Continuing the constant struggle

There’s a slight problem to my using a wall mount to solve my “get the television out of my bedroom” problem. See, the only place where I could put a wall mount in my office is directly over the bed (since it also serves as my spare bedroom). This would mean that anyone lying in my spare bedroom would trust their life with my carpentry skills. I really doubt there would be any takers. However, I do like the image of the Sony of Damocles. Just the way to update mythology for the new millennium.

The NBA Draft was last night and I watched about five minutes of it. Growing up I would watch every pick. It was the ultimate end to the basketball season where you would get to find out where all your favorite college players would be next year. Now you get to find out which high school player you never heard of is going to ride the bench and try to play “guess the nationality” with the foreign players. It just takes the fun out of it. Two of my Illini (Deron Williams and Luther Head) went in the first round. It was a surprise to see Luther go in the first round, I honestly didn’t think he was going to get drafted. He’s a good point guard but I’m not sure if he is able to play big minutes in the NBA. Daniel Ewing from Duke went early in the second round under the rule of “anyone who plays four years at Duke has to get drafted.”

A fun Kansas City/NBA story. We broke ground on the new Sprint Center last week as Kansas City has finally decided to build a new arena. However, it is an arena without tenants. Well, we have a commitment for an Arena Football team, which is cool. Plus, it will probably cause bands like U2 to stop playing Omaha instead of Kansas City. But the big thing is our hope for either an NHL or an NBA franchise. Let’s see, the NHL does not technically exist at the moment so we could probably get a franchise on the cheap in a dying league. Or we can maybe steal an NBA team, which is the plan. Of course, the NBA front office is aware of this and decided to humor us by sending a league representative to the ground breaking ceremony. A WNBA league representative who focused on the possibility of getting a WNBA franchise. I’ve been trying to figure out what the analogy is here. It’s like the worst rejection possible.

Ok, and as promised yesterday, a quick synopsis of Krystof Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy. The three films Blue, White and Red symbolize the three colors of the French flag as well as the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity. Each film is it’s own separate piece though there are two scenes that overlap the three films (along with the closing scene of Red that ties everything together). The focal point of each film are the three French actresses (Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy and Irene Jacob) who play the lead roles with varying degrees of grace. One of the neatest aspects of the films is that each work has its own visual tone that ties to the title of the film. Blue has water imagery while White is filmed in an almost washed out type of brightness, including one scene where you can barely make out Julie Delpy due to the light. It’s best to watch the films in order though it’s not required. If you only want to watch one I’d suggest White because it is funnier and lighter in spirit than the other two (especially Blue, which begins on an incredibly somber note).

Of course, the real reason I’m writing about this is to try out Blogger’s new feature that should allow me to add a picture directly to my post. Hopefully, for all of you who still wonder just who the hell is Julie Delpy and why is EC so adamant about discussing how incredible she is, at least you’ll now have a picture of who I’m referring to.

Of course, now having tried the feature I've discovered that the picture will only appear at the top of the post and I'm not rewriting this thing so the picture at the top is Julie. Blogger is powered by Google, whose stock price is through the roof, but still won't let me put pictures where I want them.

As dumb as I look...

(DVD recommendation for the week: If you are like me and grew up watching pro wrestling in the 80’s (or more specifically, if you are one of my brothers), you owe it to yourself to get a copy of the DVD chronicling the career history of The Road Warriors. It is incredibly good going through their entire history (my God, they had a copy of their match against Dick the Bruiser and The Crusher on there) and hitting on all of their highs and lows. One thing that I am happy they included is the squash matches they had against the scrubs on the old TBS Saturday Night show. Those are still some of my favorite wrestling memories where you would start with two no name guys in the ring looking scared to death, then you would hear about three seconds of the Road Warriors music, then they would kick the ever living crap out of the guys for two minutes, win the match and do the interview. Plus, my favorite pro wrestling quote of all time is in reference to the Road Warriors. Courtesy of Arn Anderson “Growing up my daddy taught me three things. You don’t spit into the wind. You don’t stand on Superman’s cape. And you don’t fight the Road Warriors in Chicago.”)

(One day Winnie the Pooh references, next day in depth analysis of pro wrestling. Tomorrow I will bring you my detailed analysis of Krystopf Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy. Battling the Current: you never know what you’re going to get.)

Ok, did something last night that might prove my claim that a lot of people have called me smart but no one has ever called me intelligent. See, I’ve been reading recently that you shouldn’t have a television in your bedroom since it messes with your sleeping patterns. Since I haven’t been getting up as early as I’d like I was more than happy to blame the television set. As opposed to, I don’t know, getting a second alarm clock or throwing away the remote or just getting my ass out of bed when the alarm goes off. So after a lot of thinking over the weekend I decided that I would move my tv into my office.

That required me to move a bookcase full of books, take apart a stereo and a DVD player, and move an entertainment stand around my apartment. As I’m doing this last step it dawns on me, “I wonder why I didn’t do this when I was moving things around my apartment nine months ago.” Then I put the entertainment stand in my office and realized why. The damn thing doesn’t fit in my office unless I want to guarantee my slamming my knee into the side of the thing every time I come back from a bar and want to check my email. I am apparently a cut twice, measure never type of guy. So I had to spend the rest of the night putting everything back exactly the way it was before. It’s at times like this that I remember the immortal words of Homer Simpson, “If this teaches you anything son it’s never try.”

Voices from the past

(Correction from last night’s post. This week marks the fifteenth anniversary of my promising that I would dedicate my first novel to a girl I knew. Apparently I couldn’t do math last night, which is leaving me very frightened right now. And I still owe Meg that novel. It will happen. Not saying it will be good but it will be done.)

Did you guys catch what happens to be the strangest, most macabre coincidence of the year today? The voices of both Piglet and Tigger passed away in the past 24 hours. It is sad to hear that they are gone (and lets face it, anyone who can make Yahoo headlines on their passing has accomplished something in their life) but wow, what are the odds of both going on the same day? It’s just freaky.

I have to admit that Winnie the Pooh was my favorite children’s story growing up. It’s probably because Christopher Robin is the only Christopher that I’ve found in all of children’s literature so I had to gravitate towards him, he’s the best surrogate that a seven year old EC could find. There is a part of me that still considers naming my son Christopher Robin because it would be really neat, except for the fact that I might be condemning him to more name callings and fights than would be appropriate. I do keep this drawing I picked up in England next to my laptop, though. It is of Winnie the Pooh at a chalkboard doing math problems. Somehow it seems to be really appropriate for me, especially after reading The Tao of Pooh. Pick up that book at some point, a very interesting entry point for eastern philosophy.

Ok, that’s enough reminiscing on my childhood for the moment. I don’t know why but I’ve been reminiscing about being a kid again a lot recently. I think it’s because it is summer. This is the time of the year when it was so much fun to be a kid. Summer had just started and you could do whatever you wanted. Plus, everything was new and a thrill. I still remember how excited I was when I finally had a television in my room one summer and I was able to stay up late and watching tv, keeping the volume down really low so my parents wouldn’t notice. I mean, just getting to watch The Tonight Show was like some forbidden treat. I don’t know if you can ever recapture those moments no matter how hard you try. As you grow older you might understand more about life but I don’t know if you ever enjoy life just for the sheer fact of being alive as you do when you are ten years old.

