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Journal
- 2001
Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas - and to all a good night. It's December 21st once
again. If I wasn't so immersed in holiday goodness I might take notice of the
fact that today might be my least favorite day of the year. It's the first day
of winter, which couldn't be farther from the first day of summer on the calendar.
Ack! Good thing 12.21 usually slips by undetected.
I'm leaving town
for the holidays this morning - bound for warmer climes. Not warm enough to don
my beloved sandals - but warm enough to relax my already-tense shoulders.
So, love and peace to everyone this holiday season. In the Festivus proclamation
of one Frank Costanza... "Happy Festivus... I've got a lot of problems with
you people!"
12.21.01
From the Davidoff The
Art of Tasting propaganda pamphlet:
"Zino Davidoff always encourages
his customers to 'smoke less, but smoke better.' Do not rashly light up a cigar
if you do not have the time to enjoy it, but create time to indulge in this pleasure.
2-3 cigars a day is a reasonable average."
Two to three a day? Dear
God. Who has the constitution to smoke three cigars in one day? Other than Fidel
Castro and the late George Burns, I mean. I certainly don't. I recently accompanied
some of my cronies to one of Chicago's finer smoke shops for their annual anniversary
soiree. I am not a smoker myself, but as a connoisseur of fine beer and guitar
tone I can appreciate any man's mania regarding the upper echelon of any product
line. Besides, this annual event features gratis beer and the best jerk chicken
that I've ever had. At this year's party I got lured into a "cigar tasting"
sponsored by the Davidoff Cigar Company of the Dominican Republic. This "tasting"
amounted to twenty guys in a room smoking four cigars each in the course of an
hour bathed in the dim, hazy light of a Power Point presentation. I felt like
beef jerky by the time
it was over and I finally got some fresh city air outside.
I've washed my clothes several times since the event and I'm pretty sure that
they'll have to be destroyed.
The holiday season is here again. I found
no less than three caches of Christmas lights stashed about my apartment storage.
I have enough white lights to assemble a rudimentary 747 landing strip. Perhaps
I could find a vacant lot and spell out a message for passing astronauts. TAKE
ME WITH YOU, it might say. I'm pretty tired of this winter and it hasn't even
officially started yet. A ride on a space craft or flying saucer might be just
the thing to perk me up. It would be nice to see this place from space and discover
once and for all that there aren't any lines dividing up the brown, tan and green
land masses. Ideas seem to divide us more than anything. I have an idea. Why doesn't
everybody just leave everyone else alone? I'm not talking about not helping people.
I am talking about the fact that humans spend so much time worrying about what
everyone else is doing that they haven't a clue what they are doing.
My neighbors upstairs are having a party tonight. I don't mind in the least.
I'm certain that I've kept my share of neighbors up
over the years. I can plainly hear their musical choices - in the
low frequencies primarily. Bass players may get overlooked when it comes to band
glory but they're the only ones who get heard through walls and ceilings and cranial
cavities. They were playing Radiohead a few minutes back. At least they have decent
taste. I had some dorm neighbors in college with questionable musical leanings.
I also had some gay neighbors who kept me up for a couple straight nights this
summer blasting Cher and some other gratingly annoying uptempo crap. My poor roommate's
bedroom window was a mere 6 feet from their stereo the whole time. After a 48-hour
siege we retaliated with Aerosmith and some
bluegrass. I think our strike was delivered too late. They had
already cleared out when we worked our way up to Ricky Skaggs and realized they
they had been packing the whole time. I was elated to see them go. Over the tenure
of their stay they had been breeding boxers that they let pee freely in our shared
backyard. Those dogs reek. There's no two ways about it. Maybe that high lonesome
sound blended with their Depeche Mode helped them pack just a little faster. 12.8.01
Get this. I stepped in dog shit last
weekend. Both feet. That's a first. 12.6.01
Happy Thanksgiving everybody. I'm just happy to be here. I hope everyone
gets a chance to spend some time with some people they love tomorrow. I'm heading
out across Northern Illinois to a farm where the sky is big and the air is clean.
It's so quiet there that you can hear the wind in the trees. We don't get that
much here in the city. It is a quiet and somewhat lonely night for me. Everyone
I know is with family or is on their way to being so. The streets are silent and
it's far too cold to have the windows open. I got out my favorite album of all
time last night... Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas. I can't really
explain how much this CD means to me. It has become as much a part of my holiday
traditions as Christmas trees and egg nog. I'm sad tonight because I miss the
way holidays were when I was young. My family is spread out over a thousand miles
now. Once upon a time I would restlessly spin in my bed on Christmas Eve, my little
brother in the bunk below me and the rest of my family - cats and fish and birds
included - sleeping under one warm roof in the crystalline December night. 11.21.01
Hi ho. November here. Not much going on. This economy sucks. I'm beginning
to wonder when our government will be flying over Chicago and other U.S. cities
dropping thousands of meal packets. Dubya wants me to spend money and kick-start
the economy. What money, George? I can't git no job. No job - no money. No money
- no kick-start. I guess I'll have to live on all that cash I got from my multi-million
dollar deal with Pepsi. Oh wait. I forgot. That's not me at all. That's Britney
what's-her-name. Shit.
It is November, and around here that means one
big thing. Tetris season. All those hours spent outside on my bike and such have
to be diverted to other pursuits. I'm an old school Tetris devotee. I'm on my
third Nintendo NES system in all these years. They're old and they keep going
to pot on me. Let's face it, these things weren't built to last. They were only
built with enough planned obsolescence to get them through until the next generation
of home gaming hardware was released the following week. Tetris seems to be one
of those things that my brain just understands. I can nearly play it in my head
lying in bed. When we lose Daylight Saving Time and the temperature drops I fire
up my Tetris and begin playing Rachmaninov.
Snuggle up and keep warm,
everybody. 11.9.01
In less than a month I've gone from sleeping
with no less than two fans blowing on me to having the heat on. You know the old
Chicago saying, "If you don't like the weather, stick around." I was
walking the dog yesterday morning as some early and unwelcome November winds blew
garbage and leaves speedily past us. One word kept repeatedly forcing its way
into my head ... Texas. It's warm there. Hot, even. I
have many friends who prefer colder weather. Everyone has
different climate ideals. As far as I am concerned they can come visit me when
I move somewhere warmer because I've just about had it with freezing.
Halloween is almost here again. It honestly seems as if I just finished bringing
last year's pumpkins in off the porch. I usually place them around my bedroom
when I go to sleep on Halloween night, leaving my room awash in a slowly flickering
warm glow cast by melange of triangular faces. Halloween is truly among my favorite
holidays. As a kid, what could be better? You get to legitimately dress up as
something you dreamed up and run around the neighborhood - largely unsupervised
- at night. If you were lucky (like me) you had a dad or an uncle who could make
you a robot costume complete with blinking lights and a spinning radar dish on
your head. It was very Darth Vader and even before Star Wars. Lucas' villain was
far more imposing than my blonde-headed robot, however. Other costumes ran the
gamut over the years. I can remember being Bigfoot, an astronaut, a fighter pilot,
a hippie, a soldier, as well as some cheap drug store plastic mask with the rubber
band stapled to it. I think that it was a mask of little known Saturday morning
cartoon character Hong
Kong Phooey. I also remember not being able to see so well because the eye
holes didn't line up with my eyes, and that I had to breathe through this tiny
little hole in the mask. It never really worked so well. As I got older I made
more statements with my costume choices. I think I went as Jesus several years
in a row. It was a good cheap collegiate costume. A sheet, a brown wreath and
a stick would pretty much do it. I already had the Birkenstocks, long hair and
a perpetually unshaven face. In then end you would come home with enough candy
to ration until Christmas. Mini Butterfingers and Snickers were always the most
sought after. It was the perfect venue to peruse all the new candy offerings every
year. I remember first seeing Nerds, Whachamacallits, Spree and many others on
Halloween night. The dregs consisted of the perenially-dispensed homemade popcorn
balls and errant pennies. What a crock. Believe you me, if I could get away with
it I'd be on your porch in
full regalia screaming "Trick or Treat!" at the
top of my lungs next Wednesday night.
