A man on the bank ten thousand years my younger...

Ah, Skiatook Subway, just how much laughter and fun can come out of one little sandwich shop?

Sometimes I get a little burned-out on most of the lunch-y places in Skiatook; but Subway is different... Even when I'm tired of sandwiches and it's the wrong kind of weather for soup and pizza just doesn't sound good; even when I'm not really interested in the food, I always love the people at the Skiatook Subway.

When I went into Subway today, I didn't have a whole lot on my mind, but I had a smile on my face because Tim Wilson's "Chucky Cheese Hell" was playin' when I parked the truck. Why not have a smile to share with someone? I'm havin' a good hair day, wearin' my favorite jeans and a nice warm-fuzzy shirt, drivin' a truck I enjoy, and listening to a few new MP3's that are freakin' hilarious, it's lunchtime, and summertime will be here any day now; I smile because the simple pleasures are usually enough for me.

I got the two salads for the guys and ordered up my Ham "anti-vegetarian-picky-eater-special" (bread, meat, light mayo, that's it), and was kinda proud of myself for gettin' a giggle out of the person in line behind me. I didn't have a whole lot on my mind except the math facts of how right now with the "$5 Foot Long" deal, it's cheaper to get a foot long sandwich and just lay all the meat onto half of the bread instead of getting a six-inch double-meat. I know there's usually a little background music, but I didn't really notice it until the complaints were lodged.

The volume was quite low, as background music in respectable establishments usually is. It wasn't loud like the night we heard "F##k Da Police" bumpin' in the KFC in that part of town. It wasn't like hearing "I Want Your Sex" on a boombox in the laundry-mat. It wasn't like hearing AfroMan out the open window of that two hundred dollar Buick Regal with the two thousand dollar stereo sittin' at the gas pumps. It was better than "Muzak" I'll give it that... But... To me, personally, it was just another old song played way too often; typical corporate radio fare. I'd never really thought of it as "hard," I'd never thought of it as offensive, I'd never really thought of it as associated with "tokers and dopers." It never really crosses my mind except as part of the "Dazed & Confused" Soundtrack or as one of those songs that just gets played too much so I never really cared to own a copy of it. There may even be tokers and/or dopers out there who think it sucks...

It was Alice Cooper's "School's Out."

He said it was "turning him off," and that "the only people who listen to that hard rock music are tokers and dopers," and that he was "seventy four years old," and that he "wanted to see the manager," and that they "should choose something more neutral for public places."

I am thirty two, and I've never done any tokin' or dopin', but I do love me some music. Today, I saw Alice Cooper's "School's Out" in a whole new light, right along with my seventy-some-year-old aunt who always shares her recipes with me. I have no idea how she feels about the drugs, but she does love Alice Cooper, and you can bet her red minivan is usually rockin'...

When the door had closed and the complainer was safely out onto the sidewalk, most of the people waiting in line near me looked around and shared a giggle. I was so caught up in the laugher, I forgot to look for chips.

When I hopped back into the driver's seat of the Excursion and put the lunch in the shotgun seat, I clicked my iPod over to "Shuffle" just to see what I'd get...

I got Widespread Panic's "Rock."



Hey, I didn't say I'd never come home from a concert smellin' like pot, just that I've never smoked any myself.

Rock on!

One More Thing I Love About The Internets

As a highschool band kid, I spent more than a few afternoons hunting (and hunting and hunting) through the section of the music store marked "Classical." I'm not entirely sure how long it took me to give up on finding recordings of pieces we'd played in band, both in the concert hall and on the football field. It seems to me, there's not much logic as to how the "Classical" Section is laid out -- probably because I almost never found anything I tried to look for and I never could see any logic to how the CD's were put into whatever order they might be in on the shelves or in the racks.

If you're lookin' for Meat Loaf's "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," ya just go to the "Rock" section, look for the "M"s, and when you find the Meat Loaf CD's, read the backs of the boxes and decide which one you want to buy. If you're lookin' for Macy Gray's "Freak Like Me," you go find the "G"s. Earl Thomas Conley is filed under "C," but don't bother lookin' for Bobby Bare in the "B" section 'cause they never have any of his stuff either.

