Journal - 2004

Phew

I have just completed a 3-day, 2000-mile car ride across the country. Actually, the car was towed behind my 15-foot moving truck. I am now a Californian. I suppose that this is as good a way as any to end 2004. Back in my high school senior dedication I wrote that "In Ten Years I'd Like To Be... touring the world and living under a palm tree in California." Funny how life gives you what you want in a manner that you might not have expected.

This new chapter of my life will bring some much-needed changes to the House of Joe. Here's to hoping that the changes are good. You shake the tree and you see what falls out. My attorney has already rung in 2005 in Australia. Glendale will do just fine for me this year.

Happy New Year, everybody - wherever you might be. 12.31.04



Four Legs Good

Her name is Sally. She's reddish brown with black brindle on her back. She also has white tummy and one white foot to match. She still pees on the floor. She still eats my dad's shoes. She chomped through my Ipod sync cable in one bite. Those things are expensive. She's been bitten on the nose twice by the other Armstrong Family Dogs, and there is nothing in the world more heart-wrenching than a bleeding puppy. She's fine now. Even though she has one old and one new scar. She has just about got the "sit" thing down and we're working on "wait." This is significant because two words is a good percentage of her total eventual vocabulary. I can't believe that I have a dog. I have no business having a dog. I can barely feed myself. And I wasn't even looking. She chose me. And that's how it happens. 12.23.04



Well, The Weather Outside...

Sucks. I have worn out my weather welcome with a particular friend of mine. She knows who she is. I'll admit that I have spent my life elevating complaining about the weather to high art. For now, it is cold and shitty and I am complaining. Not for long. Tee he. 12.20.04



If We Had a Puppy

There is a dog in my life. A little brown hound dog wandered into the perimeter of The Armstrong Ranch just under two weeks ago. I took her under my wing and into my schedule. She is a puppy and all that that implies. She pees on the floor. She eats shoes. She barks at the cat. She bays when I put her into solitary confinement in the bathroom at night. She thinks the catbox is like a bowl of Snickers bars. She sleeps where she is not supposed to sleep. She has the attention span of a goldfish. But I think I love her. Puppies have a way with this.

I have made several sorties to the pet supply store. I picked up dog training books and I pore over them looking for some semblence of hope and a chance at eventual sanity. I always said that if I were ever to get a puppy it would be in the summer when I was single. I guess I blew that one. It is cold, dark and rainy outside and there isn't a cute girl with two braids anywhere in sight.

But Sally looks at me with those puppy eyes and I am done in. I take her out in the morning. I take her out before bed. I take her out about a thousand times in between. In fact... between the 2nd and 3rd sentences of this paragraph someone caught her trying to pee on the floor and I had to take her out again. I bought her a squirrel that has squeakers in its belly and tail. I also procured an assortment of chew toys to see what she might prefer. So far the corn starch bone and the seemingly canine narcotic "greenie" are her favorites. 12.7.04



Hell

Tonight is one of those nights. I have some sort of stomach ailment which has had me doubled over in pain for hours. I've tried antacid tablets and the pink stuff and nothing seems to help. I'm not nauseous but I almost wish that I was. Maybe I'd feel better if I could get whatever is hurting me out of my digestive system.

Compounding the problem is an incessantly crying puppy in the bathroom next to my bed. Yet another errant dog wandered onto The Armstrong Compound tonight. Butch and Kenny were barking up a storm and mom went outside to see what was happening and we ended up rescuing a small female hound dog from the clutches of the territorial Armstrong Family Dogs. She was shivering and skinny and terrified so we took her inside, gave her some milk and drew her a bath. She smelled much better afterwards and eventually fell asleep on the couch. Knowing what there is to know about puppies, mom and I decided that she'd better spend the night in the bathroom. She has been howling and crying ever since. I checked on her a bit ago and ended up cleaning up some pee and a giant pile of shit. This is what puppies do.

All in all I think that it might not be such a problem if it were one thing or the other. The combination of the two has forced me out of bed and back to my desk. I have turned to the only friend who is up at this hour, my old friend The Internet. I have perused music sites. I have written e-mail to old human friends. I have checked my e-mail a dozen times in hopes that some west coast crony might have responded. I have downed the better part of a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. I finished an Orwell book. I ate some crackers. I have stared down my clock. I don't know what else to do. I guess I'll just attempt to ride out this little bit of hell and hope for respite in the morning. 11.24.04



Full Circle

Not quite but very nearly. Alabama to Dallas to LA to Utah to Chicago to Nashville to Alabama to Washington to New York to Hanover, NH to Burlington, VT to Washington to Columbus, OH to Washington to Alabama. Damn. It is now Thanksgiving week. I'm looking forward to catching up on some rest, sorting through mail and playing my Martin. I borrowed a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar while staying in Los Angeles. Thanks to Jason Rossi for his generosity. They are great guitars but I miss my Martin. There has also been a saga involving a keyboard I bought on Ebay that UPS destroyed in shipping. I got my money back from the seller - a concientious member of society who didn't hang me out to dry in the situation - unlike United Parcel Service with whom the seller is still fighting in order to get them to claim responsibility for the damage. The moral of the story? Read the fine print. Purchasing insurance can sometimes mean nothing more than that some insurance company will have a paid representative to tell you to fuck off when they break your item. I found another good deal on another keyboard on Ebay and it is waiting for my return home tonight. This time it arrived in one piece. 11.22.04



Live from Han(g)over

OK, I'm not there yet but I'm on my way. I'm sitting in Reagan Interntional Airport awaiting my 2nd of the three flights it will take me to get to Hanover, New Hampshire. I'd wager that I'm not the first guy to make that joke. It is new to me as I have never been to Han(g)over, New Hampshire. I have, however, been to Hangover.

The last few days have been a little insane. LA to Chicago on Monday. My attorney and I checked into The Hopleaf at around 6:30pm and very nearly closed the place. This was an accident but not entirely unexpected. Tuesday brought lots of practice playing my Electrowhocardioflux for the Jeff Buckley show at Uncommon Ground that night. The show went well and I went to sleep on the couch afterwards. Wednesday morning brought a healthy breakfast of huevos con chorizo at Fiesta Mexicana, a walk to the corner liquor store for some Double Cream Stout and a 4-hour Soprano's viewing marathon. I did the second Buckley show and aferwards watched The Soprano's season finale. Thursday was up and at 'em after another couch night of dreams filled with snow and shotguns. I flew to Nashville to meet up with my brother who drove my Honda up from Alabama that we might see the band Hem play that night. I'm still in love with that band. We struck off for home just after midnight. I arrived home around 2:30am and picked through main and passed out in my bed. This morning was up again, again and off to the airport, bringing us to where I am now - sitting in Reagan International Airport. 11.19.04



4 for 4

I have spent the last three days in Chicago. When I arrived on Monday afternoon the sky had the typical Middle Western slate gray pallor. When I awoke on Tuesday the sky was gray. Wednesday all day? Gray. And now, sitting at O'Hare International Airport on Thursday at noon, you guessed it... gray. At least it was relatively warm - and I really shouldn't complain. I honestly didn't expect anything other than gray.

November is typical of any month of weather in Chicago, which is to say that it is unpredictable. You'd think I'd get tired of writing, talking and thinking about Chicago weather. I guess I'm fairly predictable as well.

U2 is currently performing at the dedication ceremony for the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is pouring rain and Bono and The Edge are simply ignoring the downpour as they soar through Sunday Bloody Sunday. The event has an air of the end of Star Wars Episode I when the Jedi masters are standing next to Senator Palpatine, whom we all know is really the dark Emperor of the Sith. Standing under umbrellas on the dais are Presidents Carter, George H. W. Bush, President and Senator Clinton as well as that current idiot that half country elected a couple weeks back. Curse the red states.

5 for 5

I played my fifth consecutive Jeff Buckley Tribute Concerts this week. That's five in the last five years and this year was only the 7th overall. The every first was apparently only readings and poetry and such. This means that I only missed one year of music. I didn't even know that the event existed until I started playing shows at Uncommon Ground. The owner, Michael Cameron suggested that I come and play for the Buckley thing. That was five years ago.

This year brought in over five hundred submissions from artists around the world. I was once again happy to have been selected as one of the roughly twenty five artists who would be selected to perform. Over the years I've done a twang version of Eternal Life, an three-voice acapella version of Last Goodbye, a Nick Drake style 4/4 arrangement of Lover, You Should've Come Over, a subdued acoustic Mojo Pin, a foot stomping Yard of Blonde Girls and this year's peculiar arrangement of Hallelujah. Buckley's version of the Leonard Cohen song is a gorgeous multi octave dreamscape. The idea for my version of Hallelujah was hatched last summer shortly after I found a peculiar instrument at a used music shop. It is actually called a chord organ but I refer to is at an Electrowhocardioflux. It is a cheaply-made plastic keyboard instrument that words like a harmonica crossed with a pipe organ. It is a little out of tune with itself and is clacky and hard to play, but it sounds amazing. My arrangement wound up working pretty well. It met my primary requirement for this event which is that it sounded very little like the original version.