Oh, and Happy Birthday,
Karen! 10.26.01
Damn, I'm freezing again. I'm like a broken
record. Every year it's the same thing - complaining about the weather. To coin
some kind of backwards metaphor - "it's like living in Chicago and complaining
about the weather." The leaves are turning and they are pretty as ever. The
trees could give a shit about socio-political-economic motives. The Great Lakes
rain will fall on gray sidewalks and nervous mailmen alike. (My mailman is a woman.)
It's a sad time to be on earth. I just hope we learn something from this madness.
Before September 11th there really wasn't such a thing as airport security. Americans
seemed to think that we were impervious to assault simply because we were Americans.
Now we've got a black eye and an agenda - along with a world stage on which to
show what we're really made of. Sugar and spice? Puppy dog tails? The resolve
of an until-very-recently sleeping giant?
Good thing we have Dubya in
office. We'll never run out of oil with that stammering fool running the show.
I keep picturing a drunken Al Gore dancing around his study, repeatedly raising
a chipped shot glass full of tequila to Dubya on the late night TV. Every now
and again he raises the front of his soiled T-shirt, pats his belly and exclaims,
"You've got this one, Georgie! That's right. It's all you, baby. They counted
'em up and you're the winner. You're the man! Hail to the chief. Woo-Hoo!"
Hiccup.
Does anybody else think it's funny that odds are that most of
the American flags being burned in effigy are made in Taiwan?
No worries.
Bert will save us. 10.24.01
In light of the seeming profusion
of Muslim religious zealots eager to declare jihad on the United States of America,
I will simply say that I believe in a far more honorable - and less cowardly dogma.
I plan to live for my cause rather than die for it. 10.9.01
I went to see Tenacious D last night. I'd say that I'm definitely a fan, but I
couldn't begin to describe the "D" experience to the uninitiated. Check
them out here to learn about all things
D. Their debut CD just came out and I'm glad to report that they didn't bring
their band to back them up for this tour. Not that Dave Grohl and the others didn't
rock hard on the CD - it's just that a full-on Tenacious D assault might be more
than mortal man could reasonably handle. Is it a band? Is it theater? The answer,
my friends, is yes and yes. It's a good laugh and a nice jeer at rock bands who
take themselves far too seriously. Even those who do gags for gag's sake like
They Might be Giants and The Barenaked Ladies could learn a thing or two from
JB and KG. Check them out if they play within a hundred miles of you. 10.6.01
It's been a while again. I don't mean to leave everyone stranded considering
how many of you wait for these journal updates with bated breath. I went south
to see my family and enjoy the waning sun of Autumn, which has come to Chicago
this year in no quiet fashion. Fall was rattling September's cage a month ago.
Now it is cold and rainy and gray and all the girls are ecstatic to be getting
out (or purchasing) their fall wardrobes. All the trees are mostly green but the
ones that have turned are dropping leaves like a Texan dropping hundreds in Vegas.
I visited Helen Keller's house on my visit south. Talk about obstacles.
I don't want to rock the boat, but I learned that the stricken young Keller girl
wouldn't have had the opportunity to have the sort of one-on-one care provided
by Anne Sullivan if dear old dad - Captain Arthur H. Keller - hadn't been wealthy
- very wealthy. Now, it was a boon for Miss Sullivan as well given the fact that
she had been born to poverty in Boston. All's well that ends well.
Nothing
new to report from my ruminations on the current, impending and elusive "War
on Terrorism." I have spent a lot of time thinking and discussing and listening
to NPR. All praise the commercial-less NPR.
My band is has a show booked
for homecoming at my downstate alma mater next weekend. That should be a blast
from the past of weighty proportions. Autumn was always beautiful down there -
only now I won't have a porch to sit on and drink beer with 50 of my closest friends
in the crisp air and slanting light. Boy did we have a lot of free time back then.
Some people I left behind - that I will no doubt bump into while I'm there - are
married. Some people that I am bringing with me are married as well. Babies are
dropping like the Texas C-notes from a few paragraphs back. It should be some
serious fun. They say you can never go back... but I will be. If only for a day
or so. 10.5.01
I had a good weekend.
I spent it in Kalamazoo, Michigan at an Irish festival. I've got nothing against
traditional Irish music whatsoever... but 12 straight hours of fiddles and bodhrans
is more than I can take. I had some sort of "Guinness Irish stew" that
had meat so chewy that I had to spit it out. Pretty nasty. The weather was perfect
Great Lakes autumn weather. 70 degrees and clear with some white clouds to reflect
the initial splashes of foliage from the trees onto the clouds at sunset.
In other things Michigan... we recently played with an Ann Arbor band called
The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love. Their new CD, H.O.M.E.S., was named
for the acronym used to teach kids the names of all the Great Lakes. (Huron, Ontario,
Michigan, Erie, Superior for the uninitiated.) My point is that they are great
and I'm enjoying their CD immensely. An initial spin smacks of careful devotion
to Camper Van Beethoven and XTC... and subsequent revisits reveal an interesting
and unique set of songs themed of the oft-untouted subtleties of living in the
Great Lakes region. Find out more about them here.
9.23.01
This is what I wrote
in my personal hardcopy journal the night of the tragedies in New York, Washington
and Pennsylvania. It reflects my initial observations of this incident. Let's
see if they have changed.
"9.11.01 Potentially the most significant
day in the history of America. A day that is at least on par with the Lincoln
and Kennedy Assassinations and Pearl Harbor. The unthinkable has been though -
and subsequently wrought on a nation of unsuspecting citizens. The terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center, The Pentagon and the undetermined third target has
marked the end of the apparent safety of Manifest Destiny. America will never
be the same again.
There are no planes overhead tonight - and scarcely
any trains on the tracks beside my house. It is an eerie silence, and very hard-won.
The social, economic and political ramifications of the day's events will be felt
for years. What a world. I've always felt that the nature of man is essentially
good, but stupid. I'm wondering about that now. A series of orchestrated events,
the likes of which took place today, must have been planned for years. The breach
in airport security is beyond staggering. The thought that any group could hijack
four airplanes virtually simultaneously is all but inconceivable.
I
mourn tonight - not for the thousands assuredly dead - but for the survivors.
Everyone in the modern world will be touched by this event. At this point I'm
not even certain of the safety of two friends and former roommates who are both
flight attendants for United. I can't think much more about this today. My soul
aches from turning it about in my consciousness to see if it is real. Hollywood
has become so proficient at fabricating macabre images that videotape of a 757
or 767 hitting a building full-force doesn't seem real. The collapse of both buildings
of the World Trade Center seems too ghastly to be valid. I rode my bike right
up between the World Trade Center towers when I lived in Manhattan. I'm finally
losing steam and will need to sleep soon. My hands are capable of anything; I
have chosen good."
Fast forward to today, September 18th. As it
turns out, my friends are fine. One was airborne at the time of the hijackings
and her plane was forced to land here in Chicago. It seems that everyone knows
someone out in Manhattan or Washington. I liven in NYC for a year myself. The
cruel irony of the situation is that I have never seen a more diverse city be
so indifferent to its own diversity that New York City. New Yorkers, Americans
all, of a hundred colors and a hundred languages coexist in relative peace and
still manage to be the debatable prime center of human existence. And God bless
Rudolph Guliani. That man is a badass of the highest order. If he ran for the
Executive Office under the Republican party it might prompt me to consider casting
a Republican vote. Maybe.
I had a hard time finding a flag to hang when
I felt that it was imperative to do so last week. I happened upon a little Mexican
shop that normally specialized in peddling Mexican and Puerto Rican flags on Western
Avenue here in the city. They had every American flag they could find out and
on display and I walked out with one of them. Buying
an American flag caused a strange feeling to bubble up in
my soul. Over the years, a very close friend of mine and I have said that "it
takes a lot to rouse my patriotism." We've spent a lot of time with pints
in hand debating the things that are obviously wrong with America and how we might
go about fixing them. Let's just say that, after last week, that that flag represents
the best thing going and I'd be willing to do quite a bit to ensure its safety.
That little Hispanic shop on Western Avenue... that's America. It doesn't matter
where you come from or what your lineage is. We're all Americans. All of us. I
fashioned a flagpole out of an old broomstick and proudly hung my new flag on
the little metal flag mount on my front porch. It had been painted repeatedly
with what had to be 75 years worth of coats of white paint. I wondered how long
it has been since a flag has flown there. Far too long, in my opinion. 9.18.01
We've all just witnessed one of the most significant
events in American history. My thoughts are with the survivors - that's all of
us. Things will never be the same. The repercussions from these events will shake
humanity to its very foundations. The ripple effect will permeate virtually every
aspect of our lives. Life will go on - in America and elsewhere. We're fighting
a new enemy now, and the apparent safety of Manifest Destiny is all but vapor.