One last completely separate note. I finally found a copy of the Son Volt Live on Austin City Limits DVD. I’ve been waiting for this for months and I’m thrilled that the cover of Uncle Tupelo’s “Chickamauga” is on there. That is one of my top five songs of all time with my favorite lyric “Catch yourself in midair thinking/your dreams can never be bought.” Just think about those lines and how many different ways you can interpret it. I kind of touched on this in my Wakarusa review but I want to mention it again. I admire Jay Farrar as being a great songwriter and I respect the fact that when he gets on stage he plays what he wants to play and not what the crowd might always want to hear. It’s his art and at the end of the day it his choice as to what songs are speaking to him and which are meaningful. But for the life of me, if I had the chance to stand on stage at play Chickamauga every night for the rest of my life I would. You’d have to pry the guitar out of my hands to get me to stop.

Music for music's sake

I’m proud of myself. I accomplished about three quarters of the things on my to do list this weekend. Of course, the very first thing on the to do list was “write to do list” so it’s not like these were the most challenging tasks in the world. Just a lot of necessary chores that will continue through the week. Still, nice to look at a list that has a lot of check marks next to it. Makes you feel like your time is not entirely wasted.

Anyway, I saw what might be the most insane television broadcast over the weekend, courtesy of HDNet. See, HDNet is Mark Cuban’s brainchild from when he bought his digital television and found that their was no programming for it so he built his own network. Well, there still isn’t any programming for it because on Saturday afternoon I got to watch the U.S. Shuffleboard championship. And we are talking about bar shuffleboard here, like the one they had at the old Senior Bar or C.J.’s. Yes, there is apparently an official tournament for this and I got to watch it all in the beauty of high definition. Some people worry about drugs destroying their mind, I feel that I’ve lost a few thousand brain cells just by stumbling across it.

I think I made it back by watching Family Guy, though. Props for the Snorks reference, a joke that is only going to work for people from the ages of 28-33 but great nonetheless. And Stewie ripping on Brian for the novel he has been working on for three years hit a little close to home. It doesn’t help that I’ve been working on mine for, uh, sixteen years next week. Yeah, I should really finish that one of these days.

(Wow, that is right. It’s sixteen years ago next week. I might have to tell that story here. It’s kind of been told already though. We’ll see if I can find a way to write it anew.)

I have a couple of music stories to pass along tonight. The first is courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, always my source for vibrant music criticism. In their Personal Journal section (motto: the one that you read if you don’t care about the market) they mentioned that Laura Cantrell has a new disc coming out, which is really cool because she is an awesome performer. They also mentioned a fact that I didn’t know and astounded me: she used to be an equity analyst for Bank of America in New York. Yes, she would spend her days running spreadsheets and analyzing stocks and then go home and play these killer country songs. She would take vacation from work to tour. I love reading things like this. It makes me feel that I’m not the only person in the world who is trying to make art while working in a real job.

I did finally pick up the disc “Indian Summer” by Carbon Leaf. It’s not a bad disc at all, it’s got some cool songs and everything is upbeat and they are just a neat little band. It does not contain the best songs that you’ve ever heard or break the verse-chorus-verse format or span genres. It is just one of those discs that you can play in the car or while you’re cleaning your apartment and you’ll just smile and enjoy the music. There is a beauty to that type of a band. I love Wilco, but you can only listen to A Ghost is Born in segments. It’s like reading James Joyce, it’s so brilliant and mind-blowing that you can only progress a few notes at a time. There’s a pleasure in just finding some upbeat music that you can enjoy just because it is fun to listen to music. It’s a recommended pick up, if only to be reminded that every album doesn’t have to be Blood on the Tracks.

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Jon Dee Graham “Hooray for the Moon”
2) Tom Petty “Full Moon Fever”
3) The Jayhawks “Rainy Day Music”
4) Various Artists “Here Come the Irish”
5) Various Artists “Les Miserables” (yes, there is some culture in my collection)

Tina Yothers alert...

Got a couple of odds and ends to address as we close out this week. Just a couple of news stories and events and things that I’ve noticed recently that I figure are worth talking about.

I did catch a good portion of VH1’s “Top 100 Child Stars of All Time”. Number one was, of course, Mr. Gary Coleman. It is one of those fascinating, train wreck, type of shows. You’re not watching it for any sense of enlightenment, you are basically going “Wow, did her life fall off the tracks” and “Oh my God, I can’t believe Cousin Oliver still looks like Cousin Oliver and he is like, forty, now.” The biggest revelation was that Tina Yothers from Family Ties has become this not bad looking Goth chick. I mean, not a mind numbingly gorgeous Goth girl but still, it’s Tina Yothers that we’re talking about here. I was impressed.

Speaking of train wrecks, the Formula One fiasco at Indy shows precisely why American fans will never enjoy Formula One. Fourteen of the twenty cars (actually drivers, barring a Herbie the Love Bug type dual entry) decided not to run because they deemed their Michelin tires to be unsafe. Here’s the problem, there is no American race fan who will ever accept the excuse that “it’s not safe to drive the car.” That’s the entire point. It’s not safe to drive around at two hundred and twenty five miles an hour. That’s why we watch.

Oh, and on Herbie the Love Bug, once we successfully complete the Free Katie campaign I think that we must quickly embark on the “Buy Lindsey Lohan a sandwich” charity fundraising drive. Also, we need someone to turn her back into a redhead quickly. For the good of society, these things must happen.

Another great news story is the Florida State quarterback who was arrested and/or hospitalized for wandering down the road alternately claiming to be God and Jesus Christ. The first new story was that he was coming back from a Dave Matthews Band concert. More accurately, he was coming back from Bonnaroo, which makes it a lot easier to understand just why a rational person would seemingly lose his mind overnight. It’s Bonnaroo, that’s basically the point of the whole thing. The other thing that struck me is that we need more creativity when these things happen. It’s real easy to say that you’re Jesus Christ. I want someone to one day go “I’m St. Martin De Porres” or “I’m the reincarnation of the seventh reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.” Just to make things a little more interesting.

Finally, this may be considered more Kansas bashing but I view more as a brilliant money making venture. While driving out to Lawrence on I-70 I saw the sign that said “Denver 550 miles” and it dawned on me that you shouldn’t even have to stop once you get past Lawrence on your way to Denver. There should be refueling tankers waiting at your beck and call, just like they have for fighter jets. You just pull behind one of these babies and fill up while driving. Somebody write up the business plan.

Have a good weekend everyone. Next week I will unleash the next batch of Battling the Current slogans. Let the anticipation build…

Notes and remembrances

Time to break down my life once again…

1) Of course I am still saying “When I get married” opposed to “if the good Lord finally smiles down upon me and allows me to get married”. I am an optimist at the end of the day after all. Plus, I have met a number of women in my life who I’ve thought, “I could be really happy spending the rest of my life with her.” The problem is their typical response is “I’m sorry, but I’m starting a trip around the world tomorrow” or “I’m married to the sea” or “I don’t want to kill you, but I will.”