Dvorak's Symphonies are fairly easy to find, but I dare ya to go to into a store and look through the Classical section just to see if you can find a recording of John Barnes Chance's "Incantation and Dance." I'll be in the coffee shop eatin' brownies instead, 'cause I already know nobody's gonna find it anywhere other than the 'net.

Which is why I love me some internets. Once I realized I could click on over to a site named after a river (sorry, not linking 'em 'cause they don't pay me) and search by the song title, I was able to stock up on all sorts of stuff I hadn't been able to find before -- "Armenian Dances," and "Incantation and Dance," and several other pieces that have stayed with me since way-back-when I was able to get my ass out of bed and make it to a 6:35 AM rehearsal.

Last night on my way across 71st Street, I had an experience much like that near-hung-over morning in college when I found out Silverado was actually from the score of a cowboy movie. Sick and tired of hearing about the Democrats, I switched from NPR over to the Classical Affiliate, KWTU, and I landed on 88.7 FM just as a song was ending and the announcer was coming on. Blah-blah-blah, Nationalism, blah, banned by the Russians, blah blah... Helsinki Philharmonic...

Helsinki Philharmonic? Nationalism? Can it be?? I suddenly remembered standing out on the blacktop of the practice field in the midst of my trombone-playin' buddies and crackin' jokes during breaks, "I'll bet this is the national anthem of Finland..." Are they really gonna play it? Did I really catch it? Right here in the car??

Sure enough, the music came on, that amazing feeling hit me, and there it was, Finlandia!!! Played by the Helsinki Philharmonic!! It was positively breathtaking! It was incredible and I enjoyed every second of it!

And then it hit me...

It's Official: I Am An Old Nerd.

But hey, my car insurance is a lot cheaper now, and I don't have to get up near as early anymore.

More later... _\,,/

Helena '07

What we do when it's not Racing Season...

The annual Helena Weekend was quite nice, I'm glad I got to go this year -- especially considering that I skipped last year. I was also quite stunned when I got out of the car and the lady who runs the hotel remembered me immediately. I had a nice time at the festival; and I also got a huge laugh out of hearing the "Preacher" tellin' about the "Evils of it all" on the radio Sunday Morning as we were leaving. Yes, I capitalized "Evils" there, because that's how important this guy made it all sound...

The weather was much, much warmer than anybody had figured, and I was very glad we'd planned for rain -- a pair of umbrellas is also quite handy for extreme sun, and I was glad to have 'em. Saturday afternoon, I held my "Fairy Umbrella" up to shade the top of me, and wedged my little-tiny-fits-in-tote-bag umbrella into the center of my chair frame so that it shaded my legs to keep me free of sunburn, and also shaded my bag to keep my granola bars from melting. I got to thinkin', in all these years, the "Fairy Umbrella" has probably only been out of the trunk of my car maybe three or four times in the ten years or so that I've had it. It's a little grubby, but it's not really showin' any wear. What the hell is a "Fairy Umbrella," you ask? Well, it's a reasonably large blue & white traditional umbrella (it doesn't fold up small), and I picked it up in my driveway several years ago -- probably right around the time the SHO was new -- and it was just layin' right in the center of the driveway right about where you'd expect to find the newspaper. We live on a dead-end street in an older neighborhood where each house sits on 2.5 or more acres, so we're not really close to anybody; it's not like finding something in a Subway Train or on a Metro Bus. I picked it up out of the middle of my own driveway, and I live in relative-country-nowhere -- so I figure The Umbrella Fairy must've left it for me.

My un-cropped, un-zoomed view of the stage, from under my Fairy Umbrella.

In the earlier parts of the day, when I wasn't trying to balance two umbrellas, I wedged the smaller one into the back of my chair so I could knit.



A little past halfway into my third knit of this particular pattern (my first two were solid, this is my first stripedy one), this festival was the first time I've pulled out my knitting bag in the midst of a huuuuge crowd. I've done a little knitting at the Hockey games, but I only get it out during intermission and most everybody's gone then. This weekend was my first experience with "actual public knitting," and it was pretty cool. I met a knitter who told me about an afghan she was working on, and I also met a Librarian from Texas who was a crocheter and seamstress.

I'm getting closer and closer to finishing this hot pink & black sweater; so then I can flip a coin to decide if I'm going to learn more about socks and shop for Christmas gifts, or put off socks (again) and start knittin' for Christmas...

iLove.