I'll have more to say later when I post what I wrote in my hardcopy journal in
here. For how, chin up and safe travels to all.
9.12.01
From Cosmopolitan magazine in regards to microbrewed
beer: "Maltier, somewhat bitter beers have a proven positive side effect:
They contain high levels of artery-preserving compounds called flavonoids, which
can keep your heart healthy - and possilby zap cancer cells. 'Flavonoids, which
occur naturally in the hops used in beer brewing, can actually kill human breast
and colon cancer cells on contact - at least in a test tube,' says Donald Buhler,
a toxicologixt at Oregon State University." I'll buy it, and I'll take another
pint of India Pale Ale please. 9.6.01
Rocket Sauce
I finally split up the journal into two pages. It doesn't read as one continuous
chronological thought like it did before but it will download much faster now.
Here's an excerpt from a great book that I have been reading all summer.
I highly recommend it.
"The Distance To the Moon - A Road Trip
into the American Dream" by James Morgan
"In about 1996," he said, "
the Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded in the
side of a cliff above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled
the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable
at the scene, but the lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened.
"It seems that the driver had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet
Assisted Take Off - a solid-fuel rocket used to give heavy military transport
planes extra 'push' for taking of from short airfields). The man had then driven
his 1967 Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long stretch of road. He
attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off
the rocket.
The facts, as best as could be determined, are that the
operator of the Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance of approximately three
miles from the crash site. Investigators established this from the prominent scorched
and melted asphalt at the take-off spot.
"The JATO, if operating properly,
would have reached maximum thrust within five seconds, causing the Chevy to reach
speeds well in excess of 350 miles per hour and continuing at full power for an
additional twenty to twenty-five seconds. The driver would have experienced g-forces
usually associated with dogfighting F-14 jocks under full afterburner.
"The automobile remained on the straight highway for about two and a half miles
(fifteen to twenty seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the
brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface,
then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face
at a height of 125 feet. The wreck left a blackened crater three feet deep in
the rock."
The book examines the American romance with automobiles and
mobility. I picked it up at the library when I was searching for books about Colorado,
Utah and the like for my road trip back in June. I read it very sporadically -
enjoying it so much that I paid several fines on it as I renewed it over and over.
Funny that this library book, now returned to the stacks, has been all the way
to Moab and back. 9.5.01
Man, that page is huge
Tiny Elvis says that the journal page is getting a bit large. I couldn't
agree more. As soon as I get time I am going to reformat it so that it doesn't
take longer to download it than it does to read.
Thanks to everyone
who came out to see us at Elbo Room last night. We all had a fun time blowing
the roof off the place. We'll see you at Schuba's in September.
I
went to check out the Chicago Air and Water show last weekend. There's a big part
of me that is eternally ten years old that jumps up and down and whoops when a
fighter jet roars overhead and rattles everyone's teeth. Flight has always been
a fascination of mine. At one point I had gone so far as to begin talks with the
Navy recruiter in my hometown. This was before Top Gun and all the hoopla and
such. It took several years to get them to stop calling me once my heart started
daydreaming about Stratocasters more often than it dreamed of sonic booms.
I think it started in about first grade for me. I have a simultaneously clear
and fuzzy memory of sitting in a classroom that smelled of dust and books and
old wood. There were these huge windows that looked out into the trees and street
a floor or so below. Looking out the window - what I remember doing most throughout
my long and illustrious scholastic career - all I could see was green and white
and blue… trees and cotton ball clouds and the liquid sky. The building was old
and brick and formidable and it didn't have air conditioning. This was fine for
me as a kid because that allowed for these giant windows to be opened. I'm not
even sure that there were screens. Every now and again a bee or wasp would stray
into our little chalkboard and construction paper universe and cause a social
upheaval. The girls would scream and the boys would giggle. The fuzzy bee would
circle over our heads in some kind of insect holding pattern, trying like hell
to find a flight path out of that mess and back to the warm breezes outside. Sooner
or later the black and yellow winged intruder found his way back through a gaping
window in the brick (seriously relieved, I would imagine) and normalcy would settle
on the 30 or so over stimulated children and our seriously underpaid instructor.
Believe it or not there were quiet times when we would be working on some crayon
and glue monstrosity or other. It was these quiet times when my mind would drift
away and detect the soft droning of a single prop airplane as it slowly traversed
the pale blue sky somewhere outside my window - the window that led out into that
perfect world of green and white and blue. Even then I wondered if anyone heard
it but me. 8.25.01
Over the rainbow
Did any of
you see a little red-haired guy in a green suit run through here a minute ago?
I had that little Irish bastard by the scruff of his velvet jacket and he somehow
managed to wrestle himself free and make a break for it. He tripped over my amp
on the way out the door so he is probably limping… although I have to say that
he's a quick little bastard for his size.
I had finally managed to corner
him after several hours of chasing this rainbow around. I'm driving down the street
and I see it in the gray drizzle off to my right. In case you've never tried,
it's really hard to catch those damn things. I go left, it goes farther left.
I speed up and the rainbow does too. After a couple hours of this I parked behind
a gas station and slyly waited for it to pass by. Sure enough, here it comes around
the corner acting skittish, like a cat chasing a faux stuffed mouse on a string.
So I floor my car (the illustrious Ford Soccer Mom) and T-bone the rainbow - driving
it into the parking lot across the street. That little Leprechaun didn't even
know what him. He was so disoriented that I had plenty of time to pull him out
of the driver's seat and tie him up with a guitar cable I had lying around in
the back of my car. Then I bungeed him to my amp flight case (which is almost
too big for even me to move) to keep him from running off and I headed off for
home. The front of the Soccer Mom was covered in rainbow but I figured it would
just wear off or dissolve like the rest of the multicolored mess I had left lying
there in the parking lot.
So I get this little guy home and drag him
upstairs and he's coming to. He sees the 5-gallon jug of beer I am brewing in
my dining room and must have figured that he isn't too bad off. Hey, he's Irish
and he doesn't have a job - which more than likely means that he loves to tip
back pints. I lock all the doors and windows and set him on the coffee table with
a pint of stout and a straw. The way I see it - I get this little guy liquored
up and he's bound to be a bit more generous with his wishes - or at least tell
me where he stashed the pot 'o gold.
We drink long into the night, listening
to Tom Waits records and exchanging stories of late night gigs and the potato
famine. This guy has obviously been around the block and soon we're both roaring
with laughter. I hint to him about the whereabouts of his pot of gold and he semi-incoherently
mumbles something about a Wal Mart parking lot in suburban Cleveland. Then he
starts jabbering about this girl he was once in love with who lived in Midtown
Manhattan and complaining about having to take a leak. I figure that it has got
to be some kind of human/Leprechaun rights violation (does the Geneva Convention
apply to drunken, mystical dwarves?) to keep a man from relieving himself after
he's just down the better part of a gallon of stout. I seriously don't know where
he put it all. I'm thinking that this guy is a professional and that I had better
let him go. I untie him and he rubs his wrists, all the while giving me a sideways
look as lead him to the bathroom down the hall. After a few minutes of semi-in
tune singing behind the door he stumbles out and back into the living room. I
was just about to ask him if I liked U2 and then BAM! Silver pixie dust right
in the face. It felt like a whiffle ball bat right to the forehead - no long term
damage but just enough of a sting to stun me for a split second - which was all
the time he needed for him to grab his coat and sprint for the door, clipping
my amp with his funky-toed boot on the way out. The last thing I heard as I righted
myself and took off after him was some haughty, high-pitched laughter and a spirited
"Fook off, Yank!" as he tumbled down the stairs and into the street. By the time
I got to street level his green footprints were already fading in the darkness.
I followed them as far as I could - and even still I could hear the bells on his
boots fading into the darkness somewhere in the weeds. I was winded and he was
a sprightly lad so I stopped and berated myself for not just holding out on the
potty break until he fessed up about the gold. Standing there panting under that
streetlight I realized that I had done better than most. I turned and headed home,
up the stairs and into bed. I had a headache in the morning and wasn't sure if
it was from the pints or pixie dust. I can say that that silvery powder stings
your eyes and should be avoided if at all possible.