2) I was thinking this afternoon about what analogy I could use to describe my social life. This is the best one I could think of. Growing up I was swinging for the fences, just looking forward to doing an arrogant home run trot. Then I switched to “let’s just make contact, put the ball in play, and move the runners.” Nowadays, I’m crowding the plate and just hoping to get hit by a pitch. So much for optimism, eh?

3) On an actual baseball note, today my White Sox swept the Royals for the third time this season. Man, I wish the White Sox could play the Royals every game, it would literally be a perfect season. This puts the White Sox 9+ games up in their division and it looks like maybe, just maybe, we might actually make the playoffs this year. Trust me, this gives me something to look forward to this summer and fall. I know I get weird looks from people when they find out I cheer the White Sox over the Cubs but when you’re a South Side kid at heart, there is only one allegiance.

4) There were two quick obituaries that hit the news wires yesterday that I want to mention here. With today’s “blink and you missed it” news cycle almost no one noticed them but I’d like to make sure that somewhere in cyberspace both of these men are remembered. The first is Karl Mueller, the bass player for Soul Asylum, who died of cancer earlier this week. When bands stop making records and stop appearing on MTV they tend to be forgotten really quickly but for some people like myself, music is such an ingrained part of their lives that songs never really leave and artists become a part of their extended family. Soul Asylum was one of those great Minnesota bands who you just enjoyed listening to when you were in college. You could put on Grave Dancers Union in your dorm room, turn up the volume and by passer by’s reactions you could tell if they were cool or not. So for those moments alone, you should find the CD hidden in your collection and play it this week.

5) The other person is a name that no one will recognize but in a perfect world you would. My fellow Illinois EE alumni Jack Kilby passed away. You haven’t heard of him but without him it would be impossible for me to write this blog or for you to read it. See, Jack Kilby is the inventor of the integrated circuit. All of the computer chips, all of the technical wonders that have become everyday are all descendants of his invention. I hope that some day schoolchildren will be made to memorize names like Jack Kilby and John Bardeen (inventor of the transistor, two time Nobel prize winner, Illinois alumni, and one of my personal heroes). What these guys did fifty years ago changed the world in the most profound way possible. All I can say is, the world owes you a debt of thanks, Jack.

Embracing the light

“Every year we look forward to the longest day but we never do anything to celebrate it.” That’s a paraphrase from The Great Gatsby (sorry, don’t have my copy next to me right now). Since it is the solstice, I do ask that everyone light a candle and curse the darkness. No one will, but there is a poetry to the thought.

Anyway, enough with the literary references and on to the most pressing issue of the day: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got engaged over the weekend. The fact that they are engaged doesn’t bother me. It might bother Chris Klein, though at the end of the day saying you lost a girl to Tom Cruise probably isn’t that bad of a deal. What pisses me off is how he did it. He proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Which is sweet and romantic and has been my plan for the past seven years. For a long time now I’ve harbored this secret desire that when I finally meet the right girl and everything is perfect we’d vacation in Paris and on one beautiful night I’d ask her to marry me and we would have the best engagement story ever. Guess what? Now if I did that everyone would say, “That’s neat. Isn’t that what Tom Cruise did?” So thanks Tom, seven years of planning down the drain. Asshole.

I feel slightly better that he had water sprayed in his face at a movie premiere by a group of British comedians. I love the fact that he was righteously indignant about the entire affair because who would allow us puny mortals to play a prank on the almighty Tom Cruise. In fact, the guys were arrested for it because apparently spraying water on a movie star is a felony or something. Look, if you want to be famous and go on television and make a fool out of yourself and become the biggest news story of the summer you have to expect that at some point the joke is going to be on you. Get over it.

I did catch a brief glimpse of the interview with the other story of the summer: the runaway bride. She still looks… well, she still looks disturbing. Like her eyelids are superglued open or something. She has a book and a movie deal, which makes me feel even worse that my pitches haven’t been picked up. I mean, what is her story “I ran off, hung out in Vegas, no one knew where I was and I made up a story that I was kidnapped.” That’s a great story of human courage and inspiring acts. If her fiancé hasn’t taken off yet he definitely is the front runner for this year’s Darwin award.

(One side note tonight. Check out www.suntimes.com this week. They are doing a week long celebration of the greatest Chicago movie ever made “The Blues Brothers”, in honor of the movie’s twenty fifth anniversary. First of all, it is the best movie to ever give a sense of what type of town Chicago is, a lot may have changed over the years but that is definitely the town I grew up in. Second of all, they are actually going to the sights where the movie was filmed and seeing what is still standing. Check it out.)

Wakarusa redux redux

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture but every once in a while the beat is just too strong to ignore. That said, more concert reviews from Wakarusa.

I was thrilled to see that Neko Case was on the bill as this is the first time in three years that I’ve had a chance to see her play. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her music (just buy Blacklisted now), she might be best described as a country style torch singer. She has this booming, beautiful voice that is just entrancing and when she sings these dark and moody songs you tend to forget to breathe. Plus, she has some of the best stage banter ever. Part of the show is her interacting with the audience. As I wrote Thursday, I was wondering how she would work in a festival environment.

Sadly, it just didn’t work. Lots of reasons for it. First, she had a bad monitor mix that she complained about for the first thirty minutes of the set, too the point that a group of us in the crowd were joining in the abuse on the sound guy. Second, her set started at eight at night and it’s strange to say this but her music just isn’t fit for daylight. It is a one in the morning standing in a crowded smoke filled bar having spent the past hour drinking and philosophizing about your life type of music. It’s not what you sit in an open field and listen to, no matter if it is some of the best music you ever heard.

Plus, this just wasn’t her crowd. The VIP section was empty for her set, which meant that she had no emotion to feed off of. There were a number of people with me who were huge fans and we were all standing at the security fence but that was literally twenty yards away from the stage. It made for a really sterile feeling to the show and that was sad. No interaction with the crowd, none of the candor that makes her concerts a joy to watch. Finally, you can’t really dance to Neko’s music. There are no jams, no solos, and all of the people who were at the set waiting for String Cheese Incident to play later that night were probably really disappointed. She’s still awesome and you need to listen to her music but I’ll be happy when I see her in a small club again.

On the other hand, Wilco was in their element. They put on the best set of the weekend that I saw and really showed that they probably are the best band on the planet. Jeff Tweedy looked healthy and happy, something that hasn’t been the case in the past few years, and he was having fun joking with the crowd. Their set was an interesting mix of songs; mainly from A Ghost is Born and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. If you’ve heard those albums and know how layered and complex they are then it will really impress you to know that they somehow recreate that sound and energy on stage. Add in the darkness and a full moon shining overhead and it was an ethereal experience.

