remembered aloud the last time we’d met someone at that very campsite, another young kid who was celebrating his last night in the US before shipping off to Iraq. After telling my story, Filthy began a related one of his own:

Now, before I start bulk-quoting Filthy, I’m going to spare the blog the full brunt of Filthy’s filthy language, and replace some of his commonly used swear words (very commonly used, indeed) with kinder equivalents. I feel I can take that liberty without jeopardizing the integrity of the story, y’know.

My good buddy just got back from Iraq. He said he loved it over there, he wants to go back and kill some more of those effers, you know? He showed me this video he took over there while they were searching houses for guns. He went into this one guy’s house, and the guy was saying that there were no guns. So my buddy was like, “Don’t lie to me, mother-effer! Where are the effing guns?!”

At this point, Filthy affects a weak Mexican-esque accent, apparently his rendition of what Iraqis sound like. He continued:

The guy was all whining, saying, “No guns… no guns,” but my buddy had his crew search the house and they found all sorts of shiz like rifles and stuff. Then my friend got all in that brown-biznatch’s face and was like, “What’s this, huh you mother-effer?! What are these, aren’t these effing guns, you effing a-hole?” The dude was all whining about “Not mine! Not mine!,” but my buddy was all like, “Eff that you little mother-effer, I’m taking these outside!”

Now, I’m sure Filthy was taking some liberties with his retelling of this story, but I’m almost willing to bet money that the massive amounts of swearing were likely pretty true to the spirit of whatever he saw. Also worth noting, Filthy at this point was completely violating my personal space. As he’s telling this story, he’s crowding into my face like we’re blood relatives or lifelong friends. It’s just Filthy’s style, I guess. He went on:

Then my buddy walked the whole family outside. Where they were searching was right next to this big river, like the biggest river in effing Iraq or something, you know? And he starting throwing the guns in one by one. The Iraq biznatch starting yelling at my buddy in their effing language, and this pissed my buddy off. He gets all up in that dude’s face and is like,

At this point, Filthy is right in my face, just like “his buddy” was in the face of the Iraqi weapons-hider. He raises his voice to me to recount this part, I presume to convey the volume and power with which “his buddy” rebuked the Iraqi:

Don’t you effing abu-babu me you effing mother-effer!! I don’t want to hear any of that abu-babu shiz from you again!! You lied to me and now you’re losing your guns, you’re lucky I’m not shooting you and your whole effing abu-babu family, you effing mother-effer!!

Filthy’s adrenaline was palpable as he relived the moment he’d apparently seen on video. I, on the other hand, was disgusted by the charge he seemed to be getting while telling me his story. His cultural and racial ignorance made me sad inside, and his blind malevolence was sickening. Then, to cap it off, to put a nice bow on his story, Filthy hit me with the following:

“I would love to go over there and get some ‘paybacks,’ you know? Just eff some of those effers up, get them back for what they did to us, you know? I mean, they came over here and got us on 9/11, you know? I would just love to go over there and take some of those abu-babu’s out. You know they deserve it for what they did to us.”

I have to say, rather than act on my disgust and become preachy or try and correct Filthy’s misguided understanding of the forces behind 9/11, I just sat there and made more or less non-committal grunts and and motions – patiently waiting for the story to end. I was trying to be as un-dickish as possible while simultaneously conveying as little interest as possible, in hopes that Filthy would pick up on my lackluster attentions. For all I know, he could’ve thought I was sitting there in 100% agreement, and that I’d be right behind him in line to shoot some “effing abu-babu’s.”

Eventually, he wandered away again, back to the campsite he’d parked his truck at. Somehow, he ended up driving around in circles in the campsite area, moving his truck from this place to that place doing “burnouts,” all the while blaring music ranging from rap to country to grunge (Filthy had an eclectic taste). When Filthy came back the next time, it was to ask for a screwdriver. Seems that his five liter mini keg of Coors Lite had lost all it’s back pressure and he couldn’t quite get the last cup of warm beer out and into his belly. Wisely, we told him we had no such implement, after which he sauntered off again.

