Opera?

Yeah, I went. It was kinda cute, but not really my thing. Let's face it, singers should sing, and by and large leave the acting to actors. I know some folks think opera is supposed to be the grandest form of theatre, but it just doesn't cut it to me. It all seems overblown, with no sense of real emotion anywhere.

Give me a small black box theatre with a half-dozen actors working for peanuts that really care about the show any day. Suzy's costumes were good, but there was obviously no communication between costuming. lighting and scenic designers, otherwise no one would have been wearing a pink dress under pink and blue lights against a teal wall. Just not good, folks. And how about a little light upstage? Maybe?

I stuck around for the first two acts, running time 2:30. Just didn't have enough gas in the tank for Act III, so we came home.

Long Week

This has been kind of a killer week. Suzy's in tech for the opera Die Fleidermaus, which opens tonight, so we haven't really seen each other for two weeks. It's interesting, because usually it's me working until godawful late while she is at home asleep when I get home. This role reversal over the last couple weeks had been weird. It's almost like we're roommates more than spousal units, the little tiny time we've spent together. Good thing is, this puppy opens tonight and things can get back to normal after that.

You know, normal, me working a day joband coming home to either sit on the computer and write all night or go to a rehearsal or MTA or NCTC meeting and we still never see each other. It feels different when she's the one out being busy and I'm the one sitting at home waiting, though.
Traffic is starting slowly to pick up on my Charlotte Theatre website, and hopefully as we get into a more heavily-produced part of the season, that site will begin to take off. The more traffic it sees, the more chance I have for some decent Adsense revenue from it.

I have my first web design client, not really anything I ever looked for, but it kinda found me. Emily's cousin Mitch is opening a nursery and garden center, and needed someone to build a website. I need a little extra cash to fund my trip to Atlantic City in February, so I took the gig. Hopefully I'll actually be able to design a website that shows off what he wants to punch up about his nursery.

Tags: charlotte theatre, web design

Next Show

So I just finished reading the script for The Guys, the next show I'm designing, and I realized why I've been putting it off for a couple of months, until the absolute last minute.

I don't want to watch, read or do this show. It's not that it's a bad show, or a bad cast, or a bad company. It's purely subject matter. The Guys is a play about a fire captain eulogizing his men lost in the 9/11 attacks. It's pretty well-written, not shamelessly manipulative, generally a decent play.

I just don't want to go there. The attacks on New York and Washington rocked my sense of the world enough that I still am affected by the memories. I knew no one that died, but that makes me no less saddened by the losses or guilt-ridden by the fact that I was relatively unscathed.

I went through several months of depression and sleeplessness after the attacks, largely because it has tweaked my world view just a little off-axis. I'm fairly certain it's a permanent shift, because nothing has shown any inclination towards going back nearly six years after the fact. The play dredges up all those sad and vulnerable feelings that aren't ever really that far from the surface, and I don't really enjoy wallowing in that.

So I get to do a play about one of the singular events in my lifetime, one that sent me into a half-year's worth of depression, and hope that I get through everything on a fairly even keel. At least I'm not directing. As designer, I'm pretty much limited to two rehearsals and one performance, and then I'm outta there.

But of course the play is being performed at the firefighter's union hall, so that makes it all the more poignant. Maybe I just felt a kinship with the firefighters who died because working in the volunteer fire department where I grew up was such a pivotal part of my life as a youth, and that sense of being a firefighter never really leaves. Because you know every time you get into the truck that there's a chance, no matter how slim (and in rural South Carolina, it's exceedingly slim), that you won't come back. But you accept that fact when you put the boots on.

So I didn't know anyone represented in this play, but in some sense I knew them all. I've ridden with them, laughed with them, and sat on the end of the truck after the call with them. But I don't really want to go back and revisit their sacrifice. Maybe that's selfish. No, I know it's selfish. But I don't care. I'll be selfish, and hard-hearted, and try not to let this project touch me at all. Because I'm very afraid if it touches me at all it will take me weeks to get over it again.