They played a few songs from Being There (Misunderstood and Kingpin) but nothing from AM. That bums me out a bit. I mean, they are a completely band from what they were on that record but it really is one of my favorites. No Uncle Tupelo songs either, which isn’t that surprising. It is this strange thing about loving a band that broke up a decade ago. I would like to hear Jeff and Jay Farrar play some of their old songs but they’ve both released a half dozen albums since Anodyne and I can understand why those songs no longer are on the playlist. Artists change over time and that song you wrote when you were twenty doesn’t mean the same when you are thirty.

(Side note: people were twirl dancing to Wilco. I have no idea why. Some people just need to dance.)

All in all, these were just a couple of great days worth of music. I told someone today that if you made me list my five favorite bands/artists Wilco, Son Volt and Neko Case would make the top five (joined by Damien Rice and Alejandro Escovedo). Any time you can see those three within thiry six hours of each other, it’s a good music festival. Now if I can just deal with the sunburn…

(I promise more Tom Cruise discussions tomorrow. I have much to say about the events of the past few days. I'l just start with "Katie, you are making the biggest mistake of your life!")

Wakarusa redux

Well, I survived the invasion of the hippies at Wakarusa. It wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was a much better festival than anyone would expect out of a place like Lawrence. Great bands, decent camping facilities, located close enough to get a hotel room if the thought of camping is repulsive. As one guy said to me, “It’s like a really small Bonnaroo”. That’s not exactly a bad thing. Here are some quick thoughts.

The setup was very nice. Two main stages that were maybe a ten minute walk from each other. My single day parking was theoretically a half mile away from the festival site. Which may be true if it takes me twenty minutes to walk half a mile (which it doesn’t) but that was only a minor problem. A small number of food vendors, more than enough beverage vendors, and absolutely no shade in the entire place. That was a bit of a problem since it was high 80’s and sunny for the entire weekend so I am burnt to a crisp right now. This is what happens when your lineage hails from places like Prague and Dublin, you’re just not expected to spend eight hours in the sun. That said, I have to admit that everything was really well run. Shows started on time, no security complaints, everything went really well.

I’ll breakdown some of the more memorable sets. Started off on Friday with The Gourds, a great band that I’ve wanted to see for a long time. You’ve got to respect any band that covers “Gin and Juice” and still finds a way to figure out how to fit a mandolin solo into the mix. Son Volt came out to a great reaction to the point that Jay Farrar went, “Thanks a lot. How are all of you doing today.” Which made three of us in the front row immediately say the same thing, “Jay is really stoked right now. He just said a full sentence.” They mainly played material from their new album, which does sound interesting. A lot of hard rocking stuff, much harder edged than Jay’s recent solo stuff. He threw in a few early Son Volt songs (thanks for playing Windfall, it made my year) but it was still a painfully short fifty minute set. Still, it was a thrill to be in the front row.

Ok, I technically wasn’t in the front row. I was about 15-20 yards from the stage behind a security fence. Which made sense when I was watching Neko Case because, well, that’s about what it says on the restraining order, but it was really due to the VIP section. Yes, they cordoned off this huge area for VIPs, who typically sat on lawn chairs while row after row of people were straining against these metal fences trying to just get a little but closer to the stage. Nice idea, bad execution.

One set I saw that was criminally unattended was Carbon Leaf. This is the second time that I’ve seen them this year and I am continually impressed. Which is really weird because both times I really expected them to just be bad, so basically I am going to tell you to listen to these guys because they don’t suck nearly as much as you think. That’s harsh but it is because from the outside these guy’s look like a WB band. I’m serious, they should be on a One Tree Hill soundtrack or something. But they just put on a great show, have a ton of energy, have a little Jump, Little Children alternative vibe going, and they just hit on all cylinders. Plus, they did a cover of Uncle Tupelo’s “Screen Door”, which marked the only time an Uncle Tupelo song was played the entire weekend.

Tomorrow I’ll write up my impressions on Neko Case and Wilco. Plus, some general comments on the state of Deadhead nation and the thrill of being able to finally look around and go “Get a job you hippie.”

The 5 random CDs of the week:
1) U2 “War”
2) Various Artists “New Orleans Party Classics”
3) Nirvana “MTV Unplugged in New York”
4) Scott Miller and the Commonwealth “Upside Downside”
5) Jack Johnson “In Between Dreams”

Wakarusa preview

Vachel Lindsay? Wow, whoever posted that comment and quote gets props in my book. First of all, it is an awesome quote. Second of all, I had to go diving into google to find out exactly who Vachel Lindsay was (a poet from Illinois, of all things). As someone who at least likes to consider himself moderately well read (or at least “decently well read for someone with an engineering degree”) anyone that has me searching for the source of a quote has done a good job. Now I’m going to end up spending the entire weekend thinking up other potential slogans. You see the trouble I put myself into…

Well, the big event in Kansas this weekend is the Wakarusa festival out in Lawrence. They’ve got a great lineup of bands, or at least several acts that I am dying to see. We have personal fave (and number four on my list of perfect mates) Neko Case doing a set. I’ve never seen Neko put on a bad performance and it will be interesting how she works in front of a large crowd (I’ve always just seen her in packed bars).

The big news is that Son Volt is playing on Friday and Wilco is playing on Saturday, which means that there is a slight, almost non-existent, no way in hell it is actually going to happen, possibility of an Uncle Tupelo reunion. Or at least a “both guys from Uncle Tupelo played on the same stage within 36 hours of one another” moment, which is definitely cool. This could turn into one of those mind blowing weekends for me. It is just a slight bit of hyperbole in saying that in the past ten years I have not gone a week without listening to something from Uncle Tupelo or its offshoots but it is a pretty accurate statement. To see Jay and Jeff on consecutive days that is a dream come true.

But since this is an outdoor festival it means that we also have the invasion of the jam bands. And Big Head Todd and the Monsters. It’s not a festival in the Kansas City area without an appearance by Big Head Todd. I don’t get it either. Anyway, you have some of the usual suspects in the String Cheese Incident and the always cool Galactic. You also have your requisite drum circle, which I will never ever understand. This does mean that we will have myself and my alt-country comrades going head to head with the remnants of the Deadheads. I’m not sure what to expect. Let’s just say that there might be more than a few hippie related rants next week.

Until then, have a safe weekend everybody.

Kansas bashing once again...

Back to our regularly scheduled random programming…

1) I think we have a new winner in the worst license plate ever contest. Move over “My Saab”, I was behind a guy in an Acura today whose license plate read “ACU RA”. Ok, you might be trying to make an interesting statement referencing an Egyptian god. But come on, is there any need to publicize the fact that you are driving an Acura? Is that the proudest accomplishment of your life? Seriously, what made you think that was a good idea?

2) On the vanity license plate front, I met a woman tonight who had a license plate that read “4 DUKE”, is possibly the only person on the planet who is a bigger Duke basketball fan than I am, and we somehow completely failed to hit it off. I’m as stunned and depressed as you are. I’m going to be mulling this one over for a long time.

