musical jumbalaya

It would be pretty cool if you ask me (and since you are reading my blog, I guess you kind of did) if some really neat new creative musical experiments come out of the hurricane aftermath. Not that the New Orleans musicians were likely unaware of what goes down in Austin, or vise versa - but being forced into the same confines could change their outlook somewhat. Lord knows the players from New Orleans, no matter what their life story has been thus far, have a new outlook on singin the blues. Being thrust into a city that was already crowded with musicians also means ther is more opportunity etc for spontaneous, and in some ways forced, collabration between people that otherwise would have been cities apart.

It would be neat to look back in 50 years and trace a line of musical influence that is directly attributable to hurricane. Doubtless there is at least one musical genuis-to-be in Austin who is sneaking in the back door of clubs because she is underage and will become enthrawled by this new sound that would otherwise have been left undiscovered...and somewhere down the line upon receipt of her first Grammy, or in an interview on Fresh Air, she will be able to recount these experiences that never would have happened if it werent for such a huge disaster.

Big Easy's Musicians Move Their Acts to Austin
Lively Arts Scene In Texas Capital Suits Evacuees

By Sylvia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; A03

AUSTIN -- The self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World, the place that gave rock-and-roll superstar Janis Joplin her start in the 1960s, is sounding a little funkier these days. The chili, as one of the famed Neville Brothers sings in his new regular gig, has met the gumbo.

Among the estimated 1 million Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina are musicians trying to reestablish New Orleans's distinct second-line beat in a city better known for folk and roots, rhythm and blues, indie rock and country rock.

The city's population of more than 8,700 musicians has not only grown a bit but also diversified racially and ethnically. Relocated here indefinitely, among others, are Cyril Neville and Tribe 13, Ivan Neville and Dumpsta Funk, the Hot Eight Brass Band, the Iguanas, the Caesar Brothers Funk Box, the Radiators, and Big Chief Kevin Goodman of the Flaming Arrows Mardi Gras Indian tribe. Some of them have even created an ad hoc band with a name that sums up who they are today, post-Katrina: "The Texiles."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/29/AR2005112901383.html

an Apple a day

In my book, Fiona Apple is under rated or at least underappreciated by the people I know who dig music. Sure, "Criminal" (off her 1996 debut Tidal) was over played - but don't try to tell me you ever got sick of the video.

Her sultry & dark voice cary the album and it has a place on everyone's shelf. It is not an "any mood" record that you can pop in the car stereo on a warm spring day and go tearing down country roads with the windows rolled down singing along & puffing a joint...but who wants to listen to that stuff all the time anyway?

There are apparently Fiona Apple freaks - such as this website - and she has released two records since Tidal (one just this fall), but I have honestly never hear a single track off either one of them. All I know is that she was in my ear on the way to school today and it's hard not to shudder when she sings.

If you have other records that fit that mood - post 'em.

P.S. - yes, she can see through you with those eyes...

little things, part 2

Pizza is good. There are several pizza joints in the ATL that serve up quality pie. I don't mean Papa Johns or Pizza Hut thin crust - I mean real made from scratch dough tossin' pizza. NYC obviously is the Champion of pizza. I've only found one place that has good pie around here - The Italian Store. It is quite good. Honestly there is such a derth of quality in the area that my standards may have lowered...but I don't think so.

I am generally a 2 topping guy. I don't know why, but you get much more than that and everything blends together and you lose the subtle accent. In general, I think I prefer simple cooking though. There is something to be said for just getting the pure good fresh tastes without a lot of fullamazoo.

A nice fresh tomato deserves nothing more than 2 slices of white bread, some salt, pepper and mayo. I have also been known to eat them like apples leaning over the kitchen sink with juice running down my elbow. Pizza with just fresh sliced tomatoes is good.

Life with honest good pizza is good.

good eats

Below you will see the bacon wrapped filet topped with a pan fried blue cheese fritta, home made MD crab cake, smoked gouda mash & Al's old batch o' collard greens.

Where is the turkey? We timed it to come out of the oven aprox. 1.5 hours after the first dinner. Mimi's secret recipe cranberry sauce is in the fridge (although my first attempt left a little to be desired).