But maybe I'm just being a melodramatic pussy, too. Yeah, that's probably it.

Courage

Epitomized here. Follow the link.

When I see you in dance class, I see you looking at me. I see you stare past my crazy hair, my strength, my grace, my skill. I see you looking at my chair, and I recognise in your eyes the fear of what might happen to you. If I am "lucky" that flash of hostility will mellow as you take pity on me -- it's so nice that I come and try hard. If I am not "lucky," the repulsion in your eyes and recoil in your body will stick with me throughout class. You won't meet my eyes again; you will push past me in the changing room and talk above me in the elevator (get your lazy ass out of my elevator -- you're a dancer, dammit. If you can stick your leg above your head, you can certainly manage a flight of stairs).

I am what you may become. It becomes me.

Tags: wheelchair dancer

For travel plans

If anybody's looking for a travel deal, here's one from Hotels.com that's worth checking out.

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You get rebates based on the number of nights you book, so that on top of their other deals, makes for a pretty penny in savings.

Working to stop working

For The Man, that is...

Lemme preface by saying that I like my job. Barbizon is a great company, my boss is easy to get along with, I'm head of my department so I get all the responsibility I want AND I'm left alone to run it my way. Sounds perfect, right?

Well, nothing's perfect and the grass is always greener. So I'm picking up more side work. I just got hired as the editor of the Gambling Weblog. They don't pay much right now, but we'll see if we can't either squeeze more money out of them later or parlay that gig into something different that pays more.

I've also started up a bunch of different websites, all geared towards affiliate marketing and generating revenue. So far, they're not really generating anything, but I have high hopes. The way this affiliate marketing works is like this - I build a website about bluegrass music. People who are googling bluegrass artists or terms find my website. While they're on my site, they follow a link to Amazon and buy something. I get a 4% commission. Or they click on one of the google ads or use the google search bar. I get a few cents per click every time someone does that, whether they buy anything anywhere or not.

So I'm spending a lot of the time I used to spend playing poker on the internet writing web content and developing websites instead, all in the hopes of someday being able to leave my killer job for an even more killer job - working for myself as a professional writer. I'm not holding my breath, but for now these little side gigs do a good job of paying for trips to Vegas and other sundry places that we like to go, not to mention padding my bankroll.

Tags: writing, affiliate marketing, bluegrass

Retrospective

So this is the time of year when folks put on their magic glasses and peer into the future to see who and what the year will bring them. I'm not much into that reflective bullshit, but here goes.

I need, not want but need for 2007 to bring a slimmer Falstaff. Suzy and I have a weight loss bet going - whoever loses the most weight in '07 gets to pick our vacation destination for '08. If the winner loses more than 60 lbs, they can pick someplace outside the continental US. Since I don't really care to go to Paris, but would like to go tot Australia, I need to win this bet.

I'd like for 2007 to bring more writing work. I've found a few people willing to pay for my scribblings in '06, and I'm actively looking to expand that field this year. In addition to that, I'm following the tips of Scrurvydog over at Gadooney on affiliate marketing and trying to scare up a few nickels that way. It would be nice to see the light at the end of the debt tunnel through freelance design and writing work. Maybe then we could look at the possibility of job changes. I like my gig at Barbizon, but after 11 years, there's not much new under the sun here for me anymore, so it's time to be looking for the next thing. It would be nice if the next thing were writing for a living, but that's gonna take a stretch.

I don't know what '07 will bring theatrically, but it's not likely to be anything that I produce. There aren't any projects out there that are screaming for me to throw my heart and soul into them, so for now at least I'm just gonna whore myself out for design money. Not a bad gig, since that pays for a couple trips to Vegas every year.

I plan to be in Vegas at least twice this year, once for the blogger summer get-together and again for the winter gathering. I'd like to make it to Oklahoma for Gary's thing if it happens, and if there's a Bash at the Boathouse, then I'll be in Malvern. Otherwise my travel is pretty open. Let's just see what comes of it.

