rantings of the ill and feverish

I'm sick...I've been sick for a couple of days but managed to get to work anyway....today, my son is sick, too, though and my wife is away at a conference, so it was just, "okay, the hell with it, we'll all stay home"....the bad thing is that my son has already been out of school since Tuesday with "pink eye", which I don't remember ever having and have no experience dealing with....wow, an actual video on MTV...sometimes Bono can be such a pompous dick....anyway, yesterday, I call the school to make arrangements to get Bailey's homework and they say, "You know that he's allowed back in school after he goes to the doctor and gets eyedrops, don't you?" NO, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT; NO ONE MENTIONED THAT TO ME AND NOW HE'S BEEN OUT SINCE TUESDAY!" But now he and I both have fever, chills, etc.....so why the hell am I sitting at a computer?....Hmm...Eric Roberts is in both a Killers video and a Mariah Carey video....went to video store; picked up "Oceans 12" for Carrie, "Sideways" for me, "Fat Albert" cartoons for Bailey, "Hilary Duff In Concert" for Mackenzie, and "Lemony Snicket" for all of us, I guess....my son is now obsessed with Fat Albert cartoons after seeing the live-action movie (which was dreadful).....I think the budget for each Fat Albert cartoon must have been about $12.00.....I swear, one of the characters will say something funny (allegedly) and then they cut to a stock shot of the whole gang laughing....trouble is, the "gang shot" includes the person who told the joke....when you're down to Liberace and Pat Boone, it's time to lay off of downloading for awhile....will be glad when Carrie gets back.....she's sick, too, though....considering changing band name to "No Jake Brakes".....in a feverish state last night, I answered the phone and some fast-talking young lady from BMG Music Service somehow got me to agree to something....I'm not sure what....need to check on that....I think it involves receiving Blink 182, Velvet Revolver, and No Doubt cds in the future that I don't want....I'll send 'em back and get the usual stern letter from them....Mary Tyler Moore was pretty damned hot in her "Dick Van Dyke" days...Gwen Stefani is pretty damned hot in that cheerleader outfit in the "Hollaback" video...Shelley Winters was pretty damned hot in "The Poseidon Adventure"...okay, that was one too many....surprised that Constantine is gone from "Idol"....In a "special edition" of the show, I think that Paula should be voted off.....please,please don't let the little blonde girl win....there are way too many teenage girl singers crowding the airwaves already......her country clone unjustly won "Nashville Star" the other night over a much more talented, authentically country competitor....I've always loved George Carlin, but his new book is more bitter than funny....Rosie, I'm sure Dave is crying himself to sleep over the fact that you're boycotting his show...Wilford Brimley wants to help me get diabetes supplies more cheaply and efficiently....WILL THERE EVER BE A NEW "LOST" EPISODE?.....Wondering if "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" will be any good....didn't read the book....the fact that it is being heavily advertised on Nickelodeon makes me skeptical....but it stars "Tim" from BBC's "The Office" and I like him....children still asleep; very peaceful around here....need to figure out which cat is peeing next to the litter box rather than IN the litter box; highly annoying....nothing tastes good...I've lost about 15 pounds; miles to go, though....Lucy & Ethel are up to something....Ignore these four words (Carlin).....this concludes feverish rantings; must lie down....

New Toy

In a blog a few months ago, I sang the praises of putting MP3 files on DVD discs, since you can get 800-900 songs on each disc. It made dj work easier - you take a sound system, a laptop computer, and a few DVDs.

I've gone a step further - I bought a Seagate 120 gig external hard drive Thursday. I stayed up until around 1:00 a.m. that night transfering the contents of all of the DVDs to the new hard drive, which is essentially a square box about the size of a CD jewel case ( but thicker).

The box says that if the drive is filled with MP3 files, you can play music for 82 straight days without playing the same track twice! I still have about 30 gigs left on it.

I tried it out at the Bradley County Relay For Life Friday night. Worked like a charm. That's a very diverse crowd. You want to line dance to Da Entourage's "Bunny Hop?" Got it. Garth Brooks? Here you go. Soft instrumental piano music during the reading of the names of cancer survivors? Found it. University of Arkansas fight song ? Yep. (That reminds me, I need to get Mr. Martin to let me record the HHS band playing the HHS alma mater and I also need the CHS alma mater - I need these for class reunions....).

I'm not saying I can't be stumped - any musical wise-ass like myself can always think of some obscurity to "stump the band." It won't happen often, though.

