Reality never lives up...

CD Update: The above picture is the cover art for “Battling the Current: Volume 1”. It’s called “Play That Funky Music” by Tom Everhart and as some of you may know, it is a painting that I picked up in the French Quarter in June. Honestly, while walking down the street I looked into a gallery and saw this hanging on the far wall and went, “I just have to have that one.” If this doesn’t describe my life I don’t know what does. Also, here is the official playlist

1) Blue Mountain “Generic America”
2) Waco Brothers “See Willy Fly By”
3) Uncle Tupelo “Chickamauga” (live at Lounge Ax)
4) The Frames “God Bless Mom” (live in Dublin)
5) Jeff Buckley “I Woke Up in a Strange Place” (live in Sydney)
6) Alejandro Escovedo “Baby’s Got New Plans”
7) Josh Rouse “Carolina”
8) Neko Case “Train From Kansas City” (which was possibly recorded about me)
9) Beth Orton “Best Bit”
10) Julie Delpy “Mr. Unhappy” (only available on a French import disc)
11) Kelly Willis “What I Deserve”
12) Ryan Adams “Monday Night” (super-ultra rare track)
13) The Shins “The Past and Pending”
14) Josh Ritter “Lawrence, KS” (as close to a theme song as this blog can get)

So please, please, give me your information so I can send this out. Where else are you going to get an entire hour of music delivered for free to your home? I mean, without illegally downloading the tracks, of course. So please get in touch, otherwise I’ll think that no one is reading this and that would make me sad…

A couple of random notes from the weekend…

1) An addition to the weird license plate category. Driving home from my Thursday night poker game I was behind a car with plates that read “PYITE”. Sound it out. I’m telling you, it’s drivers like this that really worry me because they know, deep in their hearts, that if anything goes wrong that they are going to heaven. I much prefer to drive behind the guys with Slayer bumper stickers on their cars because they are betting that this is their only existence so you know they have their hands at 10 and 2.
2) If you’re not watching The Boondocks on Adult Swim, you are really missing one of the best things going right now. We might have a new winner for best social commentary on television. It’s based on the great cartoon strip and it is really well done. It isn’t madcap comedy like Family Guy but it still gives you a couple of laughs. Plus, Adam West provided a voice in tonight’s show and you can’t beat that.
3) That said, great Family Guy episode tonight. If there is a character on television that I relate to it is Brian. Yes, the only character on tv that is like me is a talking dog that drinks martinis. That probably says a lot about me. Still, love the Rocky IV reference tonight and a running A-Team reference.
4) Ran a little bit of a sociological experiment last night. Went to Kelly’s at the start of the night and started keeping a tally of the number of guys I saw wearing untucked striped shirts. The results were astounding. I mean, it’s not that big of a bar and I think I counted two dozen in about ten minutes. This leads me to an interesting quandary. I read over the weekend that the untucked striped shirt look is out of style and for 2006 you should really be going with the solid color, prim and proper look. But the thing is, I live in Kansas City. It is going to take about two years for that to be in style here. So, do I go out and be a trendsetter (i.e. look out of place here but look completely average in the rest of the country) or do I stay in the past?
5) If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the highlights of the Bears game, in which the Bears win on a 108 yard field goal return. Yes, a field goal return, there is such a thing, you just almost never see it. One of those plays of the year and just emblematic of the Bears season. They are winning in ways that you didn’t even know were possible.
6) Have to comment on one piece of sad news from today. Wrestling lost another great today as Eddie Guerrero was found dead in a hotel room at the much too young age of 38. First of all, Eddie was one of the best wrestlers on the planet and I am going to miss his incredible talent. But most of all, I would like to hope that one day people would notice how many wrestlers die young and think that maybe we should do something about it. The numbers that have died in the past few years are really staggering and I would like there to be at least some regulation in the industry or at least for McMahon to show some interest in the welfare of his employees. This just leaves me shaking my head.

The five random CDs of the week
1) Kasey Chambers “Wayward Angel”
2) Robbie Fulks “Couples in Trouble”
3) Lorena McKennitt “Live in Paris and Toronto”
4) R.E.M. “Automatic for the People”
5) Rufus Wainwright “Want One”