It's gotta be better than 2006.

Pimpin'

If you don't read Truckin' every month, than you're missing out on some of the finest writing on the intertubes, especially in the months where I have a story in there. Like this one! Really, there's some fantastic writing happening here, so if you haven't been there already, go check it out. If you've already been, go back. I'm always honored to be included in this fine company, and this month is no exception.

Stuck

When your project manager asks you to put gangsta rap on the iPod, it's probably not going to be a good day. When he needs a little old school NWA to get in the right mood to respond to an email, the job just isn't going well.

Stuck is really the best way to describe my mood lately. My friend Amy just got a great new job after being with the same company for almost ten years. She's really excited about moving, new opportunities, and all that jazz. I'm really happy for her, and a little jealous. I've been with this job for better than ten years, basically all my adult life, and I'm feeling stuck.

I like my job. don't get me wrong. It beats the hell outta digging ditches, and they pay me well, so it's way better than most things I could hope for, but after ten years, I'm at pretty much the top of my field, advancement-wise. I'm middle management, with no real prospects for any other jumps in pay grade or promotion, so I'm stuck. At 33, I've reached my own glass ceiling. Brilliant.

So what do you do when you get stuck? How do I get unstuck? I'm not exactly ready to chuck it all and live in a van down by the river and try to get by on my poker and writing income. Good thing, since I can't really survive on $.75/month. So I'm not sure what I'm gonna do, or how I'm gonna keep motivating myself, but at least for a little while I'm just that guy, punching a clock at the office to get to leave and go do the fun things after work and on weekends. Which isn't a terrible life. I guess it bears a striking resemblance to what most people do. It's just not real thrilling, and the prospect of being in my same position in the same place for the next 20 years or so is kinda chilling.

I think my Congressman may be a douchebag, but we'll give him one more chance to reply.

This was the letter I got from my Congressman's auto-mailer, then my reply, then the bounceback. I just printed all those emails and faxed them to Congressman Hayes, since my email wasn't going to go through. So far, he seems like a douchebag. If he responds in any reasonable fashion, then I will perhaps rescind my assessment of douchebaggery.


On 6/23/06, Representative Robin Hayes


Dear John,

Thank you for contacting my office regarding H.R. 4777, the Internet
Gambling Prohibition Act. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this
important issue.

I am proud to support and cosponsor this important legislation. As you may
know, H.R. 4777 was introduced by Representative Bob Goodlatte (VA-6) on
February 16, 2006. This legislation would expand and modernize the
prohibition against interstate gambling. When battling terrorist
organizations, one of the most effective measures is to reduce the number of
funding sources. Internet gambling has been identified as a way for
terrorist organizations to "launder" funds that will later be used to attack
innocent Americans both at home and abroad.

Currently, H.R. 4777 is pending in House Judiciary Committee, of which I am
not a member. Rest assured, I will keep your thoughts in mind should this
legislation come to the floor for a vote.

Again, thank you for contacting my office. It is an honor to serve as your
United States Representative, and I look forward to tackling the issues 8th
District constituents sent me here to address. Please know that I have
assembled what I believe is the most responsive and courteous staff in
Congress. Your suggestions are always welcome, and if ever we may be of
assistance, please do not hesitate to call.

Sincerely,

Robin Hayes
Member of Congress

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: john hartness
To: Representative Robin Hayes <robin.hayes@mail.house.gov>
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:53:14 -0400
Subject: Re: Responding to your message

Thank you for sending a form letter that shows that you didn't even bother
to read my position on the issue.

At this time, I, as a member of the Poker Players Alliance, am not looking
for a vote against this legislation, although you have to realize that
online gaming is not as easy a method to launder money as you may think, and
that your legislation places onerous restrictions on the banking industry,
something that should be near and dear to the hearts of NC representatives.
What I am looking for is a carveout allowing internet poker to be exempted
from this legislation, much like online horse races and state-sponsored
lotteries are expempted. Internet poker sites have monitoring systems in
place to make moving of large sums of money from player to player without
actually playing poker very difficult, so internet poker sites are not a
good place to launder money. If I wanted to transfer $100, 000.00 from my
account to some random terrorist, it would be very difficult to do this
through internet poker, but simple enough to do it through Ebay, and I don't
think your bill has any provisions in place to attack Ebay's business model.