Only drawback so far: If I can't remember who sings a song and I have to use the file search feature on the computer, it takes forever. So, now maybe I need a faster laptop.....yeah....that's the ticket....

Doghouse

I left a gel pen in my pants pocket a couple of days ago, apparently.

In the washer and dryer, it ruined three pair of my pants, one of my shirts, a pair of my son's pants, and several socks.

I am in the doghouse, especially as this required my wife to clean out the dryer with some bleach-based substance.

Here is the sensitive question: Of course, it is the primary responsibility of the wearer to make sure that his or her pockets are empty when putting their clothes with the dirty clothes for the laundry. But isn't there some responsibility for the person doing the laundry to make sure there are no foreign objects in pockets?

I, of course, did not make this argument at the time. It would not have been wise.

News Of The Day

Monticello has a community bulletin board sign much like the one in Hamburg that is across from the "Jax" store. This morning, it announced the impending arrival of the "Pine Bluff Sympony."

...sigh....

In less irritating news, I read yesterday that Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson are touring minor league ballparks this summer and they will be at Ray Winder Field in Little Rock on July 2nd. Sounds interesting to me - I don't think they've ever had a concert there. I've never seen Dylan, either; I've seen Willie 2 or 3 times.

This week I' m getting prepared for my solo dj gig Friday night for the Bradley County Relay For Life. My mother-in-law is a breast cancer survivor and for the past couple of years, she has asked me to provide the music. The catch is that I do this almost continuously from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. the next morning -- I got somewhat loopy last year around 4:00 a.m. or so. And then there is the drive home from Warren to Crossett immediately thereafter. It's for a good cause, though.

Viva La Rock

The band played a club gig this week-end. We haven't done that in a long time - we were content with occasional weddings, high school reunions, and parties. Recently, though, we bought a large trailer to haul all of our equipment around and to store it (we have amassed so much stuff over the years, we were using FOUR storage buildings), so we need more frequent gigs to make the trailer payments. Plus, there is ego involved - a lot of local bands are cropping up and we need to tell ourselves that we've still "got it."

I was looking forward to playing - any musician can tell you that every so often you get the "itch" and you HAVE to play - you don't care where, you don't care how much - you just want to play.

Friday night did not go well, really. We got to the club too late to set everything up perfectly, so our sound suffered; we couldn't hear each other. There weren't many people there, either. We were rusty, also - I've said it before, but we rarely ever practice or learn anything new.

It didn't take long for all of the memories to come flooding back as to why we don't do this much anymore. Back in the late 80's and early 90's, we played nearly every single weekend. We had really great nights, we had some very bad nights (generally involving alcohol and intra-band fistfights - my two nephews, who are brothers, can give the brothers from the Kinks, Oasis, and the Black Crowes a run for their money in sibling rivalry) and we have stories that we love to relive when we are traveling to a gig somewhere (like the time John accidentally picked up our guitarist's "spit cup" and drank from it - he threw up behind the stage without missing a single bass note). You get older, though, and you get married and you have kids and suddenly it's not a good idea to be gone every weekend. I went to bed at 5:00 a.m. after the Friday gig.

Saturday was MUCH better - suddenly all of that "I-don't-want-to-do-this-anymore" goes away. We got there early and fixed our sound problems. We had a bigger crowd and the crowd wanted to hear ROCK AND ROLL (although the club owner gently reminded us that in South Arkansas, you have to throw in a country tune here and there to ensure continued employment). I got to bed about 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning and every bone in my body ached.

But I'm looking forward to doing it again in May.

Maybe I'm Too Picky, But...

http://www.crossett.lib.ar.us/

I love the new library in Crossett -- I was amazed that the voters approved it, frankly, and I was extremely pleased with the results. My children and I go there every other Saturday morning and get reading material for the next couple of weeks (this past Saturday, I got the latest from David Sedaris and George Carlin; "Eats , Shoots, and Leaves" continues to be checked out, but I'll get it one day).

Somehow I had overlooked the fact that the library has a web address where you can do your book searching at home and then go get them. I copied the web address down Saturday, went home, and started browsing.

The catalog portion of the web site is great. I hesitate to say this, but the rest of the site is far from great. Click on the above link and then go to the section on the history of the library. Maybe I'm too picky, but I think that a LIBRARY website should have passages with proper spelling and grammar. There are other sections that aren't much better.

This bothers me.

Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster

I had read quite a bit about this documentary for several months - it was universally acclaimed. It was made by the guys who made Paradise Lost, about the West Memphis 3. I really enjoyed that movie and its sequel (even though I personally think the WM3 are guilty). So, when I heard that M:SKOM would be broadcast in its 2 1/2 hour entirety commercial free on VH-1 last night, I made plans to watch.