There were fewer of the usual cadre of Buckley imitators at this year's event. This is a welcome change. I like Jeff Buckley's music. Don't get me wrong. But I must admit that I simply do not like Jeff Buckley like a lot of the performers who show up for this event assuredly do. My music sounds nothing like Buckley's. I wouldn't emulate is vocal style if I could. I have always preferred a simpler and more direct style of singing. Buckley's emotive vocals are a big part of what made him unique, but if your name is not Jeff Buckley you might consider leaving that style to him. Find your own voice. 11.18.04



Thursday

Here's an interesting tidbit. ABC is planning on running the movie Saving Private Ryan sometime soon. Affiliates in 8 states are going to pre-empt the broadcast out of concern for decency. One of the affiliates said that they didn't want to show the movie in a time of war.

What?

Am I missing something here?

Some of the other affiliates make statements about potential FCC fines and possible complaints from viewers. Perhaps the strangest aspect to all of this is the fact that this is at least the 3rd television airing of the movie. 11.11.04

WE'RE FUCKED !!!
(51% - 49%)

It Seems Like Only Yesterday

But it was long ago. All the way back to last Monday. One week ago today the future seemed like it might be brighter. Good sense and forward thinking just might prevail. In the last 6 days I have endured transcontinental slander sessions, dejection, incredulity, exasperation, disgust with christian conformists, anger towards the ruling class, a teleconference pub session head check with my attorney, and experienced a call to even greater action. Something must be done.

The prideful evangelicals are attempting to lead us through the storm with one hand on the bible and the other on the pilot wheel. They are truly deluded into thinking that a book of fiction will help them steer when the reality is that they're going to need both hands regardless of their color.

The word on the street is that the votes were all tabulated on a few PCs just like the one you're staring into right now. Let me ask you an honest question. Does it always work as it is supposed to? I am no technophobe - I carry a small cadre of computing power nearly everywhere I go - but I am quite leery of electronic voting. The process is barely legitimate when there is a paper trail to follow. Any 8th grader could have hacked the voting computers bribed with on a new copy of Halo and a bag of Cheetos.

This train of thought may or may not even get me/us anywhere. Bullets with little American flags on them are spilling blood the world over. Those bullets were bought with Christian tax dollars. If you're a Christian you are going to have to answer for that one way or another. They don't like to think about it. I'm proud to say that I am part of the 48%. There are an awful lot of us out there and it is up to us to not keep out mouths shut. We'll charge the pilot house when the time is right. 11.8.04



Ahem

Tonight's CNN.com headline story title reads "Poll Find Americans Hopeful." To whom do I write a letter that simply says "Fuck You?" 11.4.04



Donkeys Live A Long Time

We are so fucked that I don't know where to begin. I try not to be pessimistic but I really think that this is the beginning of the end for America. Sound drastic? Look at the numbers. What kind of national debt are we going to have after four more years of incompetent leadership? Our great grandchildren will be paying off the debt as it currently stands. How are those same young people going to feel when they have to pay off the national debt on a military salary once compulsory military service becomes a reality? How are we going to stretch our already overextended military enough to invade a couple more countries? Like trees? Take a picture. We're going to cut them all down to get at the last drop of available oil to make gasoline for our Hummers that the government already gives us a tax break to own. The future of Iraq? It will continue to blossom into the best Al Qaeda training ground that our money can buy. Be careful not to trip over that pile of bodies. Gay marriage? The kooks actually think that it is important enough to amend the constitution in order to take away the pursuit of happiness. Roe Vs. Wade? Forget it. The republican party will own your uterus. Once that fucking idiot appoints a couple more zealot right wing supreme court justices the republicans will have control of the executive and judicial branches, the house of representatives and the senate. Big Brother is watching.

I am embarrassed to be an American. I am frightened for our future. I am sickened to look into the eyes of my countrymen and women knowing that fully half of them actually cast a vote for that man. In a word, I am disgusted. Oh, and I'm thinking Costa Rica. The weather is nicer. 11.3.04



By A Nose

It's late for the likes of me. I'm on the west coast but my body still operates on Central Time. It has been a long day of election coverage and typing tests. I have tortured myself long enough and I am headed to bed with the race 249-242, according to CNN. My guess is that if this is where it stands now it will be pretty close to this in the morning. All the zealots in Alabama got their way. All the city folk in New York, Illinois, California, Boston carried their respective states as well. As usual, I am embarrassed to have anything to do with Alabama and proud to call Chicago home. And, come tomorrow morning I might be even more embarrassed to be an American, period. But I'll withhold my concession until the numbers have all been tallied up. For now, goodnight America. Sleep well. Never had a valet. Most likely kill you in the morning. 11.2.04 11:46pm PST


Wake Me When It's Over

OK. It's getting on towards the end of this farce. It's 249-200 according to CNN. To no one's surprise, Fox is calling 269-211. Those assholes didn't even count California until just a bit ago. I have to admit that things aren't looking good for my side. All in all the little red and blue map of the states definitively outlines the states where I might like to live. 11.2.04 - 10:28pm PST



Not a Finger

My middle finger is getting sore from pressing the f5 key - the key that refreshes my browser thereby updating my electoral college count. I'll be using that finger for something else if Kerry doesn't win this election. 11.2.04 - 8:12pm PST



Blue Vs. Red

The games have been raging all day. Polls have closed in a few eastern states and the outlines on the little map are nearly all red. This was expected and is well within the game plan. My attorney and I have spent a goodly amount of time chatting about this nonsense today. We have done all we can do and the election will go on without us whether or not we watch. But we are in agreement that we simply cannot look away. I know that watching won't change the outcome. In fact, it will just stress me out. But I can't not watch. So, like last week's world series the elections is a game of numbers. Will I sleep a little better tonight knowing that the pendulum has swung a little back towards logical thinking or will I stay up late in order to begin to iron on the letters to my home made "We're Fucked" t-shirt? 11.2.04 - 4:21pm PST



D-Day

OK, folks. This is it. The future is in our hands. At least I'd like to think that it is. Given our system of government it is supposed to be. Is this one going to be decided by non-elected officials like last time? The lawyers have been in a frenzy for four years after the Lake Michigan-sized bucket of chum got dumped into the water during the last election.

What I simply can't understand is how so many Americans have been duped. The christian masses have been courted by a decidedly bloodthirsty administration and they fell for it. Never mind the piles of corpses in the sand. We make decisions with god on our mind! Never mind the likely fact that stem cell research could lead to cures for millions of people who suffer every day. Never mind that even the widow of their holiest saint, saint Ronald, publicly supported lifting the ban on stem cell research. Never mind the spiraling budget deficit and the billion-dollar-a-week war against Islam. Major combat is over! The banner said so. Our C-student warrior president landed on an aircraft carrier. (I wonder how much that little stunt cost.) We saw the whole thing on TV.

The republicans just couldn't let go of the flip-flop issue. Well, what is it when someone tells you one thing, like "we are invading Iraq to protect ourselves from weapons of mass destruction" and then change their tune to "we invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator?" That's called a lie. Would you rather follow someone who changed their mind when the choice proved to be incorrect or someone who marched on in blind stupidity. In business school it is called escalation of commitment. Dubya and his war-profiteering cronies are guilty of hubris, among other things.

It could be argued that at one point it was important for our elected officials (Kerry) to support our commander in chief (Dubya) trusting that he'd Do The Right Thing, but that they (Kerry) change their minds when he (Dubya) blew it on a grand scale.

My own sister will cast a republican vote today because she only cares about the issue of abortion. I feel for her. I have my pet issues as well, but it is so frightfully shortsighted to not consider the big picture. It is all-too-logical that the republicans don't want abortion to be legal. In the hyper-militaristically industrialized future we're going to need every warm body we can get in order to throw them at the enemy of the week and show our resolve.

The christian right actually think that they're doing the right thing by voting for Dubya. A conservative friend of mine chants "peace through strength." That might have made some sense in another time when the war was a sickening battle of stockpiles. What we now have ourselves embroiled up to our necks in is "senseless killing as a means to peace." I have said it before. War begets war.

This just in from my attorney. "I feel that I don't need to explain to you the irony behind me voting in a church this morning."

What is perhaps frightening is how logical our enemy sounds. The transcript of Osama bin Laden's recent Al-Jazeera tape is case and point. Although I don't agree with his methodology he has a better battle plan. It's almost funny that he just tells us what he's trying to accomplish. And here we are marching around in the desert. He's fighting a religious war by undermining an economy and we're fighting an economic war and trying to hide the fact that our president thinks that it is a religious war.

But I must digress. I could sit here ALL DAY and address this topic from every conceivable angle in this obtuse universe in which I have come to live. My fingers are crossed. My vote is cast. I can only refresh by CNN.com browser so many times a minute. There's a good chance that I'll be updating this several times today. For now I will attempt to avert my eyes. 11.2.04 - 1:00pm PST

BOO!

Happy Halloween! 10.31.04



Aye

I have voted. I went to the local circuit clerk's office today and filled out my absentee ballot because I won't be around come election day. There were many people doing the same in the rather small Lawrence County Courthouse. The rumbling from all across the land is that this election means something. People are registering, and by all accounts of absentee balloting they are actually voting. The country is polarized. The fools who support Dubya are trying to hold on to the current climate of warmongering and corporate greed in the sheep's clothing of alleged moral superiority. The rest of us are attempting to wrench the pilot wheel away from those white-knuckled war profiteers. Oh, I'm sorry. Are you voting for Dubya? Are you offended because I called you a fool? Well, I'll say it again. You are a fool. What have I got to lose? I don't sell a lot of records anyway. I'd venture to say that most folks who are reading this would have found a more like-minded place to while away their idle afternoon hours in their pen working for The Man a long time ago. They likely think I'm a fool and the feeling is decidedly mutual.

