All over the board...

Some thoughts that are all across the board tonight…

1) For those of you who are glued to the weather channel (or in other words, stoned), you might have noticed that KC got hit with a bit of an ice storm the past day or so. Nothing major, I made it back and forth to work without a problem. I’m only bringing it up because the entire town freaked out about it. I’m not making this up, I listened to one guy on the radio talking about preparedness “as this can be a life or death situation and being prepared can help you survive.” I’m sorry, my friend who is in Sri Lanka right now helping out with the relief efforts he is the one dealing with life or death situations. A quarter inch of ice means you’ll have to spend fifteen minutes scraping the ice off of your car and you’ll have to take your time driving. At worst you’ll lose power and maybe have to throw out the food in your fridge. Please don’t talk about it being a life or death situation where a week and a half ago people woke up on a sunny day and ended it having lost everything they owned and half their family.
2) On that, having heard some first hand accounts from Sri Lanka, really try to donate to the relief efforts. The scale of this is beyond anything that I remember seeing before. I’ve seen earthquakes destroy cities but nothing like this. So, if you haven’t donated yet, please think about it.
3) Back to the weather. I’m from Chicago, I can deal with weather. My fear is that the longer I stay in KC the more I start thinking that this weather actually is bad. I have to keep on reminding myself that I used to drive snow covered roads for weeks at a time back in the old days. I hate feeling like I’m losing my skills. It’s like the fact that I have a hell of a time parallel parking now after growing up putting a ‘77 Chevy Impala in spaces that other people couldn’t fit a Camry into. It’s nice having a garage but it just makes you soft.
4) A couple of other notes on the concert. I don’t have a problem with the teenyboppers for the most part. There is still a part of me that is bugged because when I was 19 I would have done anything to have been able to go up and talk to one of these girls but didn’t have the confidence or a clue on how to do it. Now I have a small amount of skill and I’m yelling at myself for missed opportunities.
5) That said, when you’re listening to Nirvana’s “Come as you are” over the soundsystem before the show and you look around and go, “So when I first heard this, you were what, seven?” you can’t help but feel old.
6) This of course raises the question why in the world was I at the show in the first place. Well, with an unstated goal of going to fifty concerts this year I have to lower my standards somewhat. I can’t wait for the dream shows, sometimes I go just because I’ve heard of the guy and figured that it would be an interesting show. Which is why I’m going to be seeing Social Distortion in a few weeks (as well as to reconnect with my punk roots). Of course, even I have limits. Which is why I will sadly be missing the Queensryche show that is coming to town. Look, shouldn’t they be on VH1’s Band Reunited as opposed to actually touring?
7) To answer the obvious question, the reason it is an unstated goal is that my real goal is to get to the point where I have enough other stuff going on in my life that going to concerts every week is not always the right thing to do. If that doesn’t happen though, I’ll continue in my efforts to become a music critic.

“The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving”