Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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lindsay’s got a gun

I’ve had a bad run of blogging lately, I’ll admit it.

My writing has lacked some of the inspiration I thought it had a few weeks back. For a while there I thought I was doing pretty good. Maybe I need to bring back the polls or something, give myself a shot in the arm, some inspiration towards better output.

Like right now, for instance, I’m just now getting around to finishing up this long-lost entry for posting tonight – and it’s almost midnight on Thursday. We just got home from watching the Lost finale with friends, and the blog had to wait. So, without much new editing, I present the following story.

The first time I heard Radiohead’s debut album Pablo Honey was at a girl named Lindsay’s house. She was fifteen and beautiful. I had never met her before, but she was a friend of my Jeremy, who was a friend of mine. I had just earned the legal right to drive, so he asked me if we could go visit this girl, who he promised was hot and would have a friend around. She lived about a forty minute drive away, but her parents were out of town or something and a nothing-to-do teenage day combined with the fact that her parents weren’t going to be home justified the trip. At the time, I was in love with Radiohead’s breakthrough single, Creep, but hadn’t bothered to investigate any of their other output.

It was raining sometime terrible that day, and I was driving down some unfamiliar backcountry Florida roads to get to this girl’s place. On the way, Jeremy told me about her: Lindsay was apparently not only gorgeous, but she was also a badass. According to her, she was in a “gang,” and also had a gun. I was both intrigued and a bit wary, as wanna-be-gangsta girls weren’t (and aren’t) my kinda thing. I fully expected to pull up and meet some skinny white girl with one of those chin-length bowl-cut things where the back of their head and neck is shaved, figured she’d open the door wearing some baggy FUBU stuff, a crooked hat, and wearing chains while some unremarkable rap blared in the background. Man, I was wrong.

After surviving the harrowing drive, we ran through the downpour to the refuge of her porch, where we knocked. The stunning creature that opened the door was the perfect picture of a budding female. Flowering before my eyes in real time, she had dark shiny hair, worn short yes – but not like any teenage gangster I’d seen on Maury before. She was slim and fit, but surprisingly curvy for someone just beginning to flex her burgeoning femininity. Oh, and, she knew without a doubt that she was attractive, and had already achieved a mastery of the subtle arts of flirting. She was wearing a close-fitting top that V’d at the chest, and tiny shorts that left little to the imagination. I’d like to say I recall details like colors or fabrics or something astute like that, but I don’t – I think my brain may have been deprived of blood, for whatever reason. I knew immediately that I would be in love with Lindsay before we left that house that day.

Turns out her friend couldn’t make it. So, here we were, two teenage boys and one teenage girl all alone in this big old house with zero adult presence. Oh sure, the porn scripts ran through my head, I’d be lying if I said they didn’t. And, when we all went immediately into her bedroom, I half-feared I might really have to negotiate my best friend Jeremy’s nakedness were things to go all Vivid Video. Thankfully though, things stayed innocent and simple – something that, at the time, I’d likely pretend like I wish wouldn’t have happened, but would, in reality, be glad had (I’ve always been a better love-talker than love-er, I think). In fact, we all just lounged around on the floor or the bed and talked. I told Lindsay I heard she was in a gang and had a gun. She didn’t deny the former, and never produced a pistol to prove the latter. Funny thing was, this whitebread honor student was about as far from a gang-member as I could imagine.

At one point, she grabbed a CD off her dresser, Pablo Honey. “Have you heard this?,” she asked us. Neither of us had, aside from the single. “It’s my favorite album in the world right now,” she said as she popped the disc into her little table stereo. Again, Radiohead, not the most “gangbangin’” thing I can think to listen to. I remember to this day not liking the album when I heard it that day. In fact, it wouldn’t be until years later, when I went completely weak in the knees for OK Computer in college (even after also loving The Bends), that I would pick up a used copy of Pablo Honey at the record store and rediscover it.

I never saw Lindsay again. A few hours on one day back in the 90s, that’s all I got. Dunno that I really wanted more, but that was it anyway – so, that was it.

So, Lindsay, sorry I discounted your music. Turns out you were right about Pablo Honey, it’s a great album… hope things worked out for you and your gang or whatever. Goodnight.

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love is blind

Internet, I am here again.