All in all I am throwing my vote away. Not because I'm voting for the wrong person or some renegade third party candidate but because Dubya will carry the state of Alabama. Alabama is filled with Dubya-heads. They don't care that he was a boozer. They don't care if he skipped out on Vietnam by joining the Air National Guard and then even went AWOL from them. They don't care if he has waged a war against the environment or that he made the budget surplus go "poof" by simultaneously waging a war and cutting taxes. They are not concerned that his pet war has gotten thousands killed, maimed or worse. They are only concerned that god told him to tell them that he should be "president."

But my civic duty is done. Now it's time to sit back and watch the inevitable come to me. Someone will be president when we all wake up on November 3rd. If the judiciary and the chum-crazed lawyers can stay the hell out of it we may even have our man by the time we go to bed on the 2nd. 10.22.04



Damn Yankees

I watched baseball. I actually watched baseball. And I'm not talking about my nephew's pitching machine aluminum bleacher little league brand. I watched the ACLS between the Red Sox and the Yankees. I caught the end of one of the opening Sox losses in Chicago at a friend's house. They'd all but been written off. I'm sure that there were many New Yorkers who were having a hard time picking out what outfit they'd be wearing to the World Series. The fat lady was warbling. And then Boston stole a game. That's when I started paying attention. Fighting my father for the remote is a tricky business. It was halfway through the Sox' second win when we tuned in on Monday night. "Ain't nothin' on anyway" was his declaration when we settled on the baseball game.

I'll admit that I got caught up in what seemed like might be a wave of history coming towards the world. The Red Sox won that marathon game five in extra extra innings. Then there was last night's 4-2 victory, also watched in the Armstrong Entertainment Module. Not a domination by any sense of the word, but record-breaking nonetheless. Even dad - exclusively a college football devotee - seemed marginally interested in this snowball's chance in hell of a 7th and final game of this series. He was asleep by the 4th inning. In some ways I can't blame him. Boston jumped to a strong early lead - mostly on the Paul Bunyan bat swinging of Johnny Damon. Why is it that his pretty boy looks and flowing hair don't rub me the way that poseur Rick Fox does?

The Yankees started to fight back but they simply couldn't get it together. History had already dictated that their gig was up. All that Yankee hype. All that pin striped nonsense. All that A-Rod off season sports radio blather. The tea has been dumped into the bay. Boston is going to the World Series. 10.21.04



Now Or Never, Too Close to the Latter

I'm sad to report some bad news. Son Volt is not reuniting. It's actually worse than that. Jay Farrar is recording another album under the name Son Volt but he will be the only original member. This development has saddened me greatly. I got a nice little bump in good feelings knowing that something I truly loved was going to once again exist. It now looks as if my beloved Son Volt will be just another Credence Clearwater Revisited. Hats off to Mike Heirdorn and the Boquist brothers for attempting to make more music with the obviously difficult Farrar. For me, it's back to autumnal brooding. We're all living proof that nothing lasts. 10.17.04



Stay on Target

Well then. Here I am. Back from another whirlwind trip to somewhere or other. The debate season is finished. The word on the street is that Kerry won all three debates. Based on my observations I would tend to agree. It was subtle, but Bush's incompetence and lack of speaking ability cost him the only chance he had to face his opponent. I guess you could say that he showed America what he is made of. The thing that gets me is that lots of people - roughly half of those polled - don't seem to mind.

For now, the race is a dead tie. We have the inaccuracy of polling statistics to confuse the matter. We also have the fact that people who use exclusively mobile phones have no way of being polled. Michael Moore is out on a speaking tour in an attempt to get the slackers off the couch, past the piles of Taco Bell wrappers on their floors and into the polling halls. Michigan alone has shown record numbers of newly registered voters in the past few weeks.

Not so long ago - before debate season - I was talking to a friend who had all but conceded the election because Kerry had been slipping in the polls. I told her to stop that nonsensical talk at once, explaining that having that sort of attitude can be contagious. Water cooler gatherers all across the nation could start convincing one another that there is no point in fighting. I simply cannot let that happen, if only in my own sphere of influence. I made it up on the spot, but she bought it and I still think that it is the right thing to perpetuate. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Obviously Not Left Behind

I happened across an article about the Alabama educational system the other day and thought I might share some important statistics with you. Alabama is 45th in per-pupil expenses $5,937 and ranks 29th in classroom size, averaging 15.7 students per teacher. Incidentally, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Massachusetts rank 1,2, 3 in top-performing public schools in America - with Alabama staggering in at a shameful 47th. Money might not be able to buy happiness or love but it actually can buy better teachers. Anyone can tell you about a teacher in their formative years that made whatever subject they happened to teach seem fun. Education is the key as far as I'm concerned. Education and some magic beans.

Texas Tea

A barrel of crude oil set a record by selling at a dumbfounding $55US today. One can actually see this exorbitant amount reflected in our local at-the-pump prices out here in Hip-de-do. The gas station closest to The Armstrong Compound has a posted price of $1.9299 for the cheap stuff. Some of these folks might have to make fewer trips to town on the tractor. 10.15.04



The Dog of War

I actually listened to the Vice Presidential debates last night. My father was dozing in front of the TV so I opted for NPR, which was fine. Cheney is scary to look at anyway. I also watched the Presidential debates last week. Boo ya for John Kerry. Bush stuttered and stammered like an old lawn mower. More on this later. All I have time to mention now is that the very first thing out of Dubya's mouth last week was the word "September." Can you guess what number followed? It seems to me that the prevailing word and dogma for the republicans is fear. Edwards' eagerness counters this with a message of hope. So there you have it. Hope vs. Fear. You choose. 10.6.04



And in This Corner

From Texas, the world's most incompetent semi-freely-elected man, Dubya. Facing him, from Massachusetts, an exceedingly wealthy and moderately engaging long-faced man, John Kerry. The presidential debates start in 24 minutes. And yes, I refrained from capitalizing that title on purpose. Hold on tight, folks. This is going to be quite a ride. 9.30.04



Sky Captain

Burt Rutan is The Man. Not The Man who made you wash dishes for minimum wage every Saturday night at the local retirement home when you were in high school. The Man as in the Grand Poobah. His company, Scaled Composites, is halfway to winning the Ansari X Prize. What, you might ask, is the Ansari X Prize?

Modeled after the aviation awards offered to the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic ocean in the early 1900s, The Ansari X Prize is a ten million dollar prize that will be awarded to the first non-governmental group to send the same craft, a pilot and three passengers to sub orbital space twice in two weeks. Rutan's company successfully made the first of the two flights today, sending pilot Mike Melvill 67 miles into the sky over the Mojave Desert.

The whole concept of the Ansari X Prize is to foster the space tourism industry. As for now, this industry doesn't exist. Denis Tito paid the exorbitant price tag of $20 million to get himself launched to the International Space Station in 2001. Most regular folks probably can't fit that sort of expenditure into their monthly budget. Granted, the $200,000.00 estimated price tag for the first rounds of suborbital space travel is also a little steep, but it is getting closer.

Moreover, this feat of science is unparalleled in human history because it is the first time that a non-government-sponsored spacecraft actually has gone that far into space. It is an astounding accomplishment. Move over, NASA, let Burt have a crack at it. 9.29.04



Glory Day

One never knows what news will befall them upon waking on any given day of their life. We wake up to births, deaths, miracles and cataclysms all the time. This morning I woke to find that one of my favorite bands ever - Son Volt - is reuniting.

Son Volt was borne of the dissolution of a short lived but widely revered little band from Belleville, Illinois named Uncle Tupelo. Their name was chosen out of two lists and their music was an amalgam of punk and pre-rock and roll American styles. Not jazz, but the simple folk music of rural America. The band was eventually torn asunder by the desire for a shared spotlight from the songwriter who hadn't spent his formative years working in the family used bookstore. Jeff Tweedy wanted to be a rock musician. Son Volt's founder and the prime Uncle Tupelo visionary was Jay Farrar. Farrar was a seer.

Tweedy wrote about inner space - what lies inside and between people. Farrar's songs came from a more universal worldview. Tweedy went on to form the band Wilco after the disbanding of Uncle Tupelo at Farrar's behest. In Wilco, Tweedy mined new depths of those intensely personal spaces to critical acclaim and slow but steadily growing revenues. Farrar formed Son Volt before the Tupelo dust had even settled.

Son Volt's first album, Trace, is seen as a watershed moment in the alternative country/twangy rock movement. The band had a little success and sold a few records, going on to make two more CDs before Farrar again grew restless and put the band on indefinite hiatus. Most of us thought them gone for good while Jay Farrar released a pair of solo albums and toured the country mostly alone.

And then I woke up this morning. An e-mail from an old friend had a subject line that read "The Volt is back." A quick visit to Jay Farrar's website confirmed what would turn out to be another stellar moment in what has already promised to be a brilliant fall for music.

A new Steve Earle record is already on my Ipod. October 5th brings us new records by Tom Waits and Hem. Later in the month we'll also see new releases by Beck, Elliott Smith, Camper Van Beethoven, Mark Knopfler and John Fogerty. When it rains it pours. What a great day to wake up.

Falling

Autumn is upon us once more. Here in Alabama the days are noticeably shorter but still warm. The nights are cooler than just a week or two ago and there are plenty of trills and chirps and creaks from the forest to help me sleep. The sun has slipped to that slight sideways, yellow angle and that always makes afternoons seem to last forever. Halloween is the first in a series of holidays that are about to whirl past you like a crazed sparrow. I recall making a mental note to write about the cardboard school supply list kiosk that showed up at the entrance to the local Wal Mart back in July. It is now long gone, along with the memories of the first day of the school year.

I love fall, I always have. I've said it a thousand times and no doubt penned it in here more than once, but I have always felt that fall is the most beautiful story ever written with a tragic ending. That ending doesn't stop me from enjoying the ride. In fact, it has a way of making the plot development all the more sweet.

To me, autumn has always been the most romantic of the seasons. It occupies a smoky, yellow, crisp-night place in my heart. It is corn shocks and pumpkins. Apples and smoldering leaf piles. The high school musical and first kisses. Indian Summer and caramel apples. It is mustard-yellow long sleeved shirts and picking pumpkins out of the patch at a farm.

Carving pumpkins is one of my absolutely favorite things to do on the planet ever. Halloween has long been my favorite holiday and carving pumpkins is the prime tradition. I have snapshot memories of pulling them in off the cool of the porch, cutting a round hole around the top and removing the cap and then sticking my hand inside to feel the frost around the sinew dangling with seeds.

Dad would always remove the screen from the wooden storm door and don some sort of ridiculous mask - something usually involving a flashlight. A giant, stainless steel bowl of candy sat next to the inside of the door, and just outside sat the pumpkins with whimsical, tortured faces flickering warm light into the night.

I'd tear out our front door and run through the darkness, the chilly air stinging my lungs through the Hong Kong Phooey mask, astronaut helmet or brown bigfoot face paint. I'd jump and land on a porch where a set of some other family's carved orange faces were staring up at me. As I ran from house to house my bag would slowly fill with a sweet smelling mélange that would keep me up nights nearly until Thanksgiving. It was a dentist's dream. And as the night wore on and the bag grew heavy the jack-o'-lanterns on the porches would sag imperceptibly and the smell of candle-cooked pumpkin would welcome me to every door. Sometimes, I'd hit the mother lode as an elderly woman would dump the entirety of her remaining candy into my bag, smiling and saying that there probably wouldn't be any more children by her house that night. She'd hear my voice shouting "thank you!" as I ran back into the darkness with a mouth agape from the good fortune.

And then I was back home. Halloween, although well into autumn, always seemed like a last rite of summer to me, and that made going to bed on Halloween night a somber event. It was at once the climax and the sudden end of the warm weather and all that that entailed. I would dump out my bag on my bedroom floor deflecting my father's hyena-like pilfering of a few Butterfingers or Snickers. I'd stash it all in a desk drawer and climb into bed. Mom would always let me bring my pumpkin into my room where I'd set it on the dresser. Out went the light and the pumpkin and me would have a staring contest - me with my sugar-fueled but sleepy green blue and the pumpkin with a flickering yellow. I always imagined it outlasting me and protecting me from the spirits of Halloween as I slept. And that is likely what it did, year after year.

You'll still find me carving pumpkins on Halloween night. In Chicago it was on my porch starting before dark with an array of carving tools, a bowl of candy and a bottle opener for my Octoberfest or Pale Ale. I'm bigger now but I'll never outgrow the boy who ran from house to house in the ghost-filled darkness. And this year I'll still go to sleep with a jack-o'-lantern on my dresser. Summer will officially be over and once the pumpkin has won the stare down yet again I'll dream of me in a bigfoot costume as a big, yellow smiling face flickers on my ceiling. 9.28.04



Down to the Wire

OK. Here we go. Six more weeks to go before a genuine, bona fide Judgment Day. Are you registered to vote? If you aren't, why? Write to me here and give me one good reason. I have heard right thinking people conceding this election and am proud to say that I have talked them out of that sort of mindset. This is important, folks. If we don't vote this privileged, unqualified, undereducated dolt out of office in six weeks' time the madness is just going to continue.

We still have our buddy Kim Jong Il giving us the finger. A big, ballistic missile-shaped finger. There are bodies floating down the flooded streets of Haiti and thousands of our own citizens living on the street. Dubya got us into a king-sized mess and has no legitimate plan for getting us out save for imperialistic proselytization. He lied to us about weapons of mass destruction and his resulting spin should make us all nauseous.

So, get up and get out. Get off your feet and register. And get out on November 2nd and do your patriotic duty. John Kerry is not the most charismatic man in the world, much less the Presidential race. But there is one key thing that he isn't and that is George W. Bush. That is all he need be. 9.25.04



Ivan vs. Alabama

The latest scourge from Hurricane Season '04 ravaged Alabama while I was gone on the last Dashboard trip. I didn't escape unscathed. The outermost arm of Ivan was parked over Atlanta when I arrived there for my connecting flight last Wednesday. One must naturally go through Atlanta to get from Alabama to Oklahoma. I wound up sitting inside a steamy prop plane on the tarmac in Alabama and then spent nearly 7 additional hours killing time at Heartsfield International Airport because I missed my second flight as a result of the delay.

The Armstrong Compound is a long way from the gulf but Ivan carved out a path of destruction hundreds of miles inland. For my parents it was some serious wind, sideways rain and downed trees that led to a power outage. The yard still is covered in leaves from the trees that surround The Compound. The view off the top of the moutain usually consisits of glimpses of sky in the day and just a few distant lights at night. Now, with half the leaves gone off the trees the valley is plainly visible.

My brother Mike and I had been planning another mountain biking trip on the trails close to our parent's place since the last one had to be cut short because my rear derailleur needed some serious adjustments. After three hours, much toil, some carefully chosen expletives and some Internet research I got the Cannondale back online and Mike and I hit the Pine Torch Trail yesterday morning. The weather couldn't have been better. Only September seems to have skies like that. I sort of expected slow going as there was likely to be trees down across the trail, and if the number of leaves covering the yard at home was any indicator we might even have a hard time following the trail at points. The trail turned out to be worse still. There were points when we just walked our bikes between downed trees. There were giant pines sure to be filled with chiggers, cowcumber trees with their giant windblown leaves covering everything, majestic thick-trunked oaks which we were incapable of riding over and slender elms covered in poison sumac vines complete with scores of berries. I found a product that blocks poison ivy from bonding to skin, thereby preventing infection. So far so good. 9.24.04



A Brilliant Writer's Almanac

Something I stumbled across that was penned by Garrison Keillor. Man, can this guy write or what?

As always, brought to you without permission in hopes that the subject matter justifies my e-theivery. 9.22.04



Deep in the Heart of Texas

Live from Austin. I am homeward bound from a weekend in Austin, Texas. I really love this town. I have echoed this sentiment before more than once. What other airport in the world plays public address music that I might listen to? Dashboard came down here to play the Austin City Limits Music Festival last night. This is my third visit to Austin in a year and I have to say that I never grow tired of the place. It is such an oddity that I don't know where to begin. (Another great song on the airport PA.)

It is hot here. And I mean HOT. It was 97 degrees through the afternoon yesterday and it was just as sultry the previous day when my cronies and I came down to the festival to see whatever acts we could see. Our flight arrived late in the day so we only made it down to Zilker Park - where the festival is staged every year - in time to see Gomez and Ryan Adams. Seeing a band perform live can sometimes codify any preconceived impression of them that you might have. And it can work either way. In the cases of both Gomez and the other Adams it seemed to do both at once.

I had forgot that Zilker park was as far as it was from the main north/south street of central Austin and the two band members who had walked over with me were rather dour about the miscalculation. Those of us who had at some point run 26.2 consecutive miles on purpose didn't find the walk to be particularly strenuous but those of us who have successfully made a living playing in professional rock bands were not amused. Having arrived at the festival after the slightly-longer-than-anticipated walk over from the hotel my associates and myself made a beeline for the backstage area at the Heineken stage where there were sure to be libations. Our artist-level passes allowed us backstage access to any stage that hadn't been deemed VIP-only. We loaded up on Dutch beer and enjoyed the warm embrace of a Texas September evening. Beer, as they say, heals all wounds and Scott the Bass Player soon forgot about the arduous hike. (Yet another great song on the airport PA system.)

I had heard a couple tracks and many good things about the British band Gomez and thought I might like to see what they were about for myself from the prime vantage point of the observation platform just off stage left. The beer was also free and readily available at this stage. Gomez both impressed and annoyed me with their Stone Roses-meets-Widespread Panic noodle pop. The songs were good and thankfully free of the posturing that British bands traditionally eschew. The annoying facets were just behind the backline of amplifiers where an unnecessarily large percussion setup and Neal Peart-sized drum set sat and fell victim to no less than two overplaying drummers. I am of the opinion that drummers simply don't need more cymbals than brains. Less truly is more and most mature, accomplished drummers prove this time and time again.

To me, Ryan Adams has always been like the Lenny Kravitz of roots rock. He has some good songs and brief moments of beauty but one generally can draw a straight line from any one of his songs that leads straight to another song in the rock and roll lexicon. In other words, it is that he is simply too derivative for my tastes. I'll admit that I like Lenny Kravitz. For the most part, at least. I'll admit that I sort of like Ryan Adams as well. He has apparently released three albums in the last year - a stat that uniquely and precisely equals the number of shows he has given in the same timeframe. On Friday night in Austin Mr. Adams sounded as if he has been spending a lot of time lying around listening to Dead bootlegs.

His accomplished band ambled through songs that sounded a lot like The Allman Brothers or a number of other 70s staples. Austin pedal steel guru Catherine Somethingorother wept her steel around the changes. Adams' good guitar tone made up for his definitive lack of ability on the instrument. The nicest surprise came with the introduction of the band when I learned that the chick bass player was none other than Catherine Popper, who also just happens to play in what has become one of my favorite bands in the world - Brooklyn's quiet and disarmingly beautiful Hem.

This year's must have ACL Music Festival fashion accessory - the Lucinda Williams signature stylized straw cowboy hat. Every other beautiful young Austin girl at the festival had one to go along with her bikini top and hemp necklace. Some of the guys had them, too. I have tried to buy a cowboy hat more than once in the last year. I have checked truck stops and gas stations in several states as well as the local farmer's co-op near my parent's house all to no avail. Not only can I not find a hat with the proper balance of kitsch, square and manure I just can't find one to fit my head. It isn't even as if I have an unusually large head - although I'd invite you to try and convince some former girlfriends and band members of that fact.

Trey Anastasio just walked by. Amazing. There is a world class guitarist walking past me with his solitary carry on bag wearing a black long sleeved t-shirt and blue jeans. I just watched him headline two whole time slots at the festival last night and here he his headed home to Vermont.

There were still several acts performing on various stages when I finished packing Dashboard's gear. I decided to start with the Heineken Stage where I had just filled my belly with gratis green-canned beer the prior night. The Wailers were playing on that stage and a little reggae sounded like it might fit the bill. Maybe I'd even be able to use my pass to get backstage to get some more free beer. When I arrived the backstage was VIP-only and The Wailers weren't onstage. G. Love and Special Sauce were there funking it up with their cracker groove.

After G. Love there were only two more acts left from which to choose, Trey Anastasio and The Pixies. I decided to check out Trey first. He had a large band which consisted of the usual rock instrumentation augmented by a percussionist and a horn section. The worst player on that stage could likely play circles around just about anybody. Trey was the painter - calling out changes on the fly with hand signals. Purty cool. Once I'd had enough of the noodle dancers I made my way to the opposite side of the sizable festival grounds to see The Pixies do their thing.

The Pixies were big when I was a disc jockey back in college. They were a seminal alternative band in the period when alternative was beginning to be spelled with a capital letter. The inception of Alternative music as a genre is a little peculiar because it originally encompassed any music that couldn't be easily put in a definable category with a matching label-taped bin at a record store. It was Robyn Hitchcock and The Cowboy Junkies. It was Toad the Wet Sprocket and all of grunge which would eventually become its own capitalized genre. Everything now seems to be sub-sub-sub genres. Post-emo-hip hop-core-punk-tronica. But I'm getting off topic.

After a long walk from one side of the festival gronds to the other that gradually faded from Texas hippies into Texas hipsters I arrived at the Pixies stage, where they were indeed doing their thing. They weren't bad but they seemed to still lack whatever it was that didn't draw me to them back in their heyday. It might just be because I am not cool enough. They played the song that rolls over the credits of Fight Club and I nodded and grooved. It was then time to stand in the throngs of countless sweaty people and make my way back to the hotel.

It was a balmy night and there was an energy in the air. I like hot nights and the unnamed something in the air gave me the energy to walk back to my hotel. I stopped for a treat and then a delectable taco from a street vendor. I love Austin. I walked down Austin's answer to Bourbon Street, 6th Street, where the cops block off the streets after a certain hour and the smells of the local freaks' patchouli mingles with the out-of-towners' fragrance counter scents. I marched past them all and headed north. Stubb's BBQ is exactly what you would imagine it to be. It is also a live music venue that plays host to some amazing acts. This night it was hosting Wilco. I happened by during the latter portion of their set and sat down on the sidewalk to listen and sneak peeks through the loadout door behind the stage.

I had just spent a day loading in and out of that very door on another sultry Austin night a few months prior. When I first sat down it was just another girl and myself. Then there were five, and then ten, and soon there was a crowd milling about in front of the bus and one of the venue security guys asked us to shove off. I noticed a group of people standing on a parking garage next door and made my way up there. Just before I arrived at Stubb's I had noticed a solitary beer sitting on the back bumper of a parked pickup truck. I walked past, noting the beverage, and made deal with myself that I would walk back and check to see if it was cold, and if it was I'd claim it as my own.

I climbed the stairs to the top level of the parking garage with a cold beer in hand. Those of us gathered up there couldn't really see much of the stage but the sound and panoramic view of the Austin skyline were both much better. I popped the cap and enjoyed my latest haphazard discovery. (My attorney is convinced that my super power involves finding random objects at opportune moments.) I managed to catch the rest of the Wilco set and both their encores. It was most enjoyable, at least until some excitable-looking youth slowly saddled up next to my spot and began making bad conversation that eventually worked itself up to him asking me "hey dude, do you like mushrooms?"

For once, the cops arrived at the proper moment and asked all of us in the parking garage crowd if we were employees of the Austin Police Department. As it turned out they were the lease holders of the garage and those of us who were not on the city payroll would have to leave the premises. The last notes of the last song of the last encore were already diffusing into the humid air somewhere over I-35 when the cops showed up so I packed up and did what the officer asked.

And that was that for Austin. I've been there three times in the last year and every time I always think that I'm one step away from moving there. That one step is assuredly the rest of superconservative Texas. Case and point. I just saw a t-shirt with a confederate flag and a caption saying "If this flag offends you you need a history lesson." Perhaps they need a grammar lesson along with their revisionist history clarification.

I had the runner stop at an HEB grocery store on the way to the airport to stock up on Bob's Texas Style BBQ Potato Chips as they are unavailable outside of the Lone Star State. Beer from Michigan and the Pacific Northwest. Chips and Mexican food from Texas. Seafood from New England. Pizza from Chicago. You get the idea. I am now sitting in the poorly-designed George Bush International Airport in Houston awaiting my connecting flight back to 1950. Which reminds me... I never did talk about Alabama water pressure and the Republican National Convention.

Sponge Bath

The night before my last Dashboard one off weekend show was a study in contrast. The entire Armstrong Family Unit had driven off to North Carolina for the annual Family Rafting Trip. I had been planning to go for most of the summer when Dashboard decided that they wanted to play a show at a small, private university in Rhode Island the same weekend as the rafting trip. After the parental units split around noon on that Friday I reveled in the fact that I would had the house to myself for half an entire day. I got out my tube amp and cranked it up. I cleaned the kitchen in the traditionally fastidious Joe Armstrong manner. I didn't turn on the TV once. The evening was progressing perfectly right up to the point when I decided to take a shower. I'd noticed that the water pressure had been dwindling over the course of the afternoon and hoped that it would improve by nightfall. This was not the case. In fact, over the course of my pseudo sponge bath the tub only filled with about an inch and a half of water. There wasn't even enough pressure to make a single drop of water come out of the shower head when the little valve was switched. All of Alabama isn't like this but this latest water pressure fiasco is just one of a thousand things on the list which remind me that I don't belong there.

I'm With the Asses

The 2004 Republican National Convention passed without too much of a fracas. There were fences and there was barbed wire. There was John McCain vs. Michael Moore. There was just another flickering screen that gave me another set of reasons to not be a Republican. I hadn't thought too terribly much about it until I saw Pat Buchannon give his hate-filled, gay bashing convention speech a few years back. What an asshole. The fact that guys like Buchannon are Republicans is enough for me but you can just add that to the list.

I am not a Democrat but I think that Republicans are full of shit. All in all I feel as if the two party system on the whole is broken. I could rant for hours about the Democrat's inability to maintain any sort of cohesiveness. Perhaps this is because their platform needs to unite everyone left of center. The left is where the would be freaks reside. The freaks are sometimes as suspicious of one another as they are of the rest of society. Basically, if you are a zealot, wear camauflage for a living, have a desire to tell everyone else to live by a strict set of moral standards or you are deluded to the extent that you believe that corporate profit motive will make the right call when it comes to human well being or the protection of the environment you fall on the pachyderm side of this partisan chalk line. Me? I'm with the asses this time around. 9.19.04



The Cat Came Back

It wasn't the very next day like the song, but the Armstrong Family Cat has returned. Various search parties had been sent on foot, car and ATV to no avail. It had been days since the altercation with one of the Armstrong Family Dogs and no one had heard or seen Gato. Then, the other night, just as we had resigned ourselves to the fact that she was gone, dad came walking past the back of the house with one filthy cat in his grasp. This is funny because historically dad harbored no love for the cat.