Please explain to me exactly how it is that internet gambling is used to
launder money for terrorist activities, I would appreciate being educated on
this issue.

I also recently saw that you have voted against Net Neutrality, going
against both the leftist nutjobs at Move On and the right-wing nutjobs at the Christian Coalition. Since people from all walksof life have opposed the revocation of Net Neutrality, please explain to me,Mr. Hayes, exactly who you are representing in that endeavor? The big
business folks at AT&T didn't get you elected, it was the small people in
North Carolina. Please pay attention to what we are telling you we want,
rather than what some party wonk is telling you that we want.

Here it is in simple terms. I, as a citizen in your district, want from you,
my elected representative, the following things:

1) The time of at least a staffer to actually read my email on an issue
before you send me a form response in direct opposition to my personal
position. If we disagree on an issue, at least acknowledge that and address
it.

2) That you listen to the people, not the heads of big business with deep
pockets. You come from a poor state, and one that does not cotton to big
Yankee business people messing with our lifestyle, especially when it comes
to directly affecting how we live our lives, download our music, and get
paid for our internet writing.

3) That you really think through an issue before spewing some talking-head
policy BS that some yahoo told you was good for the "war on terror." A war,
by the way, that we have at least as much a chance of ever winning with
current policies as the war on drugs.

That's what I, as a voter in your district, want from you. Isn't that
esentially what you swore to give me when you took office?

Now I dare you to actually read something and reply in a cogent, non-form
letter fashion. Go ahead. I dare you.

John Hartness
Charlotte, NC


Your message

To: Representative Robin Hayes
Subject: Re: Responding to your message
Sent: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:53:14 -0400

did not reach the following recipient(s):

Representative Robin Hayes on Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:53:17 -0400
The recipient name is not recognized
The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=us;a= ;p=u.s. house of
re;l=IMS100606231753NPMNPTQX
MSEXCH:IMS:U.S. House of Representatives:U.S. House:IMS10 0 (000C05A6)
Unknown Recipient




Fortunately, Mr. Hayes' fax number is online
FAX (202) 225-4036

So here's my cover letter as I faxed off my reply to his form response.

Dear Mr. Hayes,

Or whatever staffmonkey gets stuck reading this,

Attached please find the retarded form letter you sent showing me that you read nothing of my original email regarding my opposition to H.R.4777, as well as my reply to your retarded form email, which was bounced back to me since the auto-mailer you used to send the retarded form email is not set up to accept replies. Fortunately, your fax number is on the website.

Sincerely,

John Hartness
Charlotte, NC

Do you think staffmonkey might have been a little much?

Tags: Robin Hayes, Gambling, Poker, HR 4777

Boogie of the Week: Sam Bush - Laps in Seven

There aren’t many artists that I actively pursue information on when they’re coming to town, or really anticipate their new album releases. Usually when I’m checking out new releases on iTunes or at Manifest, I just see what comes out and if it seems cool, I check it out. Sam Bush is an exception to that rule. If Sammy’s playing anywhere within an hour of home, I’m there, with my sister/SammyStalker Bonnie in tow. So when we heard most of his new album in his set at Merlefest, I knew that less than 48 hours would pass from my release to acquisition.

So Wednesday, June 14th I manufactured a reason to be on the right side of town to get by Manifest, and sure enough, there sat Laps in Seven, Sam’s newest release on Sugar Hill. Lest you think I was slacking to wait until the say after the disc was released, I did in fact try iTunes on Tuesday, but the album wasn’t available online yet. So I bought it, along with Led Zeppelin II & IV (also unavailable on iTunes, dammit), and slammed it into the CD player in the PT Cruiser, with my Pavlovian slobber starting to puddle up in the floorboards.