"I've had all that I wanted...

...of a lot of things I've had

[I saw Walk the Line last night. If you were on the fence, get off the fence and go]

And a lot more than I needed of some things that turned out bad"

"Ready or not...

...here I come, you can't hide..."

On the same trip to Target that furnished The Chronic I also secured the Fugees second record "The Score"

Car stereos and 6x9s were invented so that I could sing along with Lauren Hill on the remake of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly." Roberta was actually not the first to do this number - but her version does include a verse that the Fugees sadly omitted:

He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair.
And then he looked right through me as if I wasn't there.
But he just came to singing, singing clear and strong.

There is also a B Movie thriller called "Killing Me Softly" that came out in 2002. IMDb gives the following plot summary: "A woman faces deadly consequences for abandoning her loving relationship with her boyfriend to pursue exciting sexual scenarios with a mysterious celebrity mountaineer." Thank god for Netflix.

In case you are wondering whatever happened to Lauren Hill, there are rumors that the Fugees are getting back together - but I can tell you that she is doing just fine. We have been living happily together for some time now and she sings to me every night.

Have a good Thanksgiving. I may not post until next week, but the odds are at least 50/50 that I will tie one on Thursday and tell you the story about my Grandfather & cranberry sauce and talk about how Thanksgiving is my favorite of all the holidays.

money talks

I don't think you can expect get-rich minded corporations to just adopt corporate responsibility because they are nice people. But, you can use the loudest voice you have - money. I buy more expensive products that are organic, natural, or whatever partly because I want to eat that stuff, but also because I want to send a signal (however faint) to the market that people like me will spend a little more for stuff like that, so keep it comming.

Eventually (hopefully) enough congomerates will respond and competition will drive the price down some - although we also have to realize that it really does cost more to raise/grow organic food that is covered with pestacides or pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones.

Saving the Environment, One Quarterly Earnings Report at a Time

By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

A few years ago, scientists at Cargill Inc. learned how to make rigid, transparent plastics from corn sugars. There was just one problem: they cost a lot more than the oil-based plastics they would replace.

But that was before the price of oil shot up and companies came under pressure from consumers and investors to find economically sound ways to adopt "green" packaging and other environmentally friendly products and processes. This year, Wal-Mart, Wild Oats Market and many other retailers, as well as food suppliers like Del Monte and Newman's Own Organics, all embraced corn-based packaging for fresh produce.

Sales at NatureWorks, the Cargill subsidiary that makes the plastic, grew 200 percent in the first half of this year over the period last year. "The early adopters were more influenced by environmental concerns than costs," said Kathleen M. Bader, chairwoman of NatureWorks. "But now we're competitive with petrochemicals, too."

Cargill is one of several companies profiting from the concerns - of shareholders, communities and consumers - about global warming, leaking landfills and other potential environmental hazards. Huge companies like General Electric and Chevron now have separate businesses to market what they are calling environment-friendly products.

Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/business/22enviro.html?th&emc=th

American Idiot

I have said, and I may have posted, that I thought Green Day's "American Idiot" was a let down. I think a large part of that is that I had very very high expectations - I was expecting the latest great rock-opera a'la Tommy, Dark Side of the Moon, and the New Album.

I was initially disapointed. I have continued, however, to keep it in rotation and it has grown on me. The latest greatest concept album? No - but still well worth having in the collection. It does rise to the level of being better than the sum of its singles.

little things, part 1

Life is too short to use anything but the best tissues when you have to blow your nose once every 5 minutes. Kleenex has just come out with a moist tissue. It seems a little creepy to me, but I suppose it's worth a try. I'll let you know how things go.