She had tooth holes in her ear and head but seemed otherwise more or less OK. We set her down in the house, gathered 'round and lavished her with attention. Even cat-loathing dad admitted that he'd missed her rubbing his leg every morning. She was given food and water and she set to drinking more water than I've ever seen an animal get down. It was determined that she'd live through the night and that we'd take her to a vet in the morning. Since we hadn't seen her in so long I was of the opinion that Gato had been injured to the extent that her flight into the woods in hurried escape was her tragic mistake - sending her right into the maw of forest Darwinism. I figured that she'd already been eaten and pooped out. I'm glad she's back and I'll chalk that one up as a happy ending. Meow. 9.10.04



This Just In

Here are a couple newspaper articles that I have had sitting on the music stand in my bedroom for months. My original intent was to scan them and post a picture of the headlines here. There is a funny aspect to some words when they are listed in title print.

Here is another article. This one was snipped from a Melbourne, Australia paper back in March.

Perhaps it is unfair to label Dubya an asshole. He seems like a he'd be a good guy if he were merely the bumbling zealot who lived next to your parents - always coming over to BBQs and eating all the shrimp and usurping your father's ladder. But he is sadly not this relatively harmless caricature. He might be a bumbling zealot but he is perpetrating these bumbles on a grand scale by starting wars and supersizing the national debt. Why does no one remember that the younger Bush had never once been to Europe when he took office? Wouldn't one think that one would want the Leader of the Free World to have at least been to Europe before he took office? It wasn't as if he couldn't afford the trip.

Am I crying over spilled milk? I don't think so. It was one thing to rail about Dubya when the election was suspended in the ether just under four years ago. It was another when he was running at the mouth trying to convince us all to start an unfounded war because Saddam Hussein, a genuine asshole by all accounts, was responsible for the events of September the 11th, 2001. It is yet another now that he is running for reelection. Would you send your son or daughter to Iraq or Iran to "show our resolve?" Would you volunteer to go yourself? Would Dubya? Does it surprise you to see the word Iran printed up there? It shouldn't. Mark my words. If that inept fool is reelected we will wind up hearing the party line about... and shedding blood in Iran, and maybe a few more countries on the imperial shit list. I'd bet good money that a reinstatement of the draft is out there somewhere as well. Cast your vote and just you wait.

Minus One Feline

One of the Armstrong Family Dogs had a row with The Armstrong Family Cat last week. I wasn't there for the confrontation but witnesses say that although it was impossible to tell which party started the dispute the canine party was clearly the victor. After a series of barks, hisses and caterwauling in the flower bed next to the front porch the vanquished feline reportedly escaped the grasp of the much larger dog and escaped into the woods in a rapid fashion. The cat, commonly referred to as "Gato," seemed unharmed at the time of the tussle but remains at large. In the unlikely event local residents are reading this page and come across a small, ill-tempered calico cat please do not be alarmed as Gato is not thought to be dangerous. Please contact this website at the link above and an Armstrong representative will pay a visit and collect the cat, or perhaps hose it off your driveway, as the case may be.

I got caught up in the feeling of all those formal articles and it amused me to pen one about the missing cat. I can honestly say that I don't particularly care for the little bastard. It has met the front of my foot on a number of occasions after unprovoked attacks with teeth and claws. They were gentle punts - just enough to get the idea across that that sort of behavior was unacceptable. I would never dream of harming an animal. I am sad to think of what fate might have befallen Gato in the wilds of the Alabama mountain forest. There are foxes and bobcats and such about the hills. The last time this sort of thing happened Gato was reputed to have stayed under my parent's bed for three days. I am hoping against hope that she will be hiding near the porch when I return home from my weekend in Rhode Island in a couple hours. I would then let her back into the house and resume our sporadic low-intensity claws vs. foot conflict.

I used to have cats. I have had four over the years... Runner, a gray tiger back when I was in gradeschool, Frisky and Feisty, a pair of sandy tigers from the same litter - the latter of which survived until after I graduated from college - and Gabby, who was a Valentine's gift from my high school sweetheart given after Feisty RUNNOFT one winter's night. Frisky and Gabby lived together the longest in relative peace, even spending some time at my college apartment.

Dog Love

How does one explain the love for a pet? Perhaps more inexplicable is the love for a cat. I used to count myself among the legion of Cat People. I respected the feline sense of independence and the convenience of their care. Cats are very nearly idiot proof. You get a kitten, take it home, throw it in a box of litter and give it food and water. The cat seems to know where to poop. You take the poop out when you are good and ready. One of my ex-girlfriends got a puppy while we were getting to know one another. I recall endless tales of round the clock trips outside, botched attempts that resulted in poop and pee on the kitchen floor and ceaseless barking and yelping. What I saw wasn't the pride and unconditional love of dog ownership. What I saw was work.

And then something happened. The dog got older. The dog accepted me as part of her pack - her family. The dog was beside herself when I returned home from anywhere. The dog listened to me when it was time to "go lay down!" Imagine a cat listening to anything I'd ever had to say. With a cat it was always "Hey! Get the hell off of there! Damn cat." The cat knew nothing of the words. It knew only that I was pissed and that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. I yelled and the cat scampered away. The dog understood words, granted, not many. But the dog was eager to please. The dog actually wanted to do what it was told. My happiness was her happiness.

I'll never, ever forget sobbing into her fur at the curb. I was leaving because the human relationship had gone sour. Sadly, humans are more complicated than dogs. In truth, it was the girl who left - bound for Colorado to sort out deep-seated confusions in her heart and thoughts. But that night it was I who was leaving because the dog stayed with the girl. I'd had countless conversations attempting to salvage the human bond and she and I could at least talk. The dog couldn't possibly comprehend why I was clinging to her and soaking her neck that August night. My heart was broken twice and it was more than I could bear. I pulled away from what had up until very recently been my home and cried all the way... all the way to somewhere or other. So, good-bye Sophie. You taught me the divinity of Dog Love and for that I'll love you forever. 9.6.04



Statelet

Live from Rhode Island, a wifi connection and journal upate. Coming Soon: Hurricanes, a new Hem album, Alabama water pressure and more RNC coverage than one man can handle. 9.5.04



Welcome Home, Son

Where's he been? What is it about coming home that is at once glorious and harrowing? Just like anything in life, absence gives one perspective on their own little universe. On the good side, people know that we walk on the right side here in America. Walking down the street in London is a challenge. I know better than many travelers and I make a concerted effort to respect their culture and customs. One way to do this is to walk on the left... all the better to brandish my sword to a would-be adversary. The problem is that it isn't as simple as switching to the other side of the road. People from every nation on earth walk the streets of London every day. The problem is that they are in No Particular Hurry to be anywhere and that they walk on both sides of the sidewalk, diagonally at times and four abreast other times. This especially sucks when one is trying to get to the pub before last call in order to acquire one of their delicious indigenous pints of cask conditioned ale before the incomprehensible closing time of 11:PM. How can an entire nation of Olympic drinkers shut down their watering holes during my prime drinking hours? It's a travesty with which I wrestle every time I'm over there.

London is incredibly expensive. It has always been so but it seemed worse this time. It was £2.00 to ride the London Underground. That's damn near $4.00 for a one way ride. I can't stand McDonalds' food, but double cheeseburgers were only £.99 and that was just about my price range. I don't know how anyone can afford to live in that city. New York was akin to that when I lived there. I shudder to think of how much some poor actress and her musician boyfriend are paying for that little shoebox at 9th and 49th today.

And then there's America. Jesus. Where do I even begin? Well today I'll start with its namesake air carrier and the fact that three out of three of the last times I attempted to fly into or out of their headquarters airport in Dallas my flight was seriously delayed. Coming home from Australia it was delayed for hours and they started and aborted boarding the plane no less than three times. Then, on my way to London last week, the plane that was to take me to Dallas to make my connection to O'Hare and then London hadn't even left Dallas bound for Huntsville at my scheduled departure time to go to Dallas. I wound up arriving at an entirely different airport on a different carrier and I missed my shot at riding to the hotel in my private car. Balls. Guys like me don't ever get picked up at the airport by private cars. We walk past the rows of potbellied guys with placards bearing the names of their appointed drivees and down to the public transportation trains in the basement.

So, this Saturday evening, I piddle away my life awaiting a flight originally scheduled to depart hours from now and now it is simply more hours.

Virgenes

Dashboard played the V2 music festival on this last run of dates. Festivals are insane occurrences. I have never really been able to tolerate more than a band or two in a night. Honestly, I don't know how people can watch a day's worth of music. I guess I don't know how people can do a lot of things. But I'm glad they do. Somebody has to pull the wings off of all those chickens. But back to the festivals.

You show up in the middle of nowhere a couple hours outside of London. There are acres of multicolored tents in the surrounding fields. Camping at designated campsites can only be considered enjoyable in the loosest definition of the word. I simply can't imagine living in some giant field full of inebriated morons for several days. It threatened to rain the entire weekend but it never turned loose on us. Good thing, too, because it would have made an already bad situation inordinately worse. Traffic getting into these places is always daunting. The rural infrastructure isn't made to handle 80,000 people in the woods. The local high school kids with the yellow vests and flashlights they've hired to direct traffic aren't really versed in things like urban planning or common sense.