If anybody sees
this guy, please give me a call and distract him with stout until I can come pick
him up. Or, if any of you have any spare pots of gold laying around - in the shed
under all those faded National Geographics or something - swing them my way, cause
I'm broke. 8.4.01
Summertime
Hi ho, all. High
summer is here and I couldn't be happier about it. The corn is green and high.
Days are long and bright and warm. Somebody was telling me how he preferred winter
to these steamy and languorous days of July. I don't understand those people at
all. January finds me hunched over and tense against the stinging cold. I slept
late this past Sunday and felt guilty about missing a few precious hours of summer.
I don't mind sleeping late in January. I would prefer to spend as much of January
asleep as possible as far as I'm concerned. I'm too skinny to be part bear. I
am not at all uncomfortable in the heat and humidity. My muscles are loose and
my whole soul is relaxed. I would be content to trade all my winter months for
one extra summer month. My prime winter pastime is cursing the cold and darkness.
Move, you say? I will. Someday will find me far from the snow. I'll go when the
time is right, and it's not quite right. Then shut up about the cold, you say?
I will not. I have to do something to keep myself warm.
Here is a funny
headline from a local paper. Radioactive element won't stop DuSable Park planning.
Thank God.
Start stretching your necks and make your plans for this
year's Perseids meteor shower, which will occur from August 10th - 12th. It has
been cloudy the last several years running here in Chicago so I have missed it.
I love sitting outside on calm summer nights even without the heavenly display.
This is just another great reason to feed the mosquitoes.
I'm on my
5th box of Popsicles already this summer. What is it about those things? The red,
white and blue ones is the king daddy of them all but they're not readily available
at my local supermarket. That's just as well. One can't have Christmas every day.
I miss Colorado already. The smell of the pines and the sound of the
wind in the Aspens are burned into my memory. There isn't much driving up hills
here in Chicago. In fact, if you're not on an on ramp you're pretty much stuck
with level ground. This is good if you happen to be driving a rickshaw, but bad
if you're addicted to the thrill of fat tires and gravity like I am. I visited
a new friend who lives in a cabin that isn't much bigger than my car. He doesn't
have indoor plumbing. He sometimes finds bears sleeping on his porch. I visited
some old friends whose picture window frames the Eastern Rockies. They have a
trout pond and a 25-minute drive to town. I watched the sun set on the summer
solstice in Moab, Utah. All these places exist out there all the time. You might
live there yourself. They also exist in my head and in my heart. I may not be
in the Zip code but I do go often. 7.30.01
Ouch
My
back hurts. 7.18.01
Breaking Away
It took me longer
to learn how to ride a bike than most kids my age. I was the oldest kid in my
family so there was nobody to be an example for me. I have a memory of my father
attempting to teach me on my grandparent's street. The thing I remember most is
riding off the edge of the driveway into a ditch and falling off the thing. I
just couldn't get it. After a while - and with wounded pride - my father reluctantly
put training wheels on my red and white banana seat bike with the big Harley Davidson
handlebars. This got me up and around and sort of keeping up with the kids in
my new neighborhood. I had previously lived more in-town where the kids didn't
ride so much. This new turf was much more rural with a big wooded area that was
rife with dirt bike trails and the sort of adventures that can only be found off
the beaten path. My red and white atrocity was no dirt bike, but I got it through
the weeds and tall grass through the first half of one summer... training wheels
and all. One lovely hot summer evening I noticed that the day's riding had bent
one of my training wheels upward and off the road. The thing was that I had noticed
it because the one remaining outrigger wheel was now bugging me. As it turned
out I had been riding pretty well on my own with the bike's two wheels. I remember
sheepishly going in to get my dad and drag him away from whatever program he had
been watching… and into the garage where he removed both training wheels and then
watched me ride off into the mosquito and lightning bug-laden summer evening.
I'm certain that he was proud then. I can just picture his smile beaming out from
the warm darkness of the garage into the fading light.
So tonight I
finally fixed my road bike. Half of the handlebars broke right off in my hand
on the way downtown last summer. I had to ride the rest of the way - as well as
all the way back home that evening - holding the disconnected half in my free
hand working the brake that was still attached. I'm lucky that I wasn't crushed
by a bus or that I didn't do a somersault into the pavement on Clybourn Avenue.
I rode past a funky little neighborhood bike show riding around today. I turned
around and stopped in to inquire if they had some old road bike handlebars lying
around that they might be interested in parting with. I was thinking that ten
bucks should get me what I needed. Sure enough, the old foreign man set his price
at $10 for a nice set of alloy handlebars. It looks as if the 1985 Fuji will now
extend its useful life a little longer. She doesn't look like much, but truth
be told, that keeps all the morons in the city from being interested enough to
attempt to abscond with her. To be continued… 7.14.01
Home again,
home again lickety-split
I have returned from my extensive trip out
west. I am happy to report that Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado and Utah are still there.
Furthermore, there is still some beer left in Estes Park, Nederland, Aspen, Moab,
Vail, Denver and Boulder. I did my best. There are copious amounts of details
to fill you all in on but they'll have to wait another day or so. It is far too
nice outside to spend another moment in front of this thing. Hi ho. 6.29.01
Sojourn
OK, so this isn't a very good update, and I am all too
aware that the homepage says that this hasn't been updated when it actually has...
but there have been some life changes and I am still conducting some evasive maneuvers.
I am managing this site from a different computer and I can't get this damn thing
to edit some files properly. As always, it is more than likely pilot error...
at least until the pilot finds the stick. In any case it isn't working.
The big news is that I am heading into the American west in a pseudo-Kerouac style.
I am not hitching rides on flatbed trucks in Nebraska - but I am taking bike and
camping gear into the mountains in order to clear my head and have some adventures.
It isn't often that I have a few weeks at my disposal - merely for the entertainment
of my wanderlust fancy. By this time on Friday I will be up to my eyeballs in
the Colorado Rockies. Rough life, eh?
Anyway, I'll report on all my
discoveries when I return. Have a good summer solstice while I am gone. Watch
for lightning bugs. They have things to tell you if you watch and listen. 6.12.01
Yeah, yeah
I know. I haven't updated this in a while.
Many things have gone down and I assure you that I'll fill you all in soon. Try
to stay warm for now. We're freezing our collective ass off here in Chicago. Funny,
I don't remember moving to Seattle. 6.4.01
Horray
for Boobies II: Gravity Always Wins
I ran the Y-me Race Against Breast
Cancer 5k yesterday morning. It was enlightening to see so many people come out
to show support for a cause like this. Word is about 30,000 people turned out
to walk or run. That's about as many as showed up at the Chicago Marathon last
fall. I finished with a respectable time and raised a similarly respectable sum
of money for the Y-me Organization. It felt good to be doing something that reached
beyond my appreciation for my own mother on Mother's Day. Mom was proud.
My youngest sister is graduating from High School next week. It's amazing how
time flies. The older you get the faster it goes. Time passes slower when you're
younger because one summer is a greater percentage of your life. Things are happening.
You are growing and learning and experiencing things for the first time. Everything
is important. Some things that aren't all that important are crises to
you. It doesn't surprise me that many elderly people are bored. They've seen it
all before. Many people my age are bored too because they think they've seen it
all before. It's that "walking dead" syndrome that our society fosters.
Young people think that they are bored because they think that they've seen it
all before. They like to act aloof in the least. Most grow out of it. In any case,
my sister is cool. In the fall she'll start college and make me the only member
of the Armstrong brood who is not in college. Congratulations, Karen! This isn't
the end - it's just the beginning. I love you. 5.14.01
Mayday, Mayday, we're going down
May Day was a much bigger deal in
years past. I actually wrote about my May Day memories a year ago in this very
journal. I was having lunch outside among the skyscrapers today. As my friend
and I ate we got caught in what we thought was a summer-esque passing shower.
It turned out to be window washers 40 stories above our heads. Not nearly as romantic.
And sort of gross.
Spring has finally arrived in Chicago. I slept to
the low and steady pulsing hum of my ceiling fan last night. It was divine.