3) The latest entry in the “My God, please remind me why I moved out here again” file is a classic. Courtesy of a member of the Kansas State Board of Education: “Evolution is an age-old fairy tale”. Wow, I don’t even know where to start. Ok, somehow I have a feeling that Darwin wasn’t bumming around with Aesop when he was coming up with the theory. And I’m pretty sure that we have audio recordings of Clarence Darrow so at least get your time frame right. And finally, grow a friggin brain! You want to know why kids today score horribly in math and science? We have elected people who have decided that we shouldn’t bother to teach them science! Look, if all of you want to go back into the dark ages and get frightened by eclipses because the sun god is angry go ahead but let the rest of us use the brains that God gave us to understand his creation, ok?

4) On the “Free Katie” and “Ron Mexico” t-shirt front, I have been thinking the past few weeks that we need official Battling the Current t-shirts. I mean, how better to advertise your favorite source of 80’s television trivia, music reviews, and drunken rantings than by wearing a t-shirt? So, we (or more accurately, I) need a slogan for the site. Like “Living in Kansas so you don’t have to” or “We don’t know why Dorothy wanted to go home, either” or “Popularity is fascist”. Start sending in suggestions, as friends of the blog expect to receive them gratis.

5) A couple of quick music reviews. I’ve gotten more in depth with the Coldplay CD and I think that I am going to have to stand by my original review. There is absolutely nothing bad about the album, the problem is that there is nothing really memorable either. I mean, there are a couple of moments in Speed of Sound that makes you think that you are about to step into Clocks territory and that your life will never be the same but it just kind of ends. I give them props for being the only band making arena rock albums but it isn’t their best effort. For those into the alt-coutnry genre you should really find a copy of Robbie Fulks’ “Georgia Hard”. This is the best disc from Robbie in a long time with just the right mix of inspiring songs and humor and murder ballads. Finally, I might be about a decade behind the time but I’ve found a good workout CD in Moby’s “Play”. Makes the time on the treadmill go by much quicker.

6) I want to wish everyone a happy Bloomsday tomorrow. All of you should go out and have a pint of Guinness and toast Leopold Bloom, Stephen Daedalus and the genius of James Joyce. Oh, what I would do to be in Dublin once more.

In a daydream

I’m going to try something different (and potentially dangerous) here. I had a couple of dreams over the weekend that I just need to share. Yes, I know, hearing about someone else’s dream is quite possibly the most boring thing imaginable. Heck, I even have a stock response whenever someone starts telling me about theirs…

Random Person: “Man, I had the weirdest dream last night…”
EC: “You mean the one where you are standing on a pile of corpses with a sword raised high and this deep voice from the heavens intones ‘This is your destiny my child. The streets shall flow with the blood of your enemies. All that you see will be yours to command. You are the chosen one.’”
Random Person (looks at me blankly)
EC: “Or maybe that’s just me.”

So, just a warning, this could prove boring. But my mind is still trying to figure out what my subconscious was telling me.

The first one had me coming home from work to my apartment to walk into my bathroom and find writing over all the walls. Just words and pictures everywhere, covering every surface and creating an image that moved beyond graffiti and into a collage. As I started to get very upset at whoever ruined my place I started looking at it and I found that what was written on the walls were inspirational messages from everyone that I knew. A quote from a classmate, a note from a friend, encouragement from all corners, a picture that provided solace to someone, that was what was surrounding me. I just found that to be one of the neatest images that I’ve ever come up with and I wasn’t even thinking at the time. It almost makes you want to try it in real life (well, other than the safety deposit aspect of it all).

The other one seems more basic on the surface but it will stay with me for a long time. I’ve mentioned in here my high school English teacher who was one of the first people to see potential in me and try to get me out of my shell. And though he passed away a number of years ago he still crosses my mind from time to time. Well, a few night’s ago I ran into him in my dream and we had the following conversation.

Kevin: “So how is it going Chris?”
EC: “Not bad. I think I have things under control and moving in the right direction.”
Kevin: “Are you sure?”

And then I woke up. Just like that. And I remembered that I had a similar dream two years ago when I graduated business school. I dreamt that I was at a graduation banquet with my MBA classmates and Kevin was giving the commencement speech and directed it to me. Saying that I’ve accomplished much but there is a big future out there ahead of me. And now I’m wondering what he meant by saying, “Are you sure?” Like maybe it is time to stop resting on past laurels and making some new history. It was a question and a challenge and encouragement all at the same time.

I know that it is odd that I am talking about something that is most likely my subconscious running wild due to sleep deprivation but I do ponder these things. I’m someone who feels that there is a thin line between what we call reality and what exists beyond our senses. And I find it a little more than coincidence that when I find myself at a crossroads in my life I have an old friend show up in a dream and ask me questions that I really need to understand. At the least, it is nice to have the feeling that he is still out there, watching over me and helping me out every once in a while.

It's Jacko time

First off, I need to thank David and everyone at Cosmic American radio for being the first radio station to actually accept one of my requests. I’m stunned, I’m one of those guys who picks songs on the jukebox and five hours later they still haven’t been played. Which is probably due to the songs I select but no matter, getting Maggie added to a playlist is a thrill. Now, if you ever need the occasional concert review, just let me know.

Also, it’s only taken six months but I’ve actually added a picture to my profile. Sadly, it is not exactly the one I want. I mean it is a great picture of Deron Williams tying the game against Arizona but I had a few others in mind. For some reason Blogger only wants a picture that is smaller than 50KB, so I have some work to do on a few images that I want to post. Just keep an eye on the space. At least it is no longer this big blank spot any more.

Let’s see what is in the news today. Michael Jackson got off this afternoon…

Ok, let me rephrase that. Michael Jackson was found innocent on all charges. Well, I don’t think anyone questioned whether he could get arrested in LA, convicted was probably another story. Not sure what this implies, other than yet another trial of the century has ended and now we have to wait for the next big scandal to occur. Like I said before, other than the belief that justice should be carried out if required, does anyone really care about Michael Jackson anymore? I’m not even sure if he qualifies as a sideshow. He just seems like some grade school fad that I reminisce about while watching I Love the 80’s on VH-1. You know, like Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. Something that you do not devote a single brain cell to but once you hear the name mentioned you go, “Oh yeah. I used to be so into those.” That might be the saddest statement that I have ever made on a person’s life. That’s celebrity for you.

On other pop culture wagon items, it appears that I am behind the times in terms of entrepreneurial spirit. It seems that people are already selling “Free Katie” shirts on the internet. Yes, the Dawson Creek fans are up in arms about Tom Cruise being the one to snag their dream girl. I will have to say Tom Cruise is either madly in love and has no idea what he is doing or he is putting on his typically bad acting job and is trying to act like he is in love. You’ve got to wonder about the guy’s track record. I mean, props for anyone who can marry both Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman in one lifetime but what does it mean when you divorce both? At that point you have to start to question his mental stability.

Oh, and I want to officially declare the “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt craze over. If you don’t have the shirt already, don’t bother picking one up. This is based on the fact that every t-shirt shop on Bourbon Street (and there are like three thousand of them) had a “Vote for Pedro – New Orleans” shirt in the window. That is the sign that an underground fad has gotten to be a little too popular. We’ll have to think of something a little more creative (and less popular) for the future.