It’s something like 10pm on Wednesday night and, luckily, I wrote about 80% of this entry in a “creative” fit last night, only having to come back tonight to add a few rounding-out and closing paragraphs and proofread. It’s kinda long, actually, so I’m just gonna skip the intro and get right into it.

Hey, remember when I used to talk about music a lot on here? I mean, I used to do it all the time. Lately, though, music talk is usually relegated to a couple sentences here and there about a new album I like or what leaked recently or a the show I just went to. Well, for those looking for me to make a triumphant return with a music-centric post today, you’ll be happy. For those of you who typically gloss over the “music stuff,” I urge you to tune in today – as it’s really more of a story set around music, not just me talking about the latest Weezer album or something.

Oh, and, if you really are the kind of person who truly misses all the music stuff (I’m not even sure there are those people, actually), take heart – it’s almost June and that means it’s time for my annual half-best-of list for 2008. Look for it sometime soon, OK? OK.

Hey… have you guys heard that the New Kids on the Block are back together? No? Yeah, me neither.

Ahhh… guys… I wish I could say that, but the fact is that I live with the biggest New Kids on the Block fan I know in this world (yes, we’re talking about my lovely wife). I’ve always known this about her, from our very first encounters with each other back in middle school when she came to school wearing an eight inch round button with their five pubescent faces smiling out from below a neon 90’s paint-splash logo. In fact, to this day, that button resides in a box in our garage, along with a posterboard New Kids collage of images she cut from magazines like Tiger Beat and Bop!. I’m for real.

You may think that, over the years, as her tastes matured, she’d have taken time to reevaluate her love for the “band,” perhaps listening to the with the learned ears of someone who’s been schooled in “real” music by her husband (who, I might add, has impeccable taste). Yeah, you might think that, but you’d be totally wrong if you did. In fact, if anything, her infatuation with the band has continued to be a rolling snowball. I remember shortly after we first moved to California, she took off alone in the early morning hours to drive to San Francisco and stand outside some radio studio to meet Joey McIntyre (the Michael Jackson one to their Jackson-5 mold). And, that, my friends, is only one of the ways Sharaun has kept up her fanaticism over the years. I can, for instance, remember when she absolutely freaked out when the n0w off-air VH1 show “Reunited” tried to get them back together (unsuccessfully), and then of course there was her 30th birthday cake…

So, when rumors began flying around the internet last year about a possible reunion, Sharaun reacted with the unbridled glee of a thirteen year-old girl. She became a regular in the online fan communities, all of them filled with “birds of a feather” from the key New Kids on the Block reunion-fever demographic: They’re all moms now, likely married, most went through a Backstreet Boys or N*Sync phase along the way, and they are all now finally blessed with the liquidity they so fervently prayed for back when they were initially smitten as poor, allowance-funded preteens. It’s brilliant, really, waiting until your insanely-obsessed base finally has disposable funds in the bank to stage a full-fledged get-back-together… temporal marketing at its finest.

Anyway, when those same rumors began to firm up, and it was announced that the band was going to make an appearance on the Today Show, not to play, but only to announce they once again would be playing, she sent out an Evite to all the thirty-something-year-old women we hang out with asking them over at 7am for a viewing party complete with donuts and coffee. I still remember waking up to go to work and seeing ten or so women congregated in our living room, the working of them outfitted in their work-garb, sitting on chairs placed ’round the television all waiting for the posters from their 1989 walls to come to life in front of their grown-up eyes. Some people even came in vintage band-branded clothing… it was, in a word, phenomenal.

In fact, I was home the day the New Kids actually took to the stage together as a group for the first time in over a decade, which also happened on the Today Show, a month or so later. And, friends, when that happened, I saw my wife transformed before my eyes. The braces-wearing adolescent in her broke free from the shackles that thirty year-old Sharaun keeps her locked up in, screaming and jumping her way into consciousness, shrieking with delight as five has-beens instantly became five are-agains before a fawning crowd of aging females in Times Square. I’m for real, it’s still on our TiVo if you don’t believe me… you can come on over and watch it for yourself. They dance and everything, it’s beautiful.