Years past have also given The Windy City a reputation for springs full of
quintessentially London weather. This has not been the case this year. We have
had the requisite 2-week span bookended by snow and sandals but things seem to
have straightened out. I've been on the bike every day for a couple weeks and
I couldn't be happier about it. The little green yellow helicopters are growing
on the maple trees. Worms - by the million - abandon the cool loamy environs of
the rich Midwestern soil for the clear driveway puddles and sidewalks during sweet-smelling
rainstorms. I jumped the gun this year and bought a box of popsicles early. I've
had them for weeks. The onset of summer is perhaps decided by its rituals more
so than calendars and solstices. I used to hate mowing the lawn when I was a kid.
I think I'd enjoy it now if I weren't so horrifically allergic to it. I could
mow the alleged "grass" in front of my apartment in about 30 seconds.
I wonder if that would be long enough for me to have an allergic reaction. Probably
not considering the fact that the grass in question is mostly moss and dirt.
I've been so busy that I can't see straight lately. Other people go home
and watch Seinfeld reruns. I go home from my day gig and make albums until 3:am.
I'm currently producing a CD for my label, Greentown. The artists' name is Tony
Piscotti and he's been a member of "the family" for years. We used to
play together in a band in college. He filled in on bass in our band when we were
experiencing a bass player situation worthy of Spinal Tap. We couldn't keep them
interested for very long at all. It takes a special mindset to be a bass player.
It's generally not a glory position in the band. The singer and drummer get a
lot of glory because most people can relate to singing (as singing is like talking)
and drumming (because everybody beats on things at one point or another). The
guitarists get some glory because their egos usually exceed those of their singing
and drumming counterparts. Keyboard players are usually in it for the money because
good keyboardists are hard to find and are in demand. They're just there doing
the gig, man. But bass players - bass players had better be in the game to support
everybody else because that's what they do 9 times out of 10. They make everyone
else sound better and the audience only notices them when they screw up. The sound
guy is like that too. He (it's almost always a he) plays a huge role in the front
of house sound of a band and nobody knows it... including the unwise bands. A
good sound guy can polish a turd to a high sheen or make an exemplary musician
sound like a dolt. 5.1.01
Hooray for boobies
Mother's
Day is Monday, May 13th this year. The Y-me
organization is staging the 10th annual Y-me Race Against Breast Cancer on Mother's
Day in an effort to honor mothers, daughters, wives and friends who have been
touched by breast cancer. I am planning on participating in this 5k run to help
raise money and awareness for the fight against breast cancer. All monies collected
help provide services and programs offered to those touched by breast cancer all
year long. If anyone is interested in sponsoring me please send me an e-mail
before Friday, May 11th. There is no minimum donation amount. I will accept $1
as happily as I will accept $1000.00.
Breast cancer is something that
has affected more people than you probably realize. Like many things of this nature,
you don't find out how many people you know have been touched by it until it touches
someone close to you. The media constantly bombards us with statistics and horror
stories - so much so that many atrocities carry no weight in our personal lives.
These things are real and they affect our mothers and daughters and wives and
girlfriends - and all of us men who cherish them. We can pray all we want, but
we're all we've got to keep ourselves going down here. Call it Hallmark sentiment
if you want, but do something for somebody. It's easy to forget that our immediate
needs may not be as dire as the needs of others.
Oh, and get outside.
It's finally beautiful. So much so that I slept with the window open last night.
I swear that I sleep better when I'm being serenaded by a dog down the block or
a softly droning Piper Cub blinking red at the moon and stars as it traverses
the ink above my dreaming head. See you in the park. 4.20.01
Time capsule
I spent the better part of the holiday weekend
with family, as most people assuredly did. My uncle has the cable - which provides
potentially infinitely more channels of shit to choose from on the TV. Along with
all this shit there are a few good channels; channels that provide a medium for
me to geek out watching programs of a scientific, historical or natural bent.
An interesting phenomenon occurred over the weekend. I can't tell if the seemingly
unrelated acts had anything to do with each other or not. Both were interesting.
Event One was a program on some history channel about The Hunley,
a recently-raised Confederate submarine from the Civil War. It went down with
all hands after successfully sinking the Union ship USS Housatonic near
Charleston Harbor. It was located in recent years and subsequently brought to
the surface to be meticulously restored. It has so far proved to be full of amazing
historical artifacts.
Event Two happened sometime Saturday afternoon
while talking to mom at grandma's house. Something made me remember that I had
several boxes of old junk stored in grandma's attic. My curiosity, once piqued,
could not be denied. I climbed upstairs and into the acrid head of her attic.
There was fiberglass insulation and mountains of pastel Tupperware. There were
dusty suitcases and a TV antenna. And there were my time capsules. They weren't
intended to be time capsules. I remember putting them up there when my parents
moved far off while I was in college. They didn't want to take all the useless
boxes, I didn't have room at school and I couldn't throw all this stuff out.
So, as a team of archeologists dug a sunken submarine out of the silt I discovered
a myriad of artifacts of my own. My preliminary excavations have revealed some
of the following: a squadron of model airplanes (F-14, F-15, F-16XL, F-4E, IAI
Kfir, A-4, Saab Viggen), (1) Corona beer circa 1987, (1) stuffed animal that looks
sort of like a rabbit, (2) seemingly all-inclusive boxes of correspondence from
(2) ex-girlfriends from high school, a pair of white leather dance shoes, my high
school graduation gown, mortar and tassel, a bevy of essential pins (Pink Floyd,
Bryan Adams, et al.), many small tubes of long-expired acne medication, an incomplete
set of my report cards dating back to at least 7th grade, a sizable green rubber
frog stolen from some aquatic game at Opryland on a high school music tour - or
maybe it was California (Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm - it truly escapes me),
countless aluminum pop tops (some girl once told me I could exchange them for
sex so I saved them for years), and a ceramic cup with a built in straw that I
made in art class. And this booty only exemplifies my initial once over. Imagine
the lost treasures that await my post-millennium mind! I can just hear the song
playing in my head. "Hush hush, keep it down now..." 4.16.01
My official apology to the People's Republic of China
I'm
sorry that you have poorly-trained pilots. 4.11.01
Read all about
it
The combination of headlines that I ingested this morning have
created an amusing mental concoction in my head. We've got a pair of Nepalese
conjoined twins who are now two people after 88 hours of surgery. Jesse Jackson
has offered to apologize to the Chinese for their idiot fighter pilot's getting
himself killed when he ran into a lumbering surveillance plane with his supersonic
fighter jet. That's like a kid on a tricycle causing a Ferrari to have an accident.
Oh yeah. Those Chinese better lock up their daughters too, Jesse's coming to town.
"I wish that I had Jesse's girl." That clown Bush is gutting the EPA
to pay for some other stuff. Education is great, and of paramount importance.
And Lord knows we need trillions more dollars worth of weapons systems to protect
us from the Soviets... oh wait, I forgot. They're all in the line at the new Moscow
Starbuck's. We're all going to look funny in the future living in caves to protect
us from the solar UV rays that will fry our feeble skin on contact. Of course,
G.W. Bush won't be around to see it, and neither will I. The environment means
a lot to me... if only because I have just enough of my father's mountain man
tendencies in me. I may have to move away to the mountains sometime. I'll let
you know if I do. 4.10.01
Here's mud in my eye
I
went "mountain" biking yesterday for the first time this season, although
one can hardly call Midwestern off-road cycling "mountain" biking. The
nearest thing that might qualify as a mountain is 400 miles away in Tennessee.
Wisconsin has some good glacial remnants that are good for skinning knees and
such. There are some areas with gradients sufficient enough to break a bone or
two, and that's what I sought. Chicago got its first taste of nice weather this
weekend and if anybody knows how to get out and enjoy it, it's Chicagoans. They
spend the better part of 6 months sequestered in their homes and pubs riding out
the seemingly eternal winter months. It's cold and it's dark, and to make sure
it's torrid enough Lake Michigan is conveniently located at the doorstep just
to make sure that the warm weather doesn't come too soon... like in June. Saturday
brought us white-skinned Chicagoans temperatures in the 80's and wind enough to
blow a kite to Michigan. It was a good day. Sunday was a little cooler with less
wind. I dragged my bike and a wingman out to the woods to earn some scars. Unfortunately,
my wingman had a cold so she stayed put to read and work on a blanket in the sun
while I found all the mud puddles and grueling uphill climbs. It was divine. The
minuscule bright green leaves were only out on the earliest of shrubs so the trees
had the look of November but the air had the feel of June. The pestilence of mosquitos
was still sleeping along with the soon-to-be-new leaves. A fair trade. A day in
the mud wrapped itself up with an evening of grilling and many friends. Everybody
wins. 4.9.01
When did I join the Hard Corps?