This might be his finest studio album ever. Period. I think it does a phenomenal job of crossing the genres, something Sam does so well live. It’s got straight up high-octane bluegrass (Riding that Bluegrass Train, Bringing in the Georgia Mail), great cover songs (Hartford’s On the Road, Darrel Scott’s River Take Me), great original songs like the Emmylou Harris duet The River’s Gonna Run and fantastic instrumental numbers like The Dolphin Dance and New Country.

The bluegrass numbers really show what the addition of Scott Vestal on banjo has done for this band. It’s like the missing piece that finally clicks into place, you never really knew it was missing, but now that it’s in place it completes the whole picture so eloquently you can’t imagine hearing those songs without it. The songs are great, Bush’s vocals are solid, and Emmylou always sounds like an angel, but for me the top two tracks on the album are instrumentals, where these incredible musicians get a chance to stretch their musical legs a little.

New Country with Jean Luc Ponty is a standby of Ponty’s sets, but adding Sam’s great bluegrass band to the mix gives it a hotter energy and more vibrant life than I’ve heard in other versions of the song. The Dolphin Dance is a lighthearted romp that takes me back twenty years, to standing on my cousin’s dock in the Gulf, looking out at the dolphins playing at the sunset danced across the water, while I reeled in supper.

So I start the day as a huge Sam Bush fan, but this album is such a something-for-everyone feast, that I can’t imagine anyone who loves music not finding at least one track on here that they’ll love.

Stacked - up and down

I find myself stuck a lot lately. I seem to sit down at a table, ready to play, and for the first fifteen minutes, misplay everything that I’m dealt. Even as the action approaches my seat, I look at my cards and think “yes, 79s is playable in late position, but NOT to an UTG raise, wait for a better hand.” Then, like Thing, or some other possessed body part, my hand treacherously clicks the “Call” button. And I’m stuck for two bets with a marginal hand and nothing but position to back me up.

Now occasionally, I can pick off the heehaws who find it morally repugnant to lay down AKo on a 6-high flop by firing bullets on every street, but usually I end up down three small bets right off the bat, and find myself quickly down 5-8BB and struggling to make up the difference. Last night was a prime example. I signed up for Interpoker (Scurvy, if you get the signup bonus, buy me a beer, I did hit it through your link), fired up a $2/4 table with $100, and found myself down to $30 within 40 minutes. That’s a retarded >15BB loss in less than an hour. I ratcheted down, played my premium hands, caught a set or two and finished up 20BB by the time I was done, but that’s not the point. I’m not playing optimal poker when I first sit down, and the same thing has translated into my live play as well.

I wonder if I’m getting stuck on purpose, subconsciously, to make myself work harder to win money. Silly, huh? But that’s what seems to be happening. So my plan tonight is to start off very slowly, only opening one table at first, then adding one or two more as I get my game on, rather than rushing into things with 2-3 tables of 2/4 open immediately. Maybe that will help me keep my idiocy in check. I’m still profitable for the month, but I feel like my bad play early in my sessions is costing me serious EV.

On another note, I got my preview copy of STACKED the other day and fired it up yesterday. The graphics and audio are smoking, and the ability to customize your character is pretty badass. I don’t have Xbox Live, so I won’t be able to comment on those aspects of the game, but so far it’s pretty cool. If I were going to play poker for no money, I’d be much more likely to play this shit than the play money games online, even though I’m playing against the computer instead of real live donkeys. I’ll put in some more time on it this weekend and give more info next week.

Capital Punishment

Some dear friends of mine have a blog that they argue on. This week they’re debating why the Justice system can’t deal with violent sex offenders, citing the case of Jerry Buck Inman, the sick fuck that murdered a Clemson student by strangling her with a bikini after he was released early from prison in Florida.

My niece went to Clemson, and lives in Anderson. She’s 25, beautiful, and lives alone with her two dogs. She called me last weekend to chat, and she mentioned that she was scared. They hadn’t caught this guy yet, and didn’t even have a good idea what he looked like yet.