When their new single debuted on iTunes, she bought two copies for herself (because, of course, everyone knows digital songs eventually wear out), and sent eight more as iTunes “gifts” to her friends (thanks for that little bit of functionality, Mr. Jobs), who, I’m almost certain, are all busy re-growing their rattails and practicing trash-talk for all the “sucka MCs” in throes their reunion anticipation as well.

So, when she told me that she’d be spending “some money” on the “VIP passes” to their announced California shows, I, for what it’s worth, gave my blessing. In fact, when she told me how bad she wished she could see a show with Natalie, her best friend from all those years ago, I reluctantly admitted we have enough “extra” skymiles to get her back to Florida for the Tampa show. So now, my wife is flying more than five hours across the USA and back to meet her best friend since 1st grade (when she shared her Garfield pizza-scented scratch-n-sniff sticker) and spend hundreds of dollars on “VIP passes” which include front-row tickets and a meet-and-greet.

I know, I’m a good husband, right? But, if I want to be able to justify the hundreds and hundreds of dollars I plan to spend seeing Led Zeppelin wherever on Earth they tour this summer (please guys, please do it), I figure I better let her have her “one show” too. No, really, I’m willing to pay just slightly under my the-two-dead-Beatles-resurrect-and-they-get-back-together concert ticket threshold. Jimmy, Robert, John, Jason – just tell me how much you want, and I’ll have it in your wrinkled hands before you can close your mouths… and am even willing, just like Sharaun, to get on a plane.

Well, that’s the story of Sharaun’s obsession with the New Kids.

Oh, and, in closing… when I told her I was writing about the New Kids on the Block, she said, shocked, “What are you writing about them? You better not be writing anything bad! You should let me write about them, because I know ‘what’s up.'” I laughed. “I know Joey’s favorite food is Mexican,” she continued, “And his favorite color is green. His middle name is Mulrey.”

See… I told you. Goodnight.

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l-l-l-look at my hater-blockers

Today, at 4:47pm, the iPod chose to serve unto me the song “Take A Pebble” by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. A classic from the prog vanguards’ debut LP, it instantly took me back to the first time I’d heard it so many years before. Almost as immediately, and with a great sense of urgency, I imagined how great it would sound driving down the road with the windows down and the sun on my arms.

Pause. Flick off left desk-light. Stand up. Windows Key, up-arrow, enter, down-arrow, down-arrow, down-arrow, enter. Flick off right desk-light. Take off headphones. Remove badge (link goes here). Place laptop in bag, nighty-night laptop. “Good to see you again, have a safe flight.” Handshake. Dang, missed by inches, seemed weak. “See ya tomorrow, boss.” Stairs. Stairs. Stairs.

Sunshine. Freedom. “Take a Pebble.”

Mmm… so, right. Welcome to the blog friends.

Tonight we made a quick run up to Wal Mart (a place I loathe being) to get Sharaun a new cellphone on the cheap (well, on the free, to be exact). See, she dropped her other one in the toilet, ruining it. Don’t act all surprised, you know my wife, right? The same wife who recently lost her keys again, and now has to borrow mine to get all new copies made. The same wife who just yesterday asked me if she ever gave me a $400 check to cash or not, not knowing if it was lost as well. And, yes, the same wife who left the garage door open all night the other day, her trunk open as well – her lone loose key, borrowed from me, still in the lock. I hate going to Wal Mart, but I will go there, because things are just so cheap.

I dunno, seeing the seeing the bewifebeatered and pregnant paw their way through the three-feet deep cheap DVD bin at 10pm is just kind of depressing.

Man, it’s like 11pm right now. Sorry I didn’t write much, but I gots to get me a bowl of Honey Bunches and work on getting Sharaun’s contacts transferred over to this new mobile (which, sadly, she’ll lose next week). For now though, check out this video she took with it:

Sorry if that looks messed up on IE, Firefox renders it OK. It’s past midnight and I just wanted to be done with it. I’ll come back and optimize tomorrow, perhaps.

Goodnight.

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i heard a scary noise

Tuesday night and I just put Keaton down. I immediately threw on the new Wolf Parade record, which leaked earlier today. Even though it’s a poor-quality rip, the first song is super promising. I’m excited about the rest of the album – and I’ll let ya know.