Bizarro world

Ever have one of those times when it seems like you’ve mistakenly stepped into a parallel universe? As in everything seems normal on the outside but there are just enough events going on that make you feel like you’ve stepped into Bizarro world? That’s kind of been the way the past few days have gone for me. Have had a couple of, well, interesting experiences this weekend that I just need to share.

The first is going to be of great importance to those who live in the Kansas City area. Most people have heard me gripe about the fact that a biker bar had opened up a couple blocks from my apartment last year. It was the brainchild of the local shock jock DJ and certainly seemed to have a very loyal clientele, who would nightly rev up their Harleys and annoy the hell out of everyone for an eight block radius. Made it a challenge for me to drink at my favorite bar across the street in peace. Plus, you had to admire the white trash motif. (Ok, that’s not entirely a rip. I’ll have to admit that the waitresses in catholic school girl uniforms were a nice touch.) Anyway, sometime in the past few weeks the DJ sold the place and it was renamed American Chrome, which I first noticed when I walked by it earlier this week. Well, heard on the news Friday morning that when the employees showed up on Thursday they found the doors locked and a foreclosure notice on the door. I’m not sure exactly what happened but you have to be a brilliant businessman to lose money in a bar in the bar district of a mid-major city.

The weird thing is that wasn’t even the weirdest bar moment from this weekend. See, since it is summer they close the streets in Westport so you can walk down the street without being afraid of getting run over by people leaving the bars. They also set up music and stuff in the street so you have something to do when you’re walking from bar to bar. So, I’m sitting at my favorite stool Saturday night and look out the window to see a crowd of people in the street with hula hoops. Yes, because when it’s midnight on a Saturday the first thing that comes to my mind is “Let’s hold an impromptu hula hoop competition!” It was quite possibly the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen as all of these people in various degrees of dress and intoxication struggled to keep a hula hoop up (except for this one woman who was doing it in style). I also was impressed by the dance offs where it looked like someone might possibly had been served. So for the record we’ve lost the motorcycles but regained the fifties fads. Wow, maybe I should cut back…

Even going shopping has been like going into a different world. Hit Barnes and Noble today and the background music was something I am just going to try to describe. Ok, you remember all of those old Frank Sinatra recordings? Those kind of spoken jazz riffs where you can just envision him pointing to the crowd at various points. Well, that was the musical style but the song was Smells Like Teen Spirit. So imagine shopping to “Here we are now, hey, entertain us, baby. I feel stupid, yeah, and contagious.” Even checking out was an adventure. Here I am with a copy of “The Smartest Guys in the Room” (a book on Enron) and yet another Nick Hornby book and get to overhear someone asking the cashier for help. Here is the conversation.

Person (struggling): “Ok, we’re looking for this book ‘A Day in the life of Ivan…Ivan…Denis..”
EC: “Denisovich”
Barnes and Noble Employee: “Do you know who wrote it?”
EC: “Soltzhenesin”
Woman in line behind me: “Actually it’s Tolstoy. I’m reading it right now.”
EC: “Well, I read it before and it was Soltzhenesin then.”

I’m correct by the way. I knew that reading Russian authors would come in handy one day. Still, I was hoping to get some props from the crowd. Come on, how many people who read books on Enron can also discuss stories about the Russian gulag? Shouldn’t that count for something in life?

Oh well, time for another week in the office. And looking at my CD list for the week, I have a feeling that the weirdness will continue.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Golden Smog “Weird Tales”
2) Cowboy Junkies “Open”
3) Jump, Little Children “Early Years, Volume 1”
4) Sting “Nothing Like the Sun”
5) Tori Amos “To Venus and Back”

Return to The Breakfast Club

(Point of clarification: no, I am not worried about my apartment disappearing in a flood. It’s not like I’m living on a flood plain or anything. I am just amazed that every local network last night decided to preempt the prime time schedule to tell me that it was raining eighty miles to the west of me. Sure there were some funnel clouds forming but I just don’t see the need for every channel to tell me in great detail what is happening. In New Orleans it probably is more like last call at a bar. “The hurricane is going to hit us in five minutes. You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.” I just like that style a little more.)

Struggling for a topic right now. Is it me or does the world just seem to be at a standstill right now? I mean, is there any big pressing water cooler story that is on everyone’s lips? I just don’t know of any. The Michael Jackson jury is still deliberating. They’ve been going for five days so my money is on a hung jury right now. I know they had a number of charges to deliberate on but the longer this goes the more it looks like it is going to be a deadlocked jury.

The interesting thing is how or why are we still considering Michael Jackson famous. He’s crossed into the Paris Hilton territory of being famous more for being famous and outrageous than for anything he has accomplished. Seriously, when was the last time you bought a Michael Jackson album? Or even listened to one? Admittedly, Thriller was a cool album in its day and Bad had its moments but in the last decade has he done anything other than be weird? None of us have any vested interest in this story, the vast public isn’t going to cheer or wail at the reading of the verdict. It’s like we’re all watching a movie that we don’t really like but since we paid for our ticket we might as well hang out and see the ending and that’s sad, really.

Oh, and talking about lost fame, I should really touch on The Breakfast Club reunion at the MTV Movie Awards. Yeah, it is surprising that of all the people in that movie Anthony Michael Hall is the one who is still getting regular work (and doing a pretty good job at it). Molly Ringwald gets a sitcom deal once every five years but other than a decent performance in The Stand and a cool cameo in Not Another Teen Movie really hasn’t been on the pop culture radar. Ally Sheedy went insane, wrote some poetry, made a really good indie film that I can’t recall right now, and has disappeared once again. Emilio Estevez is never going to be better than he was in Repo Man and has probably given up even attempting to match that moment. (Is Repo Man on DVD? I have to pick up that movie. I have a ton of memories tied to it.) And Judd Nelson is, what, working dinner theater in Florida right now? Guess this shows how difficult it is to have a long career in the movie biz.

That’s it for tonight. Have a good weekend everyone. Listen to some music, eat some good food and enjoy life. I know that’s what I’m going to try to do.

Sixteen Candles Part Deux

Maybe it is just me but I am fascinated by the fact that when severe storms roll through Kansas City every channel goes into full “Kill Storm 2005” mode. Regular programming, forget that, we’re just going to show radar images for the next three hours. I really shouldn’t be this flippant since it is Kansas and tornadoes are a very real threat but I just find it fascinating. Where else would Law and Order be preempted? If you want to know why I can't provide you with a recap of tonight's episode of Beauty and the Geek, this is why. That said, given that this was a vicious little storm and last year we got hit with a storm that caused every street around my apartment to flood I should probably pay a little more attention to the news. Trust me, if and when I move to New Orleans I will take the hurricane warnings very seriously.

To give a sense of where my life is at right now, I just received a CD that I had shipped to me from New Zealand. Yes, since I have listened to apparently every CD that has been printed in the U.S. I am now sending out to random nations for music. Actually, it is from The Brunettes, the really funny and cool band that opened for The Shins a month ago. It is a fun little disc. Not as good as the live show but neat nonetheless. But it does say something about me that this year I have ordered books from London and music from Auckland.