When Filthy returned, he asked If I had a lighter. Curiously enough, I did have a lighter, the one I brought to light my pipe, which I rather enjoy smoking while camping. I loaned the lighter to flilthy, wondering what in the world he was going to do with, and half worrying he was going to try and start a fire up at the campsite he was squatting. When he returned the lighter some ten minutes later, he thanked me immensely, and lowered his voice to say: “Hey man, you smoke weed?” “No,” I reply, “Not anymore… anyway… I gave that up years ago.” “Oh,” he continued, “‘Cause, that’s what I used your lighter for, to smoke some weed. I have a prescription, because I effed up my shoulder carrying rebar. I like to smoke weed when I get too drunk, it evens me out.”

I bet it does, Filthy… I bet it does. Soon enough, Filthy’s friends returned to pick him up, and he was out of our lives. I’ll never forget Filthy though; I love that kid. He embodied everything I think is awful about modern young America: opinionated, stereotyping, ignorant, and chemically altered. Meeting Filthy may not have been the highlight of the camping trip, but it certainly didn’t make it any less interesting.

I didn’t proofread this, and it’s too long to assume I made no mistakes. I also ran out of steam at the end. Too bad, that’s all I got. Goodnight.

What a week for writing, I’m like three entries deep in the black… I could put this thing on autopilot through Friday if I just put a little effort in. But, I’ll wrap some fresh stuff around each main bit each night – just because I can. Tonight, for instance, I mowed the lawn as soon as I got home from work. It must have been 102° outside, and I sweat sweat out a week’s worth of liquid pushing that mower around. Lawn looks good though, if I don’t say so myself. Let’s get this done.

Last Thursday night, Ben called me around 6pm on his way home from work. “Dave,” he said, “Are you near a computer?” “I can be,” I reply. “Well,” he says, “I just drove by Local Club X and the marquee says that Hot Hot Heat is playing there tomorrow night.” “Wow,” I say, as I pull up the webpage to verify. “Sure enough, they are gonna be there,” I confirm. “Let’s go,” says Ben. “I’ll talk to Sharaun,” I say, and we hang up. At the time, I was semi-excited – we don’t get a lot of local shows around here – but I wasn’t into the Heat’s latest record that much. However, they had rocked the house the past couple times we saw them, and I hadn’t been to a show since the Arcade Fire. Then, when the issue of babysitting was magically resolved by Kristi’s generosity, I called Ben back. In the end, we all ended up going (well, all but Kristi, the responsible babysitter among us).

It was fun being at the a tiny crowded show again, I’ve written about seeing the Heat at this venue before, and enjoy it every time. This time, I even got to chuck a chick. That’s right. There were some younger, fun-loving kids in front of us who were doing the whole 1996 slamdancing thing. Now, I can remember being young, and I did my fair share of elbowing and slamming and pushing at the Lush show back in 1993 – so I wasn’t too upset that these kids were enjoying themselves in front of me. In fact, I smiled at the fun they were having. After all, I’m the old guy here – I’m the one out of my element at these shows now, the one who stands out from the pierced crowd as the “straight.” I remember seeing the me in the press at shows when I was young, wondering what the “geezer” was doing just standing around not-enjoying himself on the edges of the pit. “Why would that punk even come out on the floor,” I wondered. Never once did I consider that he, himself, may once have been young – and, although he’s aged past his slamdancing prime, may enjoy a good spot in front of the stage.

Now, back to the story, one of my favorite things to do a concerts is play “pillar.” This is where I stand rooted to the floor amidst the pressing masses, an unmovable column of human body that resists all pushing and crowding and forging ahead. I hate those people who, when the band plays their “radio song,” feel the sudden urge to push their way forcefully to the front of the floor, assuming all those before them will yield. Not me; not the “pillar.” I stand my ground despite gentle hand-on-shoulder urging or rough sidling – I’m not moving. Anyway, there I was at the Hot Hot Heat show, playing pillar while these kids began to bounce off me and jump into me and stuff. Soon, I couldn’t resist holding out my elbows as pointy hazards, just for the fun of watching these kids slam into them. Kind of like that game you play with your brother when you’re a kid. You know, the one where you spin your arms around in huge circles and blame him for walking into your whirling clenched fists…

A short time later, I began to reciprocate some of the shoving – and found that I really enjoyed it. Eventually, I was full on shoving with all my might and loving it. The slamdancing kids seemed to enjoy it too – the old guy getting into the show, overcome with the spirit of Woodstock ’95 or some such rock ‘n’ roll spiritualism. For me, though, this was more a loosely-veiled way of getting these kids to back off a bit. They were stepping on my toes and bumping into Sharaun, and I was growing tired of their jostling. Soon enough, I, as I often do, got a little carried away, and was doing some downright tossing of kids.