The premise of the movie is that Metallica is going through a rough period, they hire a therapist, and they film everything. (I can't remember the name of it, but there is some "principle" that dictates that you won't act the same way with a camera present as you would without it -- I think that was a major factor here).

I was unmoved. Am I supposed to feel sorry for these guys? They were paying a guy $40,ooo.00 a month to hang out with them and help them explore their "feelings." Boo hoo. I was glad to see that Lars was suffering over the Napster thing. Whether I was right or wrong for feeling this way, I felt betrayed by the band over the Napster issue. I knew about these guys long before they hit it big. I had their first CD on the Megaforce label. I bought "Ride The Lightening" and "Master of Puppets." I was at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis cheering them on at two in the afternoon in 100 degree + weather at the Monsters of Rock festival when 20,000 Dokken fans couldn't have cared less. I spread the word about this great new band. I was happy for them when they started to get radio airplay and when they kicked into overdrive with the Black album. I saw them again in Little Rock with my wife and actually felt proud of them - I had spent money on them and spread the word about them and one of "my" bands had hit the big time.

If I remember correctly, when Napster came along, Metallica had a new song from the Mission Impossible soundtrack. The song wasn't on a new Metallica album. I downloaded it. I didn't download a lot of Metallica because I already had nearly everything they had recorded!

But Lars & Co got me banned from Napster and made comments to the press that those of us who had downloaded their music weren't true fans. Sure, it was easy to get around the ban and be up and running again in a matter of minutes. That wasn't the point. In some small way, I had helped these guys get where they were and now they had turned on me.

I haven't bought a single Metallica product since then, nor have I gone to see them since then. I love the South Park episode where Lars got skewered.

So, Lars and James (Kirk still seems to be relatively cool, but he also doesn't seem to be the brightest guy in the world), I am so sorry that all of your success and money has not brought you happiness. You seem to be doing fine without me - you could pay a therapist $40,000.00 per month and you gave your new bassist a $1 million signing bonus. It seems like every other song on one of our local stations is a Metallica song (although it is always your old stuff; never your new songs). And I'm sorry that I watched this self-indulgent movie.

Lettuce and Rollercoasters

I am making a concerted effort to drop from the "morbidly obese" category to the next level down, which I believe is "just really fat." This came about when I was weighed at my doctor's office recently and was truly surprised at the number they gave me.

Dieting doesn't work for me too well in general because I simply don't like and won't eat things that are good for me. I know that sounds petulant and spoiled; that's the way it is. I like very few vegetables, and the ones I do like aren't the ones that are good for me. I've taken a multivitamin every day for years to try to make up for it. I'm in surprisingly good health, or so I am told. Try finding a diet that doesn't include lots of vegetables.

I have been introduced to Lean Cuisines, Healthy Choice meals, etc. They taste okay, but the portion sizes suck -- I'M STILL HUNGRY!

I am eating a LOT of salads. Lettuce was formerly on my list of things I won't eat. I didn't start eating lettuce at all until college, when I got tired of paying for "all you can eat" type meals without getting anything from the salad bars. Of course, I still want bacon, ham, eggs, cheese, etc. piled on top of the lettuce. I AM REALLY, REALLY TIRED OF LETTUCE RIGHT NOW.

I can usually drop 10-15 pounds very quickly when I make the effort, and I seem to have already done that this time. It gets tough after that, so time to hit the long dormant treadmill and exercise bike.

The goal of most people who are trying to lose weight is to lose xxx number of pounds. That isn't my goal -- my goal (and this is tough to admit, but it is theraputic) is to try to reach a level where I am not prevented from riding certain rides at amusement parks because the freaking safety bar won't close all the way with me. That was an eye opener.

Wish me luck.

"Worship Jamz"?!!

At least one television in my house seems to always be tuned to Nickelodeon or the Cartoon Network - so I had the pleasure this weekend of seeing a commercial several times that was just ..... strange.

"Worship Jamz" seems to be from the same folks who brought us the "Kidz Bop" series. This time the premise apparently is to take recently popular Christian songs, add a dance beat, and make a Christian party cd for kids. Like, "I Can Only Imagine" with a techno beat.

This just strikes me as odd - maybe because I was raised as a Baptist and dancing was always supposedly verboten (sp?).

I wonder what would happen if I was dj'ing at a party and I dropped this on right after a 50 Cent tune.

Whatever.