“Come home.” That was my immediate response. Not only would she be safe from this nutball, I would be removed from any opportunity to be incarcerated should anything happen to her. I have to admit, I’m kind of a peaceable fellow, more of a lover than a fighter, but if something happened to any of my nieces I would happily pull a Jack Ruby on the motherfucker and call it done.

My family was touched by horrible murder before I was born. I had a cousin, a young lady in Columbia who was riding in a car with her fiancé when they were both abducted, raped, murdered, sodomized and raped some more. The men that attacked them took pictures as they stubbed out cigarettes on her naked body.

I became familiar with these occurrences when I was in middle school, when the men who were convicted of these crimes began to be executed by the state of South Carolina. I felt good about that, because they had done horrible things to someone who would have been my friend had she lived. Since then my opinions on the death penalty have flickered back and forth from support to opposition to grey. I’m hanging in grey right now.

I firmly believe that if Jerry Buck Inman (like Sondheim says, why do all the nutjobs always have three names!?!) did murder this young woman then he should never have the opportunity to hurt anyone again, and I’d rather not pay for his upkeep and cable bill for the rest of his life. But right now, he is an innocent man. Until a jury of twelve South Carolinians or his own confession tells me that he is guilty, he is innocent.

And there have been far too many cases lately of people being innocent regardless of the jury’s verdict, either through manipulation of evidence or simple lynch mob mentality. I cite the case of the West Memphis Three as one where the preponderance of evidence points away from guilt, yet three young men are in prison, two on death row, for a horrific crime. So I can’t quite be a hardliner on this issue yet. I stay grey.

But Jess is okay. And when it gets dark at night in Anderson, that’s all I care about.

Another blog that's better than mine

If anybody ever reads here and doesn’t have the Tao of Poker on their must-read list, fix that shit immediately! Pauly is quite possibly my favorite writer, period. He’s definitely my favorite writer that I’ve ever been fucked up with. He’s working his way through his Born to Gamble series right now and it’s simply goddamn amazing. His writing inspires me to work hard at my own.

SC Governor's School, class of 1990

It was a summer unlike anything I’d ever known. I was, as the song goes, sixteen going on seventeen, learning to live life on my own. On my own in a state-sponsored summer camp for geeks and overachievers, but on my own after a fashion nonetheless. I was selected to attend the South Carolina Governor’s School for Academics, in Charleston, SC, 1990 edition. Like so many things in life, it came as a result of a missed deadline. Thinking myself something of a poet, I had intended to apply/audition for the Governor’s School of the Arts, held each summer in Greenville. But I screwed around and missed the deadline. This would later be a theme in life, as my college choice was predicated upon acceptance and scholarship eligibility of late applicants, but anyway.

I was selected to attend a six-week intensive college preparatory learning experience on the campus of the College of Charleston. Fifteen year later I still have no idea what that means. But my mom dropped me off in front of the St. Phillips Street Dormitory in downtown Charleston for my first extended stay away from home, my first time living with a roommate, my first time avoiding getting busted for missing curfew, my first blowjob, my first time being one of the cool kids and my first time getting laid. Mom did not expect it to be a summer of that many firsts. Shit, neither did I.

We were assigned roommates and suitemates alphabetically, and I had a corner suite, so there were six of us sharing two bathrooms and three bedrooms, with a common living space in between. Actually pretty sweet digs for high school kiddies. We weren’t allowed to bring TVs, and this was long before Al Gore invented the internets, so we were forced to socialize and actually communicate with folks. We were assigned two classes, one in our topic of study, and one general issues course, where we learned about granola shite like global warming, pollution and the kinda thing you’d expect overachieving high school braniacs to learn about.

My course of study was called “The American Autobiography.” I got stuck in that when I missed the cutoff for the Creative Writing course. We’re kinda back to that missing deadlines thing, aren’t we? We read autobiographies of Americans from multiple different cultures and studied how their American experience was different from our generally lily-white one. I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I know why the Caged Bird Sings, and all sorts of other eye-opening material for this cracker from Bullock Creek, SC.