I don't
know when it happened. It all took place so slowly. One day I was thinking about
mulling over maybe considering some kind of physical activity because I got winded
climbing up some stairs in college. I turned around and I'm getting up before
everybody to run several miles nearly every day. I have no desire to be one of
those thick-necked guys who live at the gym and can't touch their ears. I like
a nap in a hammock as much as the next slacker. I guess that once upon a time
the "move it or lose it" sleeper plug-in kicked on in my soul. I opted
to move it. 4.4.01
Donald Shimoda
I've been rereading
one of my favorite books; Illusions, by Richard Bach. It's not a stretch
that I should love this book as its plot involves flying, summer and simplified
philosophy. It's a wonder I didn't write it. I remember reading Jimmy Buffett's
latest book, A Pirate Looks at Fifty, recently. It's a pretty good tale
for a dreamer/adventurer such as myself, but what struck me the most was his inability
to carry out his purpose in modern times. Jimmy flies seaplanes, or a seaplane
in the least. He had this grand idea to pack up his family and his guitar in his
seaplane and fly around the Caribbean having adventures. He had visions of landing
on secluded palm-rimmed harbors of crystalline water. There was only one problem.
The modern world isn't cut out for rouge adventurers. There were restrictions
in every banana republic that prevented him from landing his seaplane anywhere...
anywhere in the water, thereby defeating the purpose of having a flying boat.
Illusions strikes me the same way. Richard portrayed himself flying around
the Midwestern summer selling airborne joy for $3.00 a biplane ride. Perhaps he
was able to do this up until the 1970's. I would wager that the cost of permits
and insurance and overhead would render barnstorming here at the turn of the millennium.
One of my high school girlfriends once said that she felt as if she was born in
the wrong decade - maybe even the wrong century. At the time I said that I would
gladly subvert the violence and rigidity of the tumultuous past in order to stay
in the here and now... the here and now being replete with microwaves and "freedom"
and peace. I have to admit that I'd now like to join her in some long passed simpler
time. Everything wasn't so saturated then. I wasn't a demographic or a constituency.
I wasn't an age group or a tax bracket. Maybe I could just go back and meet Richard
in the '70's. I could climb into the front passenger seat of his biplane and we
could fly off over the endless golded corn tassles beneath us together. I'm ready.
4.3.01
I'm that guy
You know that guy you see hanging
around wearing shorts in the early spring? I'm that guy. It will be 50 degrees
and sunny and I won't be able to resist. I won't make the full transition to shorts
and sandals until it finally actually gets warm, but I will push the fashion
envelope in March. Back in college - which lay at the kinder latitudes - the shorts
could come out much earlier. And they would stay out. What do those misanthropic
Canadians do? Canada is a cool place - and I know some fine Canadians - but their
southern border is our northern border. I've been to Minneapolis in January. I
don't think I would be a very good Canadian. I'm not really into hockey either.
We change the clocks this Saturday night. I can't think of a
better plan. Sunday is also April Fool's Day. Furthermore, Sunday is this year's
debut of one of my favorite diversions... the illustrious Corn
Cam. I have to tell you... watching corn grow on the Internet is far more
interesting than a lot of jobs I have had.
Amusing Internet Diversion
Number 248: Find out what song
was number one on the day you were born. 3.28.01
The sublimity
of the Vernal Equinox
Today is the first day of spring. The tide
has turned. Cursed winter has finally gone the way of the dinosaur. She has yet
to release her bony, blue-fingered grip on this city - although I can finally
feel the sun on my face through the crisp air. One of my favorite aspects of spring
is the onset of smell. The smell of winter is the smell of nothing. Everything
is frozen and dormant and lifeless. Sure, snow has a smell, and so does a warm
fire. I'll give you that. But nothing about winter makes me jump out of bed and
into the sunshine like the weighted air of summer spilling onto my body on a summer
morning. Summer air is saturated with life. By August the green fields and trees
and Illinois lawns have reached critical mass. The very air in your lungs has
so much life in it that it wells up and spills out through your eyes and quickly
moving feet and your very words. But back to spring. It starts with mud. That
simple wet, loamy, earthy smell of dirt thawing. A lot of people would label me
crazy to say that mud is romantic. Perhaps I am crazy as I ride through the mud
on my bike or around town with the windows open and the heat on in my car - the
ghost of Walt Whitman riding shotgun. Me and Walt, we're tight. 3.20.01
My favorite new diversion and Soderberg's lens filters
I
have a new favorite diversion. Phil Plait's
Bad Astronomy.com. It plays right into my fascination with all things space
and my tendency to taunt the precept of suspension of disbelief during
movies. I have annoyed countless girls on countless dates by brazenly exclaiming
"Come on, there's no freaking way that that would ever happen!" I simply
can't help it. Phil debunks tons of poorly-executed movie plots, dopey special
effects and plain old untruths about space and science... and what we humans are
capable of while we're strapped to spindly white missiles. (I don't know Phil
personally - but I think we would be friends - so I'll take the liberty of addressing
him as Phil.) He rips Hollywood fluff like Armageddon and real life "we
never landed on the moon" conspiracy theory kooks with equal aplomb, dispensing
plenty of real life jaw-dropping science. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction
and Phil Plait spreads truth like politicians spread the guano. The truth is out
there, Phil, and thanks for showing us the light (and the math).
I finally
got around to seeing Traffic over the weekend. I enjoyed it for the same
reasons I didn't enjoy Armageddon. This isn't to say that I am not a sucker
for space flicks. What it does say is that I am oft displeased. Traffic
illuminates the seemingly obvious fact that the war on drugs is a war on ourselves.
Benicio Del Toro outdoes himself in his portrayal of a Tijuana cop faced with
the harsh reality of the futility of his profession. He gets it from the outset
while his American counterparts take longer to piece it together. The film is
shot documentary style with the liberal use of lens filters to add to the sense
of paradox between the streets of suburban America and the sultry heat and squalor
of Mexico. I'd better stop. I'm not a qualified cinema critic. I dug the film
and I'd recommend it to anyone who didn't love the last Bruckheimer travesty.
3.19.01
Nouveaux Canadian Cowboys & 6 days until a moral
victory
I went to see my favorite Canadians on Saturday night. If
you have never seen Toronto's Blue Rodeo you really should the next time they
visit your town. You won't find a better band for the size of the venue in which
they will play. Like some kind of legendary rock and roll inside joke - they do
really well in Canada - which is their country of origin. They play much larger
venues up on the tundra than they do stateside. I suspect that their genre-bending
mix of organic twang, pop sensibilities and protopsychedelic rock and roll is
hard to stomach for the categorically trained-from-birth Ameican music buying
public. Bands whose sound falls between the demarcated record store bins tend
to quite literally fall between the cracks. Unless you live within range of Canadian
radio or you have one of those satellite TV units with the 1500 channels (that
happens to include the Canadian music video channel Much Music) you won't find
them on your radio or TV. The show will be cheap - to the order of about $10 or
$15. They're not to be missed. And bring earplugs.
Here in Chicago, spring
is a moral victory. We don't and won't get warm weather for some time to come.
I'll take it, however. I'll take every positive degree I can get. We're the people
who start wearing shorts at 50F. I usually start driving with the windows down
at 45. And I never really stopped grilling so the frequency will simply increase.
Daylight Savings Time (beginning this year on April 1st) is the first major victory
in battle. I'll be playing guitar on my porch in no time. Come on over. I'll supply
the popsicles. 3.14.01
Picture perfect dreams, whiteout in March
and meeting people is easy
I had some picture perfect dreams last
night. Not because they were good or bad but because they were so real it seemed
as if they were true. I was getting married to this popular girl from my high
school and I can describe every aspect of the scenario. She really liked me but
all of her friends in her clique didn't. I was a weird outsider music kid in high
school until people figured out that I was good at guitar. Then I was weird but
cool in that outsider sort of way. I know this girl's name and she was very nice
for being so popular. So many of those popular girls were intolerable. I didn't
know her all that well back then and I haven't heard or seen anything about her
since graduation. Odd.