Once inside, you discover that you can't just back your van up the the stage to load in. You have to wait for a shuttle van so that you can unload your van into that van and then have your gear driven three miles out of the way in order to get three hundred yards across the festival grounds. Once inside the back of the giant erector set stage you are thrown into a melee of gear and technicians and bands and girlfriends and industry pukes and hangers by all milling about in a semi-drunken mixture of attitude and stupor. Nine out of the ten bands all use Marshall half stacks but it is imperative that each musician have their own. Then there is the SVT.

Somewhere in the lineage of rock history the Ampeg Amplifier Company invented the coup de grace of rock and roll bass amplifiers. Some guitarists use Vox amps, some use Fender and some use Marshall. Those three brands or their general circuit design accounts for the majority of what the majority plays. If you are a rock and roll bass player you either have or long to have an Ampeg SVT. It is that ubiquitous.

The SVT consists of an amplifier housed in a black box - called a head - and a large speaker cabinet housing no less than eight ten-inch speakers - call the cabinet or 8x10. The head sits on top of the cabinet making the entire stack roughly 6 feet tall, depending on case options. The outfit is about half the size of a refrigerator and weighs in about the same as a tow truck. The caveat is that they actually sound great. It is the physics of electric bass and as a result of some complicated math every single band must have their own SVT. There was a band on the last tour that actually played every show with TWO of them. One for the bassist (of course) and another for their kitschy keyboard player. I would loathe to be their tech. Carry your own goddamn refrigerator.

Edinburgh

A week ago last night, in a London pub with my friend Scott and his wife Rosie, we were discussing the concepts of traveling and the expectations of the human experience. Scott and I were of the similar mind that we found ourselves walking up to various famous places and placing our hands upon them. My point was that doing this made it real to us. I had coincidentally just done that very thing when I stumbeld upon the Royal Albert Hall during a run through Hyde Park earlier that day. I simply walked up to it and placed my hand on the stone of the wall. I have done the same thing at the Golden Gate Bridge, at the World Trade Center in New York back in 1997, at Blarney Castle outside of Cork, Ireland and at a myriad of other places.

Scott spoke of how the angle of the sun was different in London than it was in our home in the middle west of the United States. I added that I spent a lot of time looking at the angles of the sun when I was in the southern hemishpere. Perhaps only he and I think about such things. When I have visited a new place I tend to think about the fact that I simply knows what it feels like to have been there. I know what the air smells like in Larkspur, California. I have tasted the water in Lake Tahoe. I watched the sunrise from my hotel room in Osaka, Japan. I have heard the peal of the bell inside the Big Ben clock tower in London. I have stood next to the Sydney Opera House in the rain. And through all these things I have realized that it isn't enough. It is never enough. I want to go everywhere and see everything. In fact, in moments of clarity I have realized that I want to be everywhere at once. Perhaps that is the closest thing to heaven that I can imagine.

What does Edinburgh have to do with all this? Edinburgh is part of everywhere and than means that it was on my list of things to see and I have now seen it. I know what it feels like to be there. The smell of the air, the angle of the sun, the din of the conversations on the street. As luck would have it I was even there on what seems to be a very rare sunny day in Scotland.

On the flipside, we had to load in down and out back up a steep cobblestone corridor between the venue and its neighbor. Not good. The venue was so small that a taller band would have chipped their teeth on the lights hanging above the stage. Before the show our cases took up the entire floor of the house where the audience would stand later that night. The venue hired several local hands to assist loading out back up the ancient corridor and that was perhaps the only thing that prevented me from leaving the country in foul and vindictive mood. OK, it didn't rain, either.

And now I'm in Dallas. I awoke roughly 19 hours ago. I have another hour and a half to sit here and then I board the 1:45 flight to Huntsville and an hour's drive home.



I'll Get to Scotland Before Ye

It might not be the Highlands, but it is Scotland. It is close, at least. I am currently riding in the back of a van somewhere between Birmingham, England and Edinburgh, Scotland. It is a large van but it has small wheels. Pete, our driver, is intent on finding out just how fast those little wheels can turn. We have one show left on this UK tour and then it's off for home. As I traverse the land of my ancestors I can say that I am ready to go home. It isn't that the place is bad or that I am not having a good time. It is even sunny. I am just ready to sleep in my own bed and not pay twice as much for everything. It costs $20 just to sit and look out the window in London.

I managed to make it to a few London pubs with my friend Scott. Scott is from Chicago and I met him while we both alarmingly mind-numbing temp jobs. He is incredibly intelligent, but like so many of my generation the normal path was elusive to him. He came to England to go to grad school, wound up meeting a British girl somewhere or other and now they're married and they live in London. Scott is what I like to call a True Believer. This means that he has a keen intellect combined with a suspect eye for the established norms of our society. It was akin to having my attorney along with me on my UK sojourn. We hoisted a few pints of cask conditioned ale and ruminated about how backwards the world has become under the current regime. Jesus, I hope that that underqualifed zealot doesn't win the upcoming election.

The Brits get news that our media seems to self censure... or at least bury in the back pages under the Macy's ads. Iran was the talk of the day in a local London paper the other day. There was a quote saying something about the US government doing anything to prevent Iran from developing nuclean weapons. Anything. Look where that last sack of lies about such policies got us. Just switch that Q to an N and invade! They're only a scant three letters apart! We must prevent IraQ/N from developing the ability to develop blah blah blah. How about this... we, the American People, must prevent our own trigger happy government from slipping three letters past us and starting another unjustified war. Things could go from Very Bad to Much Worse.

Dubya would have you believe that things will become much worse if we don't start another war. Spend a couple minutes thinking through that twisted logic. 8.28.04


The Other Birmingham

I live close to Birmingham, the other one. Not the one where I am currently sitting. This Birmingham is an industrial city in central England where it is currently cool and cloudy in the so-called heat of summer. The other one is an industrial city in central Alabama where the heat of summer is likely stiflingly hot. England is a place with a long and rich history. Alabama is a place with history. The Alabama Birmingham is surely named after this one. In a sense, this is appropriate given the working class tenor of both cities. The American southeast is full of English, Scot and Irish heritage. Where do you think all the redhead genes originated? 8.26.04



London Towne

Here I am in London. It is the same as it ever was. The weather has been tolerable all things considered. More soon. 8.24.04



More Suggested Reading

Here we go again. One of my personal idols, Kurt Vonnegut, has gone and done it again. He has penned something timely, intuitive, funny, scathing, observant and intelligent. He is an old man, but he is sharper than just about everybody. He will be sorely missed when the human race loses him. We're all better off having him keeping us in check. Read it here. 8.13.04



Test Your Attention Span

None other than Ronald P. Reagan, son of President Ronald W. Reagan, has penned a rather well-written article about another man who happens to be the son of a President. Guess who it might be? Read it here. It is far more coherent than anything his subject could come up with in his most lucid moments.

The Sky is Falling

Hello, all. Set your alarm clocks and get out to see the Perseids meteor shower tonight. The peak viewing time is around 2:am CDT and this year's show could be special. The moon won't be full as it was last year and there is some scientific talk of extra space dust going around the lunch table at NASA. The Perseids are the biggest summer meteor shower, so, unless you like sitting outside in the snow and cold around New Year's this is your big chance to see some of nature's best fireworks. 8.11.04



(I started writing the following passage back in early July. I mistakenly thought I had posted it and discovered that I hadn't completed the entry at the time. I took the liberty of doing so this afternoon and have posted it with today's date. Please forgive my anachronism.)

On The Road Again, Again

Hello, friends. I'm on the road again and I'm very close to home - the place that feels most like home, at least. I am riding the bus on I-94 in Chicago at the tail end of our last bus ride. We spent the last few days in Pittsburgh, did a show there last night and boarded the bus bound for the Central Time Zone. I can say that I will not miss sleeping in my coffin-sized bunk. Once we make it through this traffic and arrive in Milwaukee we will be done with the bus and I'll have the rest of the day off.

It almost feels like a real band bus now that the lighting staff, extra audio guy and half the rest of the tech guys are gone. The Civic Tour proper ended last night. Some of our crew rode the band bus to New York City to shoot on the Letterman show this afternoon. That left myself and three others on this bus and that is why it feels like a real band bus. Some of the bigger bands have situations where band members get their own buses. That is basically incomprehensible to me. I have shared this bus (capacity: twelve) with eleven other people and a driver since early May. Last night there was room to sit and eat and relax and read. Too bad I was too tired for much of anything.

I'm suffering the usual drive day "discomfort" but I should be able to make it to our destination without fouling my pants. I'd feel a little more confident if this cursed Chicago traffic would get itself moving.

The last show of this run is technically a one-off show. Milwaukee's Summerfest is a sizable music festival and we're headlining one of the many stages tomorrow night. Afterwards I will be a civilian again. I can honestly say that, for the last two months, I have had only a vague understanding of what day of the week it might be at any given point. (Passing the Ravinia exit, now.) I still don't have a regular job so it won't be as if I'll have to report anywhere spit shined and polished. My road, crooked though it may be, goes on.