I can remember when Sharaun finally wrapped her arms around mine in a bearhug as a subtle message to stop: It was right after I had literally chucked a slamdancing chick a few feet forward, ultimately sending her sprawling to the floor. Then, when her slamdancing partner went to scoop her up, I pushed him right down on top of her into a tangled mass. Honestly, I loved every minute of it, and, I kept a stupid smile on my face the whole time because, somehow, I thought that might keep things from turning into a fight.

It was a great show. Thanks Ben for finding it. Thanks Kristi for watching Keaton. And, thanks moshing kids for reminding me how fun it can be to shove people.

Goodnight.

Wow, I only wrote on thirteen out of the twenty-one normally-writeable-on days this month. That’s likely my worst blogging ratio on a month in quite some time. Vacation and family in town’ll do that to a blogger, though, I suppose. I ask no forgiveness. That’s just what I do. Deal.

Last night I decided to randomly make some banana bread after cleaning up the kitchen post-dinner (I love baking, for some reason), and then decided not to write at all. That’s just what I do. Deal.

Now I’m sitting here thinking about work, and how I don’t want to go there tomorrow.

I do that often, actually (if I may write a sentence or two off-topic): I think about work a lot. Actually, I think about everything a lot – I pretty much over-think nearly everything I think about. Not like some sort of paranoid obsessive thinking, just thinking things through from multiple angles. In the case of my over-thinking approach to work, I’m convinced this is part of the reason I’m successful at the sawmill. It may sound conceited, but I feel like my morning-shower, on-the-john, driving-to-work, drifting-off-to-sleep mind-wandering about all things career helps me turn over rocks I otherwise would miss. Yeah, OK, let’s get it on.

Lately, Keaton’s got this new thing she does which kinda unnerves me. We’ll be playing around on the floor: me propped up against the little half-wall in our living room and her climbing all over me like I’m a jungle gym. She looks me in the eye, cocks her head a bit and move in closer – her gaze fixed on my nose. As she moves in closer still, I can see her eyes locked onto my nostrils as she raises her hand to point. Slowly, as if she’s doing something with terrible gravity, she stretches her finger to my face, touching my nostril and saying “Uhhhh-gooooo” with such a pained look of concern on her her face it makes me wonder if there aren’t worms crawling out of my nose. Her little face looks like she saying, “Oh Lord, dad… there is… really something wrong with your nose.” Can make a guy self conscious, y’know?

This past weekend Sharaun and I attended a wedding. I’m a total homo for weddings, a complete pussy for ’em. It’s hard for me not to get all choked up when I see fathers’ “giving away” their daughters (I felt that way long before Keaton) or sweet little flower girls doubtfully poking their way down the aisle. But the clincher is always the public proclamation of raw human emotion (or, at least, the proffering of such). I get drawn in by all the sincerity and weight of the whole affair, and almost always find myself having to redirect my wandering mind to somewhere else so I don’t end up in tears. But, I like weddings.

Before I go, Ben says this guy looks like me. Does this guy look like me? Goodnight.

Good evening friends. Gonna talk mostly music today, sorry if that’s not your bag.

But, before all that… Recently, I mentioned that the epic hike Anthony and I had planned for our coincident sabbaticals (sabbatici?) was “off.” Turns out, Anthony has turned around his poor luck and our hike is now officially back “on.” Unfortunately, however, we’ve had to reduce the planned itinerary due to a more limited span of overlapping available time betwixt us. Fortunately, though, we still get to do it. The current plan involves trekking only half the originally planned route, meaning about a week-solid on the trail instead of fourteen days.