It is snowing today. Big, sideways flakes. No
thanks.
Radiohead just rules. That's it. 3.8.01
Somewhere
out there
It sounds so obvious but no one really thinks about it
much. Every single person you have ever known or everything that you've seen (so
long as they haven't died) is still out there somewhere. From time to time I catch
myself wondering what any given person is doing right this second. What are they
thinking about? Are they thinking about me? Where are all those girls that I was
so in love with at one point? What are all my old distant friends doing this very
second? Are they in traffic? Cutting a bagel? Getting a ticket? Falling in love?
Breaking someone else's heart? Do they ever wonder what I am doing? 3.5.01
Cursed month part II & the govenment allowance of Nick
Drake consumption
Hours left of February, the Cursed Month Part II.
Like a macabre sequel to every year's debut January, February freezes us
and rains on us and then tortures our souls with darkness. This one is almost
gone and I can rest a little easier knowing that March will see us slipping the
angle towards the sun a little in our favor.
You really have to be careful
with your doses of Nick Drake. His music is beautiful and haunting, but you can
only take so much on a rainy winter afternoon before you feel like going out and
just standing in the icy deluge. They should label it like cigarettes.
Oh, and happy birthday to all the leap year babies. 2.28.01
Permacough
I don't even notice it anymore. I have coughed
perpetually, every winter for as long as I can remember. It's usually pretty bad
in the shower in the morning. So much so that back at some college or other we
had our own bathrooms and you could always hear what was going on in your neighbor's
bathroom (and vice versa). The girls in the room next to me bought me a bunch
of cold medicine because my incessant hacking was becoming an issue of concern
for them.
I've never been a smoker. I eat pretty well. I sleep with
a humidifier. I take vitamins and everything. Sometimes I cough so hard that I
think I am going to puke. Veins pop out of my forehead and everything. Not pretty.
Imagine hacking a mile in my lungs.
It starts every year with my first
cold - which invariably will progress into an infection of some sort. It wanes
when late spring finally shows up and the weather breaks. This can never be soon
enough for me.
Someday someone will no doubt refer to me as being "sickly"
in a biography - which is completely ridiculous. I have more energy than some
4 year olds. At some point I will have to try living in other climates to see
what effect they have on my permacough. I think I'll try that hammock in Baja
California. 2.27.01
Grammys - rhinovirus - and getting
bent over a barrel
If people would spend half the time worrying themselves
about what they are doing instead of what everyone else is doing a hell of a lot
more would get accomplished. The Grammies were just as out of touch as ever this
year. There's nothing inherently wrong with Steely Dan but their Grammy is obviously
a make up Grammy for their having been overlooked for the entire '70s. I'm sure
that it is a fine album. Kid A was assuredly better, if only because it
looked ahead. Beck was left holding a burrito as well. Once again, the dinosaur
act of the 70s rock behemoths seizes the day. And Transcendental Blues
didn't win a thing. What a world.
My winter long perma-cough has once
again deteriorated into a horrible cold. Do people in Hawaii ever get sick?
What a lame week. Broken car, broken apartment fixtures, sickness, broken
guitar. Where does it end? I'm having one of those periods where you think it
can't get any worse and then it does. Armstrong version 1.0 is being bent over
a barrel and hosed down with ice cold fecal matter. I hope the pendulum swings
back my way soon. 2.23.01
Bombed just like in college
- slack - Neil Young
Can't we all just get along? Big news
today. We've bombed some Iraqi antiaircraft command and control sites.. Oh wait,
we've been bombing Iraq about twice a week for the last several years on the average.
It must be a slow news day. I'm sure some people lost their lives and I am not
calloused about that in the least. Now somebody wants to impeach Clinton again.
Good Lord. Enough about him. I must admit that the whole recent bombing thing
brings up some amusing images of George Bush Sr. calling Junior from his cell
phone on a golf course somewhere. "Now Junior, that Seah-dum has been a thorn
in the Bush family side for over a decade now. You take care of this." Or
perhaps it's just George W. testing out the "Bomb somebody" button on
his desk in the Oval Office. I truly couldn't say. I would make a poor politician
myself so I am glad that there's somebody out there fool enough to take on the
job.
Slack in the rope is odd to feel. People drift away and seldom tell
you why until they're gone. And this isn't about love. It's about everything.
People drift into and out of our lives with saddening frequency. People die. People
move away. They're following their path and you are following yours. I guess you
can relish in the fact that you were going the same direction for a while. Some
people protect themselves by not letting other people in. That way it doesn't
hurt as much when they go. Family doesn't seem to mean as much as it used to.
This is sad if you like the people you happen to be related to. If these folks
are nuts or mean or violent or meddling it isn't all that bad that you don't spend
a ton of time with them. What is family anyway? It has perhaps always been who
you surround yourself with regardless of whether you share bloodlines. From my
limited research into the Armstrong heritage I am not so sure that I would have
wanted to be associated with them. Fortunately, nobody seems to remember the pillaging
as much as they remember Uncle Neil walking around on the moon and Uncle Louis
serenading us with his angelic wood chipper voice. It's a good thing humans don't
have a collective memory.
We're playing Uncommon Ground Coffeehouse
tomorrow night. I always enjoy those gigs immensely. It's such a nice setting
and people actually come to listen. Imagine that. I wish people realized what
a great place it is to go and see live music and show up in droves. I think that
an earmark of a good artist is that the songs stand up when you take away the
decibels and the spaceship light show. Neil Young is exemplary at that. The guy
can pen and sing a lullaby and then turn around and perform a 40 minute feedback
dirge. He was unplugged before unplugged was a registered trademark. I like people
who can play both electric and acoustic guitar properly. I love the Indigo Girls
but they are lackluster electric players... at best. I can barely stand it when
they nervously strap on a Stratocaster. You honestly have to approach them as
two different instruments and I think that a lot of teachers overlook that. And
I'm not even talking about the differences between nylon string and steel string
acoustics. The nonmusical people always say "the round one." Back in
high school I would always ask my girlfriends what kind of guitar so and so was
playing. I might as well have asked them the meaning of life. It's OK. I don't
expect the uninitiated to just know things of that nature. It's hard to remember
what it's like to not know something when you have made that something your life.
That's a good moral for the story so I'll leave it here. Have a good February
16th, 2001. It's the only one you've got. 2.16.01
VD
- The Napster gets it in the teeth - and bastards who think we shouldn't
be paid
Saint Valentine's Day, 2001. It's cold, it's gray and fairly
dark for mid afternoon. I might trade all my chances at a white Christmas for
some additional warm holidays of a lessor stature.
It looks as if the
Napster has been given a swift kick in the crotch. My opinions about the controversial
peer to peer service are exceedingly ambivalent. Just as people who have spent
decades in prison have a hard time functioning on the other side of the chain
link fence a lot of the music industry doesn't want to let go of the system that
we've had for what seems like forever. I don't blame them. It was (and is) replete
with schiesters and corruption but it is the only system that we've had. It was
originally constructed so that the artists got paid and the people who helped
the artists get paid got paid as well. At the best, the artists who were lucky
enough to fit in one of the cookie-cutter record store bins got paid. And many,
many deserving artists didn't get paid... or died trying to not get paid.
I have the "getting paid" argument with people a lot. People who
aren't artists seem to inexplicably think that we all make art for no other reason
that it looks or sounds pretty or controversial. Those same people seem to think
that we all do it because we can't help it, and in that they are partially right.
Most of us can't help it. But being a professional musician means getting paid
for it. Professional lawyers and thieves get paid to take things from people.
They live and eat and pay for their children's crayons with money that is the
fruit of their labor. How would your outlook on your job change if someone decided
you weren't getting paid anymore? But
back to the system. It is broken and the wrong people are making the lion's share
of the money. It mirrors every other human endeavor pretty directly. It's a bell
curve. There's a very small percentage at the very top of the curve who are getting
all the work, all the airplay and making the majority of the money.
ANYWAY. It galls me when people take issue with the fact that I want to get paid
for what I do.
I didn't mean to get off on a rant there. I'm not really
vexed this Valentine's Day. I'm heading out for Guinness in a matter of minutes.