But what I studied was irrelevant. What I learned was far more important than that. And I’m not only talking about the fact that our Global Issues instructor was a sex therapist and drew us detailed diagrams of the female genitalia and told us how to find and properly treat the clitoris, knowledge that my girlfriend and I promptly went back to the dorm and practiced.

What was important to me was being somewhere new, somewhere that I had no baggage, where no one knew me and I could reinvent myself. Somewhere that I didn’t have to be weird or geeky (I still was), but somewhere that I could be and do whatever I wanted. It’s the most free I’ve ever felt, and the group of people I surrounded myself with that summer are still dear to me, even though it’s been a decade or more since I’ve seen any of them. Funky Cold Adina, Ryan Hauck, Ken Shabel, Angela Hansen and the rest are all warm memories to me. Memories of the summer when I realized I didn’t have to be what anybody expected me to be. I could be whatever the fuck I wanted to be, and if that was “cool,” so be it. If that was “weird,” so be it. Whatever I was, that’s what I was gonna be. So be it.

That was the first time I ever felt like I was accepted. I had always been the brainy geek kid, but there, surrounded by a fuckton of people smarter than me who gave way more of a shit about school than I did (I had officially the lowest class ranking and GPA of any Governor’s Scholar that year, a fact that I am inordinately proud of), I was accepted for myself.

That summer changed me as much for the positive as the heartbreak in yesterday’s post changed me for the worse. It’s interesting to look back every so often at what I think are turning points, times that helped make me who I am, or at least who I might be if I ever manage to grow up.

If you were there, I'd love to hear from you.

Wife got a new cell phone

Wife: My new phone smells like a Barbie.

Me: Which part?

Wife: The whole phone smells like a Barbie, you know, that new plasticy smell…

Me: No, which part of the Barbie?

Wife: Goodbye.

June, 1994

So I sat there, knees pulled up into my chest, long hair spilling down over my face, resting my head on my kneecaps. I was sitting in the pantry of our apartment on the floor, looking across the room at our Salvation Army dining room set, where a black felt box sat on a pink receipt, bright and cheerful. Mocking me.

I didn’t even have a good song playing in the background. There wasn’t any cool rotating jib pull-out to reveal the visual depths of my solitude. I didn’t punch walls or flip over furniture or go into a good “Hulk Smash” routine where I pull a Van Halen and send my TV crashing into the parking lot one floor below. Too many bushed down there for a decent crash, anyway.

There was just me, and the fast beeping of the telephone telling me get up off my ass and hang up the phone. But I couldn’t do it. Not only could I not move, but I couldn’t think about hanging up the phone. Because that would be admitting it was over. That my idea of a perfect little life was down the shitter with one call.

It sucks getting dumped. It sucks more getting dumped via telephone. But I’m pretty sure  get some kind of prize for the level of suck involved in getting dumped via telephone by your fiance’s best fucking friend that called and said “Sherry called me. She told me to tell you not to buy the ring.”

And just like that shit became really fucked up. My roommate came home an indeterminate time later and found me in the pantry. She didn’t say anything, just sat there in the pantry with me and held while I shook, cried, cursed and begged for answers. She didn’t have any, either, except to say “I’m here.”

Eventually I got up off the floor. Eventually I put all her shit in a box and when she got back from digging up relics in the Middle East for her summer internship I gave all her crap back to her on a lunch break from working a concert. Eventually I met someone else, fell in love and got married. Eventually I started to write again. Eventually I reconnected with some of what she ripped out of me, poured gasoline on, burned to a crisp and then salted the earth from where it sprung.

But that night, while I looked across my kitchen at the engagement ring I had bought for her that day, I couldn’t see eventually. The world had gone monochrome for me, and I sat there remembering changing her tire for her after freshman Western Civ class, catching 3AM Taco Bell after sitting in the amphitheatre on campus talking until past 2AM on our first date, eating Little Debbie Star Crunches naked on my bed while her red hair trailed over her breasts like a modern day Godiva with ringlet curls. All those memories went from vibrant to sepia in a second while I felt something deep within me die.