Among the myriad things that Honda brought to the tour was a tent that was erected outside each venue. Inside there were kiosks where concertgoers could register to win a customized Honda Civic, get filled with Honda advertising propaganda, listen to a DJ and, perhaps most importantly, play legitimate arcade versions of either Galaga or Mrs. Pac Man. Tokens for these games could be acquired from the Honda events staff. As a member of the Dashboard crew I was friendly with a number of the Honda people and they would dispense tokens for my gaming pleasure as well. Lately, as the bands that immediately preceded Dashboard were playing, I would amble out to the Honda tent and play a few rounds of Galaga... which takes me back to...

The Summer of 1982

I was twelve. I had a dirt bike and my grandmother lived about a mile and a half away on the other side of a tollway. Grandma had a pool, and since my father did the lion's share of the pool maintenance I had free reign to spend my summer afternoons immersed in cool, chlorinated water or drying in the sun on the red-stained planks of the deck. Dragonflies would swoop low over the water and the sun would arc imperceptibly slowly across the summer sky. When you're twelve summer lasts forever.

Mom would let me ride my dirt bike to grandma's virtually any time I pleased, and it pleased me a lot. Home was always a baby factory. By 1982 she had three little people - other than me, but I wasn't so little - and there was another on the way. Mikey was old enough to pal around with but the six years that separated us seemed like eons at that age. Besides, he was too young to accompany me and my friends on our daily bike rides to grandma's house.

Sometimes I would take the streets and the overpass over the tollway. The shortest route was a busy suburban four lane road with entrance and exit ramps that always had to be carefully navigated. There was a slightly longer route over a different bridge with no highway access. This path took me through corn fields, near old barns and right past my school where I felt I was being held captive most of the year. With summer's reprieve I wanted no part of that low building and it's torturous nuns.

There was another way. A way perfectly suited to twelve year-old boys. The street on which I lived ended in a dirt path that lead through the woods. Years ago, there had been a farm there but it had been abandoned and the barn razed leaving only two cement brick silos and a foundation wrought by cracks filled with trees like weeds in an old parking lot. My friends and I spent countless hours climbing the silos and swinging in the trees of this abandoned quintessential Midwestern landmark. But, on other days, it was just a mile marker on the bike path through the woods.

Past the silos was a jump where I would launch my heavy black dirt bike as far as I could into the air and, landing, continue through the dust. The weeds grew high on either side of the path and when you rode fast in the middle we were always inside our X-Wing fighters in the trench on Star Wars, staying on target to launch our missiles that would destroy the Death Star and save the Rebellion. My friend Scott could do a spot-on Wookie impression. I always envisioned myself as Han Solo. Luke was too much of a pansy and didn't pilot as nearly as cool a ship as the Millennium Falcon.

A right turn lead you parallel to the highway and we would race westbound trucks down a gently meandering path towards the creek. Just before the path split there was the largest jump of the whole path, this being a rather flat part of Illinois, after all. One by one we'd pedal as fast as our skinny, tanned legs would take us and we'd be once more airborne. We'd hit the ground with tires spinning and immediately veer left to the short path down to the creek.

Indian Creek could be dry. Indian Creek also swelled up in the springtime, so much so that after one March rainstorm the school bus had to drive miles out of the way to find a place to cross. Where Indian Creek crossed what was then known as I-5 there were two rectangular cement tunnels. If you were twelve and you had a dirt bike you could just manage to ride all the way across the four lanes and median strip above you if you slunk down in your seat. Sometimes it was bone dry and other times you had to pedal with only small forward cranks as a full revolution would soak your sneakers. I never had a dirt bike with a free wheel so on wet days I would have to get a running go and coast all the way to the other side.

The tunnel ride itself was an adventure. We could always hear the roar of the cars and trucks mere feet above our heads. From time to time we would catch a small fish trying to work its way down the shallow water. I would help it along. Indian Creek was also a prime example of formative hydrodynamic projects. We would commandeer the wagons of the neighborhood and drag rocks from the surrounding fields hundreds of yards to the creek where we had determined we should construct our next dam.

On the other side there was a short path up the steep bank and along the side of the creek until it spit you out on a residential street. From there it was 30 seconds to my best friend Scott's house. He lived right behind a gas station and kitty corner from that was a brand new convenience store where we could get three candy bars and a fountain coke for less than a dollar.

We usually headed to grandma's first to hit the pool. This wasn't the adult style of pool lounging. This was the attack style of several young boys find the the tallest possible thing off which to jump into the crystal blue water. It was the systematic work entailed to make a giant whirlpool worthy of Ahab's demise. It was a contest to see who could stay underwater and hold their breath the longest. It was the smell of your skin as it dried in the sun.

We had masks and swim fins and snorkels and an inflatable Underdog canoe. From time to time my grandfather would slowly walk his hulking mass out of the air conditioned house through the grass and clover, climb up onto the red-stained deck as it creaked under his grownup weight and make a slow motion dive into the middle of the pool. He would surface with his shiny silver hair matted on his head, make a scant couple laps back and forth and climb back out of the water making us laugh with his jokes all the while. He would walk his bad knee back into the house where grandma was no doubt sitting stiff-lipped and watching something on TV. In the backyard on the deck, my friends and I would lie down on the warm, sun faded planks. Facing up we could see maple trees and clouds and eternal blue. Lying still we would dry just like the red deck boards in the sun. The air smelled sweet - the wind would carry the smell of a thousand miles of grass and lilacs and ponds and corn and bees and deliver them to our noses. The humming drone of a small plane would slowly lull us close to sleep.

Being young, we couldn't sleep for long and soon it was us running into the house like a herd of antelope. A quick change out of our trunks in the cool of the basement bathroom was followed by a chorus of "Thanks grandma! Thanks Grandpa! Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Babush!" as we went thundering out the front door. Back on our bikes we'd ride as fast as we could to reach the dirt jump in the undeveloped lot at the top of the hill. Our bikes were our Corvettes and our Kawasakis, our Sopwith Camels and our Phantom IIs, our X-Wings and our Millennium Falcons. We rode them all into the grasses of summer in Illinois.

Up the street, past where I took guitar lessons in the 4th grade, was Top Notch, the local video arcade. Top Notch was in the same small strip mall that held our local independent pizza place, Ach & Lou's, a printing company and a bakery thrift store. In a short few years we would all be going to Ach & Lou's with our dates, but for now we parked our bikes just past the back kitchen door for the delectable-smelling pizza kitchen. From there it was through a steel door and down a hallway that was filled with the captivating smell of ozone and electricity. A cacophony of electronic chirps and beeps moved our feet down the hall like sirens to our seeming peril, except that once inside we would find ourselves surrounded by rows of refrigerator-sized game consoles. Here, the preternatural universe of electronic interactive gaming was just climbing out of the primordial ooze. Top Notch had Donkey Kong. Top Notch had Pac Man. Top Notch had Battlezone, Space Invaders and Tempest and all of them were a couple minutes of joy at $.25 per three "lives." The coins that perpetually piled up on my father's dresser now found a home inside the mechanical innards of Top Notch's business plan. A kid from my gradeschool, Jeff Sherwood, discovered the specific pattern for beating Pac Man. He could stand there all afternoon on one quarter.

When we had all expended our caches of our fathers' pocket change we walked back down the hallway and opened the door to the blinding light on the other side. My bike lock was a small chain encased in clear and orange plastic tubing with a cylindrical combination lock. Sometimes we wouldn't even lock up our bikes. Imagine that. When I was older I could even leave my keys in the ignition of my car in front of my house - windows down and all. Once, I discovered that someone had stolen the rear wheel of my dirt bike as I was inside Top Notch playing Battlezone. It was the first time that anything like that had happened to me. I wound up replacing the wheel with one I'd found in the shed and ended up getting a few fingers caught between the sprocket and the chain, but that's another story altogether.

We unlocked our bikes and retraced our path from hours before... down past Scott's house where he'd veer off into his driveway. Frank and I would continue through the neighborhood towards the tollway where we'd once again ride under all 4 lanes and the median strip. We'd surely hit a little mud or once again have to ride with our feet up and out of the water until we reached the other side. We would then complete the circle of the trail around a set of fallow fields and race the last straightaway because it was flat and paved with small rocks. We'd skid the right angle turn past the silos and emerge on the asphalt right where my street ended and the woods met the houses.

If it was approaching dark we'd climb trees and catch lightning bugs and play games with ghoulish names like Bloody Murder, Freeze Tag or the more innocuously named Hide and Seek. Sooner or later screen doors would slam and baths would be drawn. Bikes were now idle on lawns. Sneakers sat empty next to our beds. Lightning bugs were captive in jars with sticks and grass and nail holes in metal lids on our nightstands. Raccoons silently crept around our sandbox filled with plastic dinosaurs and metal cars. Cool night air spilled onto our faces as we slept. Sometimes, if I close my eyes I can still feel the air carried in through the window on cricket songs... and in my dreams I will always visit the summer of 1982. 8.10.04



e-Perdition

I guess "i-perdition" might be more fitting. I can't get this computer to work on the dialup back at the Armstrong Ranch. I no longer have any of my files from the Armstrong Family Computer on which I used to keep the local version of my site because some help desk person from India walked my mother through wiping her hard drive while I was out of town. I really don't want to talk about it. I have this new laptop here but now that I am disconnected I haven't been able to update anything on www.joearmstrong.com. Funny that I have to drive all