Sam's Creek Blues

I never used to drink beer. I preferred the far more efficient (if less sociable) gin approach. I kept bottles of Fosters in the fridge anyway, though, because my co-workers tended to drop by a lot, and they were beer guys, back-slappin' Southerners in flip flops, and we'd sit out on my balcony in plastic chairs and I'd chain smoke and they'd take long, cold draws and make me laugh about whatever was upsetting me, if there happened to be something upsetting me, which there usually was. I never drank it myself, though. Then, one time, totally out of the blue, and for no reason apart from Jerry Douglas's dobro, the inkling took hold of me and I sat out in the plastic chairs alone, taking long, cold draws and watching the sun go down over the Atlanta Highway.

I remember flying down Vaughn Road with the windows down and Bruno’s bags full of Healthy Choice turkey dinners defrosting in the back seat with this blasting, blasting, blasting so loudly that I could feel it in the backs of my thighs. And it’s acoustic.

Little pockets of happiness filled with fairy dust and zing. Frozen forever in suspended, rose-colored animation, just how I like it.

I can't help missing the days when I didn't really have a mindset.

Now, I’m overtaken with homicidal rage the second I set foot inside a grocery store. Screaming hellions ripping things from the shelves while their corpulent mothers jiggle ineffectually after them. Overpriced slop, rotting vegetables. Mushy, brown apples.

Lettuce used to taste as luxuriously symphonic as raw honeycomb and cream cheese.

This must be one of the crappiest places in the western world.

Ah, songs.

Yay.

Back when spell-check was a thrilling new concept with virtually endless entertainment possibilities, my friend and I entered the name of every family member, musician, band, celebrity, lowlife, acquaintence, historical figure, city name and dead politician we could think of into auto-correct. Something, and I can’t remember what, was auto-corrected to "Ripping Sensual Funghi." Those three words moved me so much that I vowed right then and there that I would find a way to incorporate them into as much as possible as often as possible as long as I remained on this good Earth.

Today, one more teenage dream came true.

Lookit Muy (for what else can the title be?)

I should peer out from under life’s gray straightjacket a little more often, because I almost always end up getting clocked across the jaw by a gun butt of pure, uncut sunshine.




That’s right! New series! Woot woot! *mixing it up*

To the other, non-Australian reader of this blog, I implore you…familiarize yourself with the bottomless well of asthma-attack gasp-laughter that is Kath & Kim . Post-haste. I haven't been so delighted from down under since I was eleven and Paul Hogan corrected my fellow countrymen’s typically-inferior knife-identification skills.

Plus, this little tidbit of information

“…the fourth season will introduce characters played by…Little Britain's Matt Lucas”

made me emit the involuntary, ecstatic moan of a rapture frenzy which is not always advisable in an open-plan office situation but I am JUST! THAT!! EXCITED!!!

Happy legal viewing, Australia! And to the rest of us…by any means necessary, okay?*

No-ice!

*I do not officially condone the viewing of ill-gotten torrents hint hint wink wink call me I'll love you forever.

Mike Gordon Meandering

I like Mike Gordon's hotline.

I like Mike Gordon's hotline in the same way that I like Mike Gordon's music. Quietly, and with shame. And then more shame about the original shame. And a couple minutes of wondering just how big a tool I actually am. And then a mini-exsitential crisis. Followed by a little more shame.

I mean, the man actually has a hotline. I think he just likes to record himself. But then, that's the basis of any musician's career. Why I am inclined to hold that against him remains a mystery so deeply buried within my psyche that it must be intertwined with some kind of womb issue. There's no other explanation. After all, music the one aspect of my personality that I've never felt the need to beg forgiveness for. I'm one of those people that would marry albums if they'd let me. Cosmic Slop. Head Hunters. Axis: Bold As Love. Forever Changes. A Space In Time. Can't Buy A Thrill. Joe's Garage. Houses of the Holy. Pearl. I'd have a dress and a cake and a priest and bridesmaids and black calla lilies and I'd be the worst polygamist on the planet and they'd do a documentary on me for the Discovery Channel. I'd load them all onto my iPod and take them to Costa Rica for our honeymoon. I love music with irrational intensity. I'm not even embarrassed about wanting to have seventeen babies with Alvin Lee based solely upon his guitar solo in "I'm Going Home." Genius has always been like a giant, phallic death ray.(Call me, Alvin!) And I don't just mean wirey, nubile Woodstock Alvin, either. Present-day, chubby, leather-vest, grandfather Alvin has only to say the word. (Seriously. Call me.)

I sincerely believe that the precedent I set when I was four years old and choreographed an interpretive dance routine to express my love for Chuck Mangione's Children of Sanchez should have negated any embarrassment that may have gotten in the way of flinging my soul at Mike Gordon's feet the first time I heard "Clone". Besides, he's never accepted a knighthood or married a Playmate or collaborated with anybody who used to be in a boy band. He hasn't been clubbing in L.A. without panties on. He hasn't allowed reality T.V. cameras to follow him around with a microphone pack poking out of his trousers. He's never asked me to accept public intoxication as an indicator of his artistic credibility. By all accounts, I should be offering up my ovaries to him by now. Why? Why can't I do it? What is standing in my way? Why is his hotline a covert morning ritual that makes my face turn hot with chagrin despite the fact that I'm religious about it because it always makes me giggle?

Like everything else Gordonesque, I have no idea. Part of me finds it extremely suspect that he would maintain a hotline for the specific purposes of recording his "like, duuuuude" verbal swaggering in the first place. Something in me snaps into the fetal position when I think about the hundreds of fans who call in and listen to it and leave him breathless messages, the contents of which I can't even bear to think about. It also bothers me that I am one of them, even though I NEVER HAVE AND WILL press nine to leave a message OR the pound sign for more options. Okay, maybe I did the pound sign thing once. Just to see what would happen. And then hung up in such a panic that I knocked over my paperclip holder. Maybe. But I keep doing it anyway, because I can't resist the pull of his relaxed timber and his sweet, conversational, it's-three-in-the-morning-and-I've-just-finished-off-a-bottle-of-gin musings. I still like hearing American accents as long as they're not yelling "OOOH! KICKASS! THEY HAVE KFC!" when I'm trying to walk downtown. Plus, he's funny. Plus, there are books I want to read now because he keeps recommending ones that sound interesting. I don't know if I'll ever get around to it since the mere notion of buying a book that I know I am buying specifically because it was recommended to me by Mike Gordon via his hotline fills me with so much dread that I'm sure I'd run screaming from the checkout line at Borders, if I even made it that far, but still, I like it. It's nice. And horrible. And nice.

Why?

Reason continues to elude me. Thanks, Mike Gordon. Am I being sarcastic? To quote Random Grunge Kid in the classic Simpsons Homerpalooza episode, I don't even know anymore.

I think I need a honky-tonk vacation.

I am kind of wondering if I should lean more toward biker-chickdom in accordance with my 3rd-decade metamorphosis plan, even though I’ve only been on a motorcycle once in my life and it scared the bejeezus out of me. I really like tattoos and leather. Plus, I already talk like one, so it would be a bonus to have my appearance more accurately reflect my proclivity for effword usage.