I think that I have recovered from my vacation. A part of me is still down in the Big Easy but for the most part I am back in work mode. It is fun to see just how much of a struggle it is to get back into the grind of going to the office after you’ve been out for a couple of days. I really wasn’t out that long, only two days after a holiday weekend, but today felt like it was Sunday. Plus, this was one of those vacations where you come back and you need another vacation to recover from the trip. A couple of late nights in a row followed by a long plane flight just leaves you feeling out of sorts for the rest of the week.

As you can tell, I am a bit at a loss for a topic tonight. Other than the fact that Molly Ringwald is thinking about doing a sequel to Sixteen Candles, which is probably the biggest news that I’ve read all week. I’m not sure what the movie would be about other than “Here are the characters twenty years later.” They’re not even that memorable of characters. Before Sunset worked as a sequel because you were interested in what happened after the end of Before Sunrise (and I’m still trying to figure out what happened at the end of Before Sunset). But I don’t know if anyone is that intrigued about Sixteen Candles other than Molly Ringwald fanboys. They’re out there, you can count on that fact.

That’s all for now. More news tomorrow. (Oh and yes I did notice that in rereading the posting where I request an editor that there were missing words and misspellings. That just proves my point.)

Back to our regularly scheduled random programming

Have a couple of housecleaning items that I’d like to take care of tonight from a blog perspective. It will also be a nice bit of respite from vacation stories. Writing about your vacation in your blog has to be the twenty-first century of making people sit on your couch and look at slides from your trip, which must have been an eighteenth century idea to begin with. Anyway, here we go.

First, I am a week late in giving a much deserved shout out to my friends at Cosmic American radio, who have come up with the brilliant idea of running an internet radio site dedicated to Americana. These guys have a great song selection with highlights including Son Volt, Caitlin Cary and the under appreciated Kathleen Edwards. They even have Ryan Adams “Monday Night”, a song that I thought that I had the only copy of. That’s worth props in my book. Check them out at www.cosmicamericanradio.com. (Now, if you start playing Maggie Walters songs then I’ll really be happy.)

Second, it has been brought to my attention that many of you have noticed that my grammar and spelling can be, at times, atrocious. Specifically, the odds of my correctly choosing between your and you’re and there and there is fifty-fifty at best. I do apologize for that since I’d like to think that I am slightly smarter than that. Personally, I blame Microsoft since their grammar check isn’t smart enough to tell me that my typing isn’t matching what my brain is thinking. If anyone is interested in being my editor (my last one quit due to, uh, creative differences) let me know.

Also, I know that I am often critical of the state of Kansas in my writing. Ok, lets be honest, I am always critical of the state of Kansas in my writing. But I did catch a news story when I came back from vacation that will allow me to share the joy and be critical of Missouri as well. Seems that our governor Matt Blount (who I didn’t vote for and is my age for crying out loud) authorized the flying of the confederate flag over a state park for one day over the weekend as part of a ceremony, which is wrong on so many levels. I can’t imagine how anyone would think that having that happen would be a good idea. I could really go off on it right now but it isn’t even worth my effort. Let’s just say that this does not make me proud to know that I live in this state.

Finally, a really quick music review. Just made my first listen through Coldplay’s new album. It sounds pretty good, though a little nondescript. Meaning: while there was anything that I heard on the album that made me wince I’m not sure if there is any one song that is sticking in my head right now. It might take a few listens through to get the full picture. My fear is that since Chris Martin finds himself the luckiest man on the planet it will be really tough for him to write music that relates to the everyman. Because his early songs I could identify with and I don’t know, I just can’t identify with being married to Gwenyth Paltrow at this point in my life. Maybe it is just me.

More memories of the Quarter

More observations from New Orleans…

1) It’s fitting that I talk about the D-Day museum today, on the sixty first anniversary of that event. It is, without a doubt, one of the best museums that I’ve ever visited. From the introductory film, which could be a sufficient museum in itself, to the exhibits that take you from the build up of the American forces to the tactics and strategy to the amazing bravery of those first soldiers who stepped off the Higgins boats knowing that the odds were against them but they did their job to ensure that the next boat would have an easier path, it is a place that takes your breath away. I’ve never found a place that gives you a sense of how brutal the fighting was in those days after the invasion. They have a mock up of a hedgerow and you walk by and look back to see several gun barrels pointing at where you were just standing. Even if you were looking for them you still can’t find them. It makes your heart stop. They’ve also added a section on the war in the Pacific, including a somber and sobering section on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I know these are not topics that always come up when you think of when you envision New Orleans but if you visit the town you owe it to yourself to visit this place.

2) That said, I have a personal reason why I find myself drawn to the museum. It was the brainchild of Stephen Ambrose, the great historian and professor at the University of New Orleans. A school that offered the sixteen year old version of me the chance to attend on a full scholarship and send me to Europe one summer, where I later found out I would have studied under Dr. Ambrose. I have always said that I keep very few regrets in my life but I will always wonder what could have been if I had decided to study history in New Orleans as opposed to engineering in Champaign.

3) It had been four years since I had been to New Orleans and for the most part, the city hadn’t changed. I was upset to find that my favorite bookstore, this massive independent store with a huge section of New Orleans writers, had disappeared and been replaced by an Urban Outfitters. I like Urban Outfitters, I have more than my fair share of post modern ironic t-shirts, but I really miss that bookstore.

4) Of course, the Hooters is still open in the French Quarter. I am still amazed by this because if there is any place in the country where a Hooters shouldn’t make money it is New Orleans. Because from both a food perspective and the, uh, entertainment side of the equation there are dozens of places within three blocks that are better choices.

5) Sight that will make its way into a story of mine some day: Peering into the darkness of Jackson Square late one night and making out the shapes of a number of cats holding court near the statue. In a town where the supernatural is all around you it is sights like that which make you wonder what really constitutes reality.

6) I am pissed that one of my favorite places in the Quarter is now being written up in every guidebook in every hotel. Port of Call, which is on Esplanade at the far end of the Quarter, has the absolute best hamburgers in the city served with a huge baked potato and trust me, it really helps you to recover from whatever happened the night before. Well, it used to be this hidden place that only some people knew about. Now it is being packed with tourists and while I am happy that they are having great business, I really wish that it was a place that only I knew about.

7) Saw in one of the stores on Bourbon Street Mardi Gras beads that featured the Notre Dame logo so I had to pick them up. I swear to God, within a block I had people asking where in the world I got them and offering to buy them off of me. So for anyone looking for a riskless arbitrage opportunity in the future, there you go.

8) I’m going to close with a quote from one of my favorite New Orleans writers, Andrei Codrescu (who is originally from Romania but escaped from communism, bounced around the U.S., found himself in New Orleans, and never left). He explains what I love about the city better than I could

“New Orleans is a small city, but it seems spacious because it is always full of people… like a crowded barroom at night. At dawn, a deserted barroom seems small beyond belief: how did all those people fit? The answer is that space and time are subjective no matter what the merciless clock of late twentieth century America tells us. And there is more subjective time and space in New Orleans than almost anywhere in the United States. Which is not to say that the sad ironies of dehumanized commerce and violence do not touch us here: they do, as Walker Percy’s Moviegoer or John Kennedy Toole’s Ignatius O’Reilly amply prove. But the city puts up a fight, a funny, sad fight composed sometimes of sly stupidities and Third World inefficiency. The city can drive a sober-minded person insane, but it feeds the dreamer. It feeds the dreamer stories, music and food. Really great food.”