As I bring this glass of wine to my lips, my hands still smell faintly of manure. I used the time after work today to put some new plants in around the house (yes, more new plants) and had my hands in a bag of planting soil for an hour or so. Warm and damp and stinking of organic decay, just like good soil should. Planted some flowers out back and some in front. I know I’ve talked about the yardwork jag I’ve been on, but the Spring weather really does make me want to spend my free hours out under the sun doing something productive. Call it human nature or something, but I enjoy it.

I think I’m getting balder. No, I mean, I know I’ve been getting bald now for years – that much is obvious. What I mean to say is, I feel like, after a somewhat long period of stasis, my hair has once again commenced the slow retreat it began so many years ago. For a time there, I don’t think much was happening – the thinness of my crown seemed to be holding, or at least was advancing at a near immeasurably slow pace. Now, though, I can definitely see a difference – it’s getting sparser and sparser up there… and ever more I can see through the little sprigs up top as the light shines through from behind. I’ve written before about how I’m not one to obsess over balding, and that still holds true – but the thought of actually having zero hair up top is sort of unsettling…

I mean, when that little bit of hair is gone at the top, there’s just nothing… right? And then, I’m the bald guy. I’m the thirty-something management-type at the office job. The guy who drinks coffee in the morning and takes his kids on vacation and reads. Oh man, that’s me. The old guy. The old bald guy.

Still though, despite this train bearing down on me, it’s singular headlight slicing through the night with a bead on me – I don’t care enough to do anything about it. In fact, I’m ready. Bring it on baldness train, come take my hair by the freightcar, take it and leave me and don’t come back. See, I’m one of those guys who believes that, if God needs my hair back, He must have a good reason. In fact, who here can question His wisdom? Not I, surely not I. So, Lord, You gaveth and You’re takingeth away – and I, for one, am totally cool with that. Seriously. You do what You gotta do, I’ma keep on keepin’ on, hair or no hair.

Segue.

For a few weeks now, when we go to put Keaton down for bedtime she’ll ask all cautious and filled with trepidation, “I might hear a funny noise, Daddy?” “No,” I reply, “You won’t hear a funny noise.” To explain this ritualistic exchange, I want to take you back in time to about three weeks ago – when I entered Keaton’s room late one night because she had woken up and was crying. Upon hearing her cries, which my parental ears identified as “fear” and not frustration or pain or tiredness, I entered her darkened room:

Me: What’s wrong baby, why are you crying?

Keaton: It’s scary Daddy, hold me.

Me (scooping her up, still sobbing): What’s scary baby, did something scare you?

Keaton: Yeah. I heard a scary noise.

Me: You heard a scary noise? (I do this all the time, repeat what she just told me.)

Keaton: Yeah. I heard a scary noise. It was coming from my back.

Me: The scary noise was coming from your back? (See?)

Keaton: Yeah.

Me: What did the scary noise sound like?

Keaton: A fart.

And Keaton bounced and jiggled on my shoulder as I tried to laugh both violently and silently. In the end, I told her the noise wasn’t “scary,” that it was just “funny” and she shouldn’t be upset by it. She eventually calmed down and, apparently, took my noise-classification to heart. So, every night now, she asks if she might hear a “funny” noise, and I tell her no.

Scared of farts; this can’t be my child.

Mmmm… by the way, the Wolf Parade album just played through once and I have to say I’m impressed. I’m hoping that, with repeat listens, it’ll establish itself as one of 2008’s best. Time will tell.

A’fore I go, check out the picture Megan posted of Keaton from camping (seems everyone’s beating me to getting pictures online this time around). Goodnight.

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swing on the swings

Happy Monday folks. Finished up the weekend’s yardwork today after real-work, now just have to mow. Supposed to rain tomorrow though, so I doubt I’ll get to it before Wednesday.

For a while now, the wheels on Ford have been making all sorts of groaning and squeaking noises which I interpreted as a plea for new brakes. Having an interest in working brakes, I decided last week to get some new pads and change them out. However, once I had the car on stands and the rear tires off (to me, the noise sounded like it was coming from the rear brakes), the brakes looked fine, 80% at least. Thinking I misheard the rumblings of protest, I put the rear wheels back on, jacked up the front end and took those tires off. I was dismayed to find both brakes there also in good shape. Pads fine, rotors fine, nothing amiss that I could see (with my finely tuned automotive eyes). Reluctantly, I put everything back together and dropped the thing again. Lo and behold, the squeak and grinding are gone. Whatever I did, my massive mechanic skills solved the problem like magic. I am just that good.