It took ten years for me to write anything again, and two more to write that story. She burned out something inside me that took a long time to grow back, but there are a few buds beginning to sprout in that wasteland lately. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with my life, but some hurts take a long, long time to heal, and the scars last a long time, no matter how great the condition of the rest of your body. Or soul.

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Boogie of the Week - Edwin McCain

Boogie of the Week – Edwin McCain, Lost in America

So I like Edwin McCain. Not only was he funny as ever-loving hell on the couple of times I caught him in The Pam Stone Show on WBT radio, he’s a helluva songwriter,too. Now I’m not crazy about his overplayed radio pablum like I’ll Be, but there have always been some pretty strong lyrics in his stuff.

So I bought his new album on iTunes. Really, that’s about the only way I buy music nowadays. Aside from the convenience of buying boogie in my underwear, it’s also way cheaper, and I’m not lining some Best Buy or Wal-Mart (The Great Satan) exec’s pockets. Okay, I’ll admit to putting money in Steve Jobs’ pockets, but at least he’s a big geek instead of just a corporate schmuck.

Lost in America is his latest album, and I don’t care what number album it is or what label it’s on. If you want to know that crap, read Rolling Stone, not my cheap-ass blog. It’s more rock-centric than previous stuff I’ve heard from Edwin, and I dig it. The first number, Gramercy Park Hotel, is almost guaranteed a spot on my end-of-year mix CD. I think it’s strong lyrically and musically. I like songs that paint pictures and tell stories, and this one does both. And how can you go wrong with a song that says “Babe Ruth was a drunkard, just like me?” I probably misquoted that, but I can do that. See, I’m not a real journalist. (

The Kiss is the song that follows, and as much as I travel for work, I can see him sitting in the airplane, looking out the window for something to connect to. I loved the song, again with the strong visual imagery. Great stuff, beginning to end. A touch poppy, but not bad. Songs like Welcome to Struggleville and Bitter and Twisted are never gonna be arena-rock anthems, but they do a good job evoking a little bit of Steve Earle, a little bit of Robert Earl Keen, and a lot of Edwin’s softer Southern sensibilities.

For me, the real winner on the album, and one I hope gets a wide release, is the title track. A vicious shot against the stupid soulless consumerism that we’re all trapped in, its catchy hook and bouncy beat has you bobbing along while you think about what he’s saying. We are a little lost in America, and maybe with enough good music, we can be found. Buy the record. Either go to iTunes like I did, or go to Edwin’s website and order it.

plus ce change...

So I was driving south for Easter, and as I wound my way through the hills between York and Sharon, SC I was hit with a moment of melancholy. You see, Thomas Wolfe, he’s a bit of a motherfucker. Stupid prescient motherfucker, to be specific. Because I can’t go home again. I love my family, we for the most part get along great, but I could never live in rural SC again. Aside from the  fact that I can’t fathom living somewhere without high speed internet access, it’s just not who I am.

As I’ve grown older, and especially over the last year with the deaths of my grandmother, uncle and a close neighbor, I feel increasingly alien in this world that I grew up in. It’s not like this is a new thing, the feeling first hit me my freshman year of college when my grandfather died, closely followed by three elderly people from the community I grew up, a neighbor, my friend’s grandmother and an elder in our church. I remember a feeling of detachment from my surroundings, and thinking “Is this what it means to grow up?”

Now I think that it’s not exactly what it means to grow up, but it is a part of growing older. The attachments we form with people, no matter how strong, are transitive. My closest friends from college are people I have hardly seen since then, and many of my best friends now are people I’ve seen face to face once or twice, and we mostly communicate on the internets. Interesting.

I guess it’s just a little melancholy tinge to my trips home because of the changes in the past year, but that’s the only constant, isn’t it?