(Taken from “Se Habla Dreams” in the essay collection “The Muse is Always Half-Dressed in New Orleans”)

Debauchery and Redemption

Apologies for missing my first blog posting since maybe Christmas on Thursday but I was on hiatus. More accurately, I got out of town for a few days and made my way down to New Orleans, Louisiana. There are a few places on this planet where I naturally feel that I belong and New Orleans is one of them. It does feel that I have spent a number of past lives in the town and every corner seems to hold some remembrance of a forgotten history. Had a great time and I’ll share some highlights here.

1) Had the fun Southwest “Let’s stop at every airport on the way there” flight plan. It is disconcerting to find yourself landing in Tulsa. It makes you ask yourself questions like “Tulsa has an airport?” and “Is it possible to land a plane on a gravel runway?”

2) I have often heard that New Orleans is the most European of American cities. I’ve also heard it described as the most northern Caribbean city. In my mind, though, there is nothing like it in the world. There is just an otherworldly quality to the entire place. Where else do you have the chaos of Bourbon Street next to the art of Royal Street and the sheer vibrancy of Jackson Square. The glamour of the Garden District juxtaposed with the unending power of the river. Where music literally emanates from the buildings. It is truly a city out of time. It is not from this century or any other century. I think that you could truly live forever there because time simply doesn’t exist within city limits.

3) Thursday night. Yeah. Wow. You’ll have to wait until my novel is published for that story. I was there and I can’t separate the fact from the fiction. All I can say is that walking back to my hotel at the end of the night I felt like my main character come to life.

4) A few people who have been in my apartment have seen this picture of Pirate’s Alley that hangs over my CD collection. Pirate’s Alley is my favorite part of town. It’s just two blocks right next to the cathedral and it just feels like Limbo to me. You have the noise of Bourbon Street behind you and this cathedral in front of you and in your soul you know you are at that moment halfway between heaven and hell. And I love those in between places, most of my stories focus on those in between moments in life. Well, for a while I have been talking about my dream of buying one of the buildings (along with my goal of living in New Orleans for a year and writing about it). I walked down it this weekend and saw that one of the buildings was for sale. I actually called up the realtor to get a price range. We’re talking about 800K here. If anyone knows where I can get a low interest loan (in the range of “Here’s a ton of money now go live your dream”) let me know.

5) Oh, the other thing that I dig about Pirate’s Alley is Faulkner lived there while Sherwood Anderson lived a block away and Tennessee Williams lived two blocks in the other direction. At the same time F. Scott Fitzgerald had an apartment overlooking one of the cemeteries. There is something about knowing that I was walking the same streets as those figures that makes me feel incredible.

6) The random conversations are the best ones. This one took place at an oyster bar one night

Guy at Bar: “You have to examine the positive and negative externalities”
Deuce the Oyster Schucker: “Explain”
Guy at Bar: “See a negative externality is…let’s say you sit down at a bar and the guy next to you is smoking. He’s making your night worse but you can’t ask him to pay you for your suffering. That’s a negative externality.”
Decue the Oyster Schucker: “I got it.”
Guy at Bar: “Now a positive externality…”
EC: “Is the pretty girl sitting next to you at the bar.”
Guy at Bar: “Exactly. (Points to his girlfriend) We should be paying her for allowing us to sit here.”

7) If there is a place to find redemption in New Orleans it is Preservation Hall. Every trip I make there I spend the last night sitting on their floor and listening to some of the best jazz ever played. I always feel better about humanity when I see what can be created by people working together. It is a glorious thing.

8) I made this trip for one reason and one reason only, to figure out what I want to do with my life. Anyone who has been reading the blog understands that my life has been going through a lot of flux recently and I needed to get away and get to a place that I call home and to just think things through. And late last night, as I sat in Café Du Monde I had a lot of things dawn on me that had been behind a lot of mental screens. Some were enlightening, some weren’t pleasant but they all were apparent through my adventures this weekend. All I can say is watch this space over the next few months. Great things are afoot.

I’ll tell a few more stories as the week goes on. I have to get ready for work tomorrow. No, I can’t believe I left NOLA to go back to work either.

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Jay Farrar “ThirdShiftGrottoSlack”
2) The Tragically Hip “Live Between Us”
3) Martin Zellar “Born Under”
4) Henry Rollins “Think Tank”
5) The Shins “Oh, Inverted World”

Forgotten television shows: volume four

(Continuing the series…)
I’m going to change things up here and write about a show that I remember not because it was tied to that wonderful time when your ten years old and you really have no worries in the world. (I mean, think about it. Not worrying about dating, getting into the right school is a long way off. Just all the time a kid could want to watch tv, play video games and work on his jump shot.) So, instead of talking about one of those shows I am going to talk about my favorite show from the past ten years. The show whose biggest flaw was that it was too smart for network television. I’m talking about Sports Night.

Most people couldn’t get past the premise. It’s a comedy that takes place behind the scenes at a cable sports network. A lot of people went “I’m not a sports fan so it won’t make any sense to me.” But it was about sports in the same way that Cheers was about a bar and Northern Exposure was about Alaska. Meaning all that was just backdrop. It was just a stage in which a group of great characters interacted with some of the best dialogue that you’ve ever heard. One of my favorites…

“We'll bring you the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat-and, because we've got soccer highlights, the sheer pointlessness of a zero-zero tie.”

This was just a show filled with characters that were real people. The anchors (Dan and Casey) were not just a bunch of empty suits but really seemed to encompass what it must be like to be trying to make it big time. You had Dana (played by the insanely talented Felicity Huffman) who took on the role of a woman trying to juggle her career with what she wanted out of the rest of her life and made it as real as possible. You had guest stars like William H. Macy who could steal the show at the drop of a hat. And you had a character that did seem like it was myself on screen for a little while.

I’m talking about Jeremy, who probably is the television character who closest resembles me personally in looks and personality. His role on the show was always ill defined, he was pretty high up the food chain in terms of producing the show but he wasn’t running it or second in command. He was just the resident know it all. What I loved about his character is that he showed that knowledge and confidence do not go hand in hand. You can know everything about a situation, understand every nuance, be aware of every contingency, and still be afraid to take that next step. That’s the way I feel in the back of my head a lot of the time and it was comforting seeing that on screen. That he got the girl made life even better.

This is definitely a show worth checking out on DVD. It only lasted two seasons, which is a pity but a blessing nonetheless. This is the type of show that disappears after about four episodes typically. There’s nothing on television this summer. I mean, Beauty and the Geek is a disturbing show and I don’t know what to expect from celebrity Dance Fever so go to the video store or Netflix and pick up the discs. It will be time well spent.