Hmm… here’s one of those awkward transitions I’m so good at.

I remember working at the music store back in college. We got a promotional copy of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness almost a full month before it was due to hit the streets. Having loved their previous album first track to last, I remember freaking out when I pulled the ornately decorated double-disc set from the just-delivered box of promos. At the time I hadn’t yet been “promoted” to assistant-manager, and I was just a floor-walking worker (which is really what I was as an assistant manager anyway, but with the power to do refunds, balance the books, and close or open the store).

I can remember begging Bob, my one-time manager and now long-time friend, to let me take it home for a few hours so I could dub it. In the end, he granted me a two hours outside the store with the set – with instructions to be back with it on-time. Not knowing how hard he would hold me to the time limit, I raced home and used two separate tape decks to simultaneously record a copy of each disc. I got back to the store with the promo in-hand in just under two hours, including driving time.

And, for the next three-plus weeks, I wore those cassettes out. The album was brilliant to me at the time, almost entirely good and so well fit to the mood and activities of the day it was as if it were tailored for my life at the time. Jeremy was living with me at the time (I know that means nothing to those of you who have no idea who Jeremy is, but he was a good highschool buddy who moved into our converted-garage bedroom for a few years), and I can remember driving around rocking out to the songs when we should’ve been in class. We had morning classes, and we’d always wake up with the best of intentions, but we’d often end up stopping for a heart-hurting southern breakfast instead.

After breakfast, we’d often take long window-down drives along the river with the music blaring. There was this little park just off the river we’d stop at to, believe it or not, swing on the swings. No, I’m serious. I love swings, always have, always will. Even now, when I see swings that’ll hold me, I’m on ‘em. We’d swing for an hour or so, discussing the important matters of the day: If I thought Sharaun and I would ever get back together (we were on a “break” at the time), how community “college” was a complete and total joke, and how we’d get together one day in twenty years with our kids for a backyard barbecue.

It’s funny, actually, that I picked this fragment of an entry to work on today. See, a bit about my blog writing/filing system: I often log on and capture bits and snatches of ideas into what WordPress calls “draft” files. Sometimes these are just a topic idea, sometimes they are stray paragraphs or bulleted lists, and sometimes they are fully-written entries that just need cleaning up (such is the case with the “porn in the woods” topic from last week’s You Decide Friday poll, but no… you guys made me write original content). Anyway, I’ve long had this draft about the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie album, and the progressive list of thoughts in there went “Mellon Collie -> swinging with Jeremy -> reunion BBQ with families.” So, I think I managed to cover all that business. And, I’m still looking forward to that BBQ…

Goodnight friends, until tomorrow.

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the70s.torrent

Ahhh… listening to the Band’s live rendition of “It Makes No Difference” from the Last Waltz album; I absolutely love this song. Makes me feel good each and every time I hear it, even if it is somewhat of a sad-sounding tune. Keaton went down early (she woke up late last night with a high fever, ran a lower one all day today, and actually asked to go to bed) and Sharaun’s at volleyball – so I’ve got the place to myself. That means writin’ time.

The other day, my brain tickled by the triumphant return of Demonoid to the torrent scene, I was thinking about how prevalent “discography torrents” have become over the past year. For the unfamiliar, a discography torrent is simply a massive zipped archive of every recording an artist or group has done over the span of their career – albums, singles, extras, whatever – all MP3ized, packaged, and presented as a single one-fell-swoop download. The availability of these all-inclusive super-easy-to-get packages of music makes me wonder about the future of file sharing.

I’m betting that the whole “thrill of the hunt” aspect of music collecting which has, in addition to a genuine love of music, always fueled my lust for tunes, will more than likely be a thing of the past by the time Keaton’s generation begins filing up iPods. Just look at the history: As the internet pipes have become fatter over the years, we’ve moved from single-song-hunting via Napster to album-jacking via Kazaa to discographies through BitTorrent. Eventually, you’ll just be able to click on the70s.torrent and be done with an entire decade’s worth of music in one overnight download.