If I'd had any idea just how awesome it would be, I wouldn't have put it off so long.

Don't get me wrong, I had no doubt it would be pretty damn schweeet, but it's seriously amazing!

I put it off and put it off, holdin' out for the next bigger/better model, 'cause it wasn't six months after I got this MacBook that the newer/bigger/faster ones were out. I'm still very happy with the MacBook though...

I kept telling myself I'd order my iPod direct from Apple in a few more months. Just a little longer. Just a little longer. Playin' with Scott's iPod and takin' a closer look at almost every one of 'em that turned up in any of the pawn shops just made me want one even more -- and every time I'd hassle with my cheapy-no-name-SD-card player, I'd think about it a little more. I didn't want any of the little ones that I'd been lookin' at; I wanted the big one, the 80-gig, but I just kept waiting and putting it off. You know how I am -- there are very few situations where I'll go for the small or medium if there's a bigger one available. I ain't buyin' no six-cylinder pickup truck, I almost always go for the "large" fries even though I know I shouldn't... I was holdin' out for the "big" iPod, I really was.

And then Saturday, we stopped by the Pawn Shop on a whim and as I was lookin' at that ten dollar MP3 CD Player thinkin' I could toss that in the F-250 and not worry about it, and then I saw it... A 30-gig black one with a nice little yellow pricetag on it. I can't believe I almost missed it, but there it was, and as soon as I had it in my hands, I had to have it, so Merry Christmas! Yup, that's right, it's June and I hadn't touched Last Year's Christmas Money yet -- if you'll remember, I bought the Hearse in October of '05 with 2004's Christmas Cash; 2005 got dropped off at the bank shortly after Christmas of '06. See? That makes it real easy to justify spendin' a little money on myself! Wait... I'm always spending money on myself... Oh, screw-it, it's not like I'm lettin' bills go or something.

I had no idea how freakin' cool it would be! Music, Video, easy to use, no hassling with "find folder menu" and all that crap I had to go through every time I turned on that SD-card player (or every time I turned it back on after it had frozen and I had to pull the battery to re-start it). I had no idea the iPod had Solitaire in it. Solitaire! And I'm also stunned with the "notes" option; the first thing I did was put my Hotwheel/Matchbox "inventory" file on there -- so now when I'm standin' in a store tryin' to remember which ones I have or don't have, I can reach into my purse and it's right there. I'm stunned. Positively stunned.

I didn't get the "big" one this time, but it was such a sweet deal, I couldn't pass it up -- and I still might order a brand-new 80-gig one of these days too!

I am definitely a happy customer!

More later... _\,,/

When It All Comes Together...

Be ready, this one's a music geek post.

A few weeks ago, I happened onto a nifty little band on PBS's Austin City Limits. Anyone who knows me knows that happens a lot; PBS and NPR are my most-frequent answers to that question that several people who get in the car with me usually ask -- "Where do you find this stuff?"

Years and years ago, I remember hearing My Mom and one of her friends talk about Charley Pride, and how, "The longer he sang, the whiter he got..." The Gourds were like that for me -- the longer they played, the better-lookin' they got. They put on a pretty cool show; sounded familiar but didn't play anything I'd heard before. Their music was catchy, and I heard a song or two I wanted to hear again just because it was so wordy I wanted to be sure I was getting the whole point; that's why I promptly bought that two-disc live album off iTunes. It's a great album and I like it, even though it didn't have the same songs I wanted to hear again.

Last night, I fell asleep with "Hooky Junk" stuck in my head, even though I'm not quite sure what's goin' on there... I have that problem sometimes -- I'd known all the words to "Bat Outta Hell" for a good ten or fifteen years before it hit me what that was about; same with "He Stopped Lovin' Her Today." Duh. So, after lots of humming, I Googled for it. I found all sorts of answers from Heroin to Mushrooms to Baking Chicken Pot Pie -- But then I found the NPR Article and listened to the interview. Have I mentioned how much I love NPR lately?

It's about Tom Waits, ain't that somethin'? All I could think was "Well, Duuuuuhhhhhh..." Why didn't I notice that? It's all references to Tom Waits songs!

Now, if I could just find the same kind of info for "Treat Me Like A Saturday Night."

More later... _\,,/