Tonight, after mowing the lawn, edging the lawn, and blowing off the sidewalk, I came inside and did some hardcore music research – the likes of which I’ve not done in quite a while. Inspired by this super-interesting (to me, at least) article I stumbled on the other day, which alleges that much of Jimmy Page’s prodigious musical output was either pilfered or recycled, I decided I didn’t know quite enough about that part of the Beck/Page/Clapton lineage.

So, while at work I queued up Jeff Beck’s Truth to jog my memory, and when I got home I hit the end-all-be-all of music knowledge, allmusic.com, to attempt to figured out what Yardbirds albums I should own but didn’t. Then, list in-hand, I headed off to my favorite legitimate music download site (hahahah!) and began the deluge of bits. In the end, I grabbed the the entire Yardbirds discography, as well as a boxset, and some live and rare material. Tomorrow at work the music in my headphones will be more than a soundtrack to multitask by, it will be an education.

New tunes have their burden tho, friends… as I once again I find myself wanting a new iPod to hold everything I have. Woe to me…

Hey, speaking of mowing the lawn and music, let’s use those things as a nice segue into some reminiscing, shall we? OK!

Today, I decided to change up my normal routine of iPod on random while cutting the grass and instead put on Wishbone Ash’s 1972 classic, Argus. I freaking love that album, it somehow manages to combine the best “eerie” aspects of early Black Sabbath, the crunch of Led Zeppelin, and the progish melodies of Yes. I absolutely love that album. Interestingly enough, I only “discovered” Argus a mere ten-ish years ago. (Cue tinkly chime things and warbly-wavy video cut).

It was way back when I worked at Omni Records & Tapes in Merritt Island, Florida. Man, I loved that job. I was an “assistant manager,” which was a BS title that meant I got paid slightly more than minimum wage for the additional work of dealing with unruly customers, staying late to count the dosh and do the books, and getting the alarm code and a set of keys to the store. Even still, it was my dream job. A music freak employed in a music store, treading up and down the aisles, making recommendations, surprising the “old folk” with his knowledge, etc. Plus, I got to buy CDs at a dollar over wholesale, and I had access to almost any “import” I wanted. I swear I spent a full 50% of my paycheck right back into that store. The owner must’ve loved me, I basically worked for CDs.

Anyway, I worked there with a fellow by the name of Bob. Bob was a “true” manager, sitting one rung above my mere “assistantship” in the record store pecking order. Bob and I were fast friends from the start, sharing a common love of good music, beautiful women, and computers (my word, how’s that for a lonely-nerd resume?).

Warning, segue-segue: I had, in fact, had my first encounter with Bob years before I got my job at the record store. As a teenage student of classic rock-‘n’-roll, I had once come into Omni in search of an obscure early 70s record called Woyaya, recorded by the African rock-funk outfit Osibisa. At the time, my buddy Kyle and I had a copy on vinyl we’d liberated from his father’s LP collection – and I was trying to locate a CD copy. I can remember Bob’s quizzical look when I asked if he could special order the CD. “How’d you end up looking for that record?,” he asked, obviously familiar with it himself. I told him I had a vinyl copy, doing my best to exude the “in the know” nonchalance of a beyond-his-years music nut. Anyway, Bob managed to find that CD as an import, and special ordered it for me.

Whoa…. off-track here, let’s bring this back.

‘Twas record-store-manager Bob what introduced me to Wishbone Ash, and today’s lawn-mowing background jam, Argus. He used to use the downtime on the weekends to root through the discs in the store and turn me on to new tunes. One Sunday it was Wishbone Ash – I remember some young kid came in with his dad, and, as an aspiring guitarist, had his ears piqued by the disc on the sound system. That kid bought Argus before I even had a chance to listen to it all the way through. I did, however, immediately reorder two copies – one for restocking, and one for me. Hey, thanks Bob! Oh, and, related – ’twas record-store-manager Bob who also turned me onto Jeff Beck’s Truth, which I also mentioned above. That particular turning-on, however, happened just last Christmas when I was home in Florida. Keep the suggestions coming, my friend, I’m still happy to be your understudy.

Well, that’s it for now. Be sure to watch the blog this week for some new pictures of baby Keaton, and this years “half-best-of” list… I promise they’re all in the chute.

Goodnight.