I don’t even want to think about when Keaton’s kids get old enough… they’ll probably be able to buy a credit-card thick device from the corner market in Shanghai that comes pre-loaded with the entire history of recorded music. Where’s the fun in that? Part of being a music collector is reveling in the far-reach of your collection, touting the stuff you have to other collectors, having one of only five copies of that lost acetate recording of the Velvet Underground’s freshman LP – elitist stuff like that. That’ll all be over when any Joe Topforty can buy a “The Complete 20th Century” MusiCube at Radio Shack (which by then, as technology marches ever on, will have been forced to re-brand as something more “now,” like VHS Shack, or something similarly thirty years behind the curve).

Changing subject, but continuing the “I was thinking” theme… I was thinking today about how I’m happy with the amount of outside-the-house socialization Sharaun and I do – even with Keaton. Before we had Keaton, we’d get good-natured ribbing from our friends about the “end” of our social lives, though neither of us really worried much. In my opinion though, we’ve integrated Keaton well into our social circle. We bring her along, include her in the hangin’ out (much to the thrill of our no-kids-havin’ friends, right no-kids-havin’ friends?!), and often put her down in her Pack N Play when we’re over at friends’ places past bedtime. She’s a seasoned pro at being woken up for a ride home in the carseat.

What got me thinking, though, was my mom asking me if she needed to get Keaton some kind of bigger sleeping accommodations for our upcoming trip to Oregon over Mother’s Day weekend. My answer was “no,” but it was the first time I’d really entertained the thought of her outgrowing the Pack N Play. Not that the first thing I think of when I consider this milestone for her is our social lives, but… what the heck are we going to do when she doesn’t “fit” in that thing anymore? Is that the “lives over” point that people are referring to?

My answer: Nahhh… give me a break. Since our idea of “going out” is typically dinner and a movie or game at someone’s place, it’s not exactly like her sleep is at risk for interruption by the thundering bass of a club or gunshots at an out of control Latino block party (that sounds racist… is that racist?). All she has to sleep through is the “wildness” of a few thirtysomethings who’ve had a glass of wine or four, who might get too loud discussing while discussing their Roth IRAs or the Earth-ethics of local-grown produce (we live in California, remember?). I’m confident babygirl will be just as accommodating as she’s always been, and continue to be the great sleeper she is. But man… I bet it’s an interesting transition.

Before I go, I’ll repost this week’s You Decide Friday poll again tomorrow as a last reminder – but should you want to vote before then, you can simply scroll down the page to Monday’s entry and cast your vote there. I’ll close the poll around noon on Thursday.

PS – Oh hey, Megan posted some new candids of my girl!  Check it!

Goodnight folks.

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safe, sound, south

Safe and sound in South Carolina (bonus points for alliteration).

A happy Monday evening to you, folks. My day began early and looks to be ending late – at least when you take timezones into account. Going on eleven here in the SC, and I rolled my butt out of bed at 5am this morning back in sunny California. A couple of flights later and I touched down in the land of Cracker Barrel, Waffle House, and “smoking or non-smoking?” (Funny how you forget the little things.) Got to the hotel around seven and headed right out in search of some sustenance. Hit a local seafood joint the hotel-guy chatted up and wasn’t too disappointed; had scallops and vegetables – I love scallops. Also enjoyed some fermented grains, as travel often demands.

Right now some Pink Floyd is playing. But, not just any Pink Floyd, mind you, no. This is a live performance of their classic Dark Side of the Moon LP for BBC radio in 1972. It’s one of the most widely lauded Floyd bootlegs of the time period because the sound quality is simply amazing, and the live interpretation of the album is inspired, presenting a welcome change to fans who’ve memorized every single note of the storied long-player. It’s making a great hotel room soundtrack for the short time I’ll be awake prior to crashing. Anyway, if you simply have to hear it now, just turn to your friend and mine, Google, and hit this link for tons of win.

Before I get much more into this whole thing (not sure how much more I have in me, actually), I wanted to go ahead and do today’s “In Pictures” bit. If you’ll remember, I’ve chosen to document this week not only with my typical words, but also with images. I know it’s sort of anti-climactic to see only a couple pictures from each day, but really… today was sort of boring to begin with – some eight hours of traveling doesn’t really provide a wide and varied backdrop for composition. Deal.