Happy Valentine's Day. 2.14.01
All dressed up but nowhere
to go
Valentine's Day Eve. I am all aquiver with excitement over
my V-Day plans. Oh wait, I forgot. I'm just going drinking with a buddy. It's
a sad state of affairs when a heart as powerful as mine spends the evening with
a good stout instead of a stout gal. No matter. If the historical Saint Valentine
saw the fervor over his day he'd probably shit. How could he possibly comprehend
the extent of the emotional torture throughout the years? I have a close friend
who won't even participate in said holiday. He's a Valentine contentious objector.
No matter. I shall simply start my St. Patrick's Day celebration a bit early.
Maybe I'll try to ride the wave right on through to March 17th. And maybe the
mere thought of the severity of a hangover after a solid month of abuse will send
me back to bed. Either way, all of you couples have fun. Maybe I'll see you in
line at a restaurant next year. 2.13.01
All manner of thoughts
occur to you when you've had the better part of a bottle of wine on a Sunday night.
"Hey, maybe I should put that in my journal" is one of them. I've had
a great time with myself. No bickering about what's for dinner or where I've been
all afternoon. Then again, there was no one to scratch my back or to share the
wine.
I solved some problems today. My tail light on my car has a crack
in it and it fills up with water when it rains or snows. Then the water freezes
and shorts out the bulb. Imagine explaining that one to a cop. I removed the assembly
(interesting stuff, eh?) and drilled some holes in the bottom of the casing so
that the water can drain properly. Pragmatism, my friends.
Why do I
bother writing this stuff in here? It's a value-added feature to our band website.
That's one answer, and an answer that could justify an exercise in narcissism
of this nature. I could harbor a desperate need to be listened to that I don't
fully recognize. Perhaps I'd simply like to think that someone is listening. In
the past I've had girlfriends who have no doubt feigned consciousness through
my incessant ramblings as we lay in bed on our way to sleep. Does that mean that
this journal is my surrogate girlfriend? Who reads it anyway? Am I so bold to
think that someone actually gives a shit about my self-proclaimed unique perspective
on spinning around the sun? I have achieved no great stature in this world. I've
affected the lives of those around me - hopefully in a positive manner. That much
I am sure of. I don't have a pile of money. I have a car and a collection of beers
from around the world (aptly titled "The Magnificent Beers of the World).
I have a couple bikes and some kitchen accouterments. I have a computer and a
couple dead cats. Of course I don't really have the cats anymore, but did I ever
really have them? I have two shoeboxes full of pictures in my closet to prove
that I was here. I have a Winnie the Pooh calendar that my mother gave me. I have
a couple Armstrong Avenue signs that I acquired in an adventure in years past.
I have a cement lion that stands a symbol of fortitude for my best friend and
myself. I have an ugly couch that sleeps really well that some unknown friend
of a now former roommate left in my apartment. I have a bed that I built myself.
(I built it extra strong because I knew that my girlfriend was coming to stay
with me.) I have a decent guitar and a great amplifier. None of these things are
me. Not even the reflection of my nose in the wine glass is me. All these things
can be taken away from me and still I will remain. Why am I here? Beats me. Here
I am, spinning just like the rest of you. 2.4.01
The downward
spiral
Earthquakes. Increasing jobless rates. Global warming. Economic
slowdown. Where is John Galt? It seems that the harbingers are tolling the bells
of impending hard times. I won't add to the chorus because I'm already lashed
to the mast. 2.2.01
Where are the Whigs?
February. One cold and bitter month down and one to go. And at the minimum, 3.97
more years of a Republican in the White House. I'm sure you all have your opinions
and that's great, but this is my page and I can say what I please. Now we have
this Ashcroft guy to contend with as well. Wild Bill might not have been the most
morally sound guy but I will miss him just the same. I was amused to hear some
right wingers attempting to hang the impending recession on Clinton on election
day by referring to it as "The Clinton Recession." Ha ha. Everyone knows
that the sitting president gets the glory and the mud for whatever happens
during their term. Hoover will forever be doomed by the onset of the Great Depression.
Enough politicking.
142 days until summer. Suffering from some winter
blues writer's block. I suspect that I have spent so much time promoting the band
that I don't have much left energy to write anything new. I have plenty of songs
that are near completion - some that I have been working on for years. I could
never write another song and still have albums worth of material in the tank.
Me and Prince. I suspect that I am at a loss for subject matter. There's plenty
to write about... after all, there's everything in the universe out there just
staring back at me. I am just not motivated to say much about anything these days.
All the ex-girlfriends are still out there and all the future ones are still beyond
the horizon. Dylan and Henley and Guthrie have the sardonic anti-corporatization
thing down. And who needs ill-aimed angst when the Ramones are still around? The
Stones are like an aging rock and roll black hole, sucking up all the money and
hype and matter every time they show up on the scene. There is also no shortage
of tasteless and unnourishing pop out there, and it comes from every corner. I
heard yet another rip off of an old song while driving around the other day. It
was Billie Davis' Angel of the Morning. A song from my youth, ripped off
and words changed into some bullshit R&B abortion. I know that it's out of
my control. I know that there's nothing I can do about it. And I know that there's
nothing I can do to stop it, but here is a message to all those folks... "Learn
to write your own goddamn catchy song!" 2.1.01
Right
wing doom
Here we sit on the verge of having another Republican in
the villa at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I like the Tex-Mex inaugural dinner idea.
Bill didn't bother me. Things rambled along pretty smoothly under Bill's perfume-smelling
hand. One might even say that things got better, or at least what Steve Earle
said about "things not getting worse.". How were things eight years
ago? I was in college, with my mouth firmly clenched on the teat of government
subsidization. I remember round I of Bush all too well. I was naked in the bathroom
when someone knocked on the door to tell me that we had begun bombing another
country. I remember Reagan before him and the decades of Cold War paranoia that
led up to his tenure in the White House. I hate to say it, but I even remember
Carter. I remember his bumbling hillbilly bother and all the peanut jokes. 1.19.01
Perros - and the Bermuda Triangle of CDs
I found my
Jeff Buckley CD. It reappeared as mysteriously as it had vanished. I wish Jeff
would reappear so easily.
I want a dog. The problem with dogs is that
they are like having children that never grow up. My potential dog would look
to me for food and shelter and love and attention until the unfortunate day when
one of us dies. It's a lot of responsibility. And it's also a lot of hanging around
at home and picking up shit. This dog could run in my yard and poop where he or
she pleases if I lived in a more rural area. It just helps the grass grow . Here
in the city we have to clean up the poop. It's just poop, but it's the time that
cleaning up poop takes that is the bigger issue... or perhaps the fact that I
have to actually be there to clean up the poop. I am used to coming and
going as I please and it's usually the going that is the norm.
I have
never really had a dog, at least a dog that I remember. There was a dog named
Peanut in my life when I was very young. Peanut was a beagle, and Peanut is a
was because I think it got hit by a car. I don't even know if Peanut was
a boy or a girl. Then there was Wolf. I was a little older and we had this Husky-type
dog that chewed through - or dug under - chain link fences, as well as howling
at the moon in our non-rural neighborhood. I also remember this dog mauling my
Hobby Horse. It was this toy that amounted to a big rubber ball with what looked
like a horse's head and some handles attached to it. My friends and I would bounce
around on this thing for hours. Anyway, this wolf dog must have had an issue with
the hobby horse because he mauled it. First he popped it and then he tore it to
bits. So much for the hobby horse and so much for the wolf dog. I was bitten by
a dog while I was in college. The neighbor's German Shepherd, who had known me
for years, decided to bite my leg when I jumped the fence to retrieve an errant
basketball. It didn't hurt so much but I still have the scar.
So now
I am considering dog ownership again. I would love to have someone around who
would be happy to see me when I get home. And where else can you purchase undying
devotion? And all I have to do is pick up the shit. 1.15.01
3 and 2 and 30 degrees
164 days until summer. Yes, I am counting
my life away. I need some palm trees. It's sad how 40F feels warm this time of
year. Not that we have seen 40 in what seems like an eternity. Life goes on despite
the weather. Humans have an amusing propensity for pretending that they can go
about their business irregardless of the present meteorological conditions...
and then they wind up disillusioned and disenchanted when it rains on their wedding,
parade or Cubs game. And I am NOT attending another opening day at Wrigley. I
can watch overpaid losers in the cold any day of the week downtown. 1.9.01
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