Here, then, is my Monday… in pictures:

Now that that’s over – what I really wanted to write about tonight.

So, on the plane today I somehow got stuck with a middle-seat (stupid United booking tool isn’t supposed to do that to VIPs like me). Anyway, I had my iPod on for the entire flight, so I wasn’t really interacting with the seatmates to my left and right, nor was I paying much attention to Alvin and the Chipmunks. In fact, between playing Ms. Pac Man and solitaire on the iPod, about the only thing I was doing was looking around the plane, watching people.

At some point during the flight I noticed that of the three seats in front of me, only the guy on the aisle had reclined. This created a little “gap” through which I could see most everything he did. I only mention this because, shortly after recognizing my voyeuristic opportunity, the guy actually began doing something worth watching. Pulling out his handheld PDA, he fired up what looked to be an e-book application, and several lines of large-print easy-to-read (even at my distance) text filled the screen of the device. At first I took notice simply because reading e-books on a PDA is something you don’t see to often, although it’s a use-model the marketing folks at Amazon would likely have us believe is widespread.

Of course, taking my nosiness to the next logical level, I began to read what the guy was reading. It really was quite easy, the text was large and the guy wasn’t making any effort to conceal it (even from the guy seated to his immediate right in alongside him in his row). Pretty soon, certain special words began jumping off the screen and into my eyes: handcuffs, balls, slave, master, chains. Oh… oh…. what the… Yeah, that’s right. Turns out, after following along with the guy as he thumb-scrolled through more than a few paragraphs, I found out he was reading some very hardcore sado-masochistic gay porn. Right there in the airplane, in front of the me, the stewardesses, and God himself – this guy was casually enjoying some totally raunchy gay porn.

Now completely interested, I simultaneously tried to get a better look at the man sitting in front of me enjoying his S&M gay porn on sold-out packed-to-the-gills airplane while also not neglecting to follow along with his chosen time-passing narrative. He was an extremely well-groomed guy, haircut couldn’t have been more than a couple days old because I could still see telltale tanlines under the fresh cut. Asian or Pacific Islander or some mix of both (that matters how, I’m not sure), wearing glasses and dressed all biz-casual in dockers and a button-down long-sleeve shirt.

And, when I say he made no secret of his reading, I’m serious: He even continued reading when the stewardess took and delivered his drink order, PDA screen held in front of him where anyone with eyes close enough could read it. Outwardly, he was a totally regular fellow, the kind of guy you’d sit across the table from in a customer meeting, the kind of guy you’d ask to make sure he had his report to you by noon Friday, pretty unremarkable. Had he not been reading gay torture porn, I’d have been unsurprised to see him browsing an e-book edition of the NY Times or Grisham or playing e-sudoku. But nah… not for my guy, only the hardest-core freaky-freaky for him.

As for the story, I was actually able to pick up quite a bit of the plot: A man has been captured and made a sexual slave to several other men. He is kept chained up and is renamed “Nancy” by his captors (I’m being entirely serious right now, this is exactly what the story said). He is a heterosexual male, but his new masters make him do homosexual acts as part of his enslavement (which, in an entirely shocking twist, he eventually learns to enjoy). In addition to “attaching” him to various medieval-themed torture devices (chains, collars, weights, etc.), the “masters” give “Nancy” daily hormone injection shots so that he’ll grow breasts. The writing was really rudimentary, all action, to-the-point and brief to a fault. For your benefit, I won’t go into any more detail here, but rest assured it was about as exploitative and explicit as it could be (maybe that’s the only flavor this literature comes in, who knows).

I was just in awe of homeboy – straight-up reading it right out in the open…

And guys, I wanted sooo bad to snap a picture of the guy reading his gay S&M smut for today’s “In Pictures,” but the BlackBerry doesn’t provide a way to snap pictures without an accompanying faux-shutter “click” sound that’s fairly audible to those in close proximity. I doubt the S&M guy would’ve heard or suspected, but it was bound to look odd to the guys sitting right and left of me. So, I chickened out – but I swear every word of the story is true. Funny what people dig, you know? You just never can tell…

(And… Kerry, if they don’t block me today, I consider it a blank check for the future).

Goodnight from the dirty south friends, I’ll have a bowl of grits ‘n’ cheese for you tomorrow AM.