And if any of you out there thought that Claritin is just for alergy sufferers - think again. That stuff is awesome. It clears my sinuses and doesn't make me feel all hopped up on goofballs the way Dayquil and other cold medicines do. If you've known that for years, then you are a bad friend for not telling me sooner.

one of those days

I hate it when people post to their blog about what they did that day - who caes? It is usually some boring b.s. about brushing your hair or walking your dog or getting in a fight with your significant other. That being said - this is what my day was like yesterday. I think it was funny. At least, sometimes all you can do is laugh:

I bailed on my evening class to go home and rest to battle the evil forces - although I felt a little guilty because I didn't feel that bad. On the way home, I stopped at the post office and couldn't think of a better time or place, so I locked my keys in the car. Fortunately there was a dry cleaner a few blocks away that gave me a coat hanger - and since I just put new speakers in the door, I am all to familiar with the locking mechanism. After 15 minutes of weird looks from people in the parking lot, I was on my way home.

Home is where I discovered that I left the power cable for my laptop at school. SWEET! No biggie - I call my buddie and he agrees to go up to the room and secure it for me. I tried calling him after class, but he didn't answer until he got home...with my power cable.

Normally that would have been good - except that I had since remembered that I have a 5:00 meeting at school and, since my laptop is dead, I can't send an e-mail to cancel. So I go to the meeting and try to set up some exchange with to pick up my power cable and then I wait outside in the cold for 15 minutes for my buddie to drop it off because he is on his way some where else.

The up shot of all this was that I figured it was conclusive evidence that my brain was not functioning and there was no reason for me to be at in class at school...even though I was there anyway.

Night #3

I bailed on my evening class last night to go home & sleep. I still felt like i had the upperhand against the invading forces, but I wanted to keep it that way - and the a/c at school was broken so sitting through class in 90 degree heat was not exactly appealing. I hit whole foods to restock on some juice & fruit & grabbed ingredients for chicken barley stew. I made the stew but it wasn't ready till 1am so I didn't eat any.

I did drop the screwdrivers from my regmine and I skipped the nyquill just to see how sleepy I would be after a 2 hour nap. I still fell asleep at around 10:30. I woke up this morning suffering from a blitzkreig directed at my sinuses, which had previously escaped attack. I have class from 10 - 12, but then I'm returning to the home front to reassemble the troops and launch a counter attack. I don't have class again until Monday at 6pm, so even if this is not a swift victory, I have the staying power. I also have the elimination rounds of our frisbee tournament on Saturday, so if I need to break out the "sweat it out" approach, I can. Victory shall be mine.

cold remedy

I'm sick - well, only half sick. I managed to get emergency rest before the full on cold set in, but I also am still battling the invasion.

I first started feeling it at about 4 or 5 on Monday, but still toughed ot out and went to my 6:15 class. After my trip to the grocer I adopted my old college remedy. It requires the following:
1)- eat as much as you possibly can. I go with Campbell's chicken noodle supplemented with crushed ramen noodles. I ate 2 of those.
2)- drink as much as you can. Particularly if you are eating sodium packed soup, you need water - and you need juice. Not from concentrate.
3)- take vitamins. I start with an Emergen-C, then add liquid echinacia & goldenseal. I use that to wash down a multi-vitamin & some zinc.
4)- Nyquil. I have the generic stuff, and it doesn't seem to be as good.
5)- after you take the nyquil, you start drinking the following concoction until you pass out - guaranteeing plenty of sleep:

Place 3 ice cubes in a pint glass. Add 3/4 oz of vodka. Then add equal parts Orange Juice, Grapefruit Juice, and Seltzer water. I usually get about three of these down before collapsing into a deep sleep - over nine hours each of the last two nights, and I think I am winning the battle.

too good

I think the main reason why I hate people - not particular people, but people in general - is that they all think they are too good.

I was at the grocery store last night and they were totally slammed - every checkout was backed up and it took forever to get through. The guy in front of me was being all huffy & puffy that he had to stand in line like his time is too precious and he is the only one who matters in this world. He had a full cart (of like 10 things of egg beaters...weird) and because the place was so slammed there were no bag-boys, so the guy just stood there and watched his groceries pile up at the end of the conveyor belt. Then he stood there watching for 10 minutes while this poor 50 year old asian dude tried to bag them. Meanwhile - that's 10 minutes that I have to stand there and watch this jerk off watch someone bag his groceries when he could have been doing it on his own while the other dude scanned the items.

That is why I hate people. If he is in such a big hurry, then he should be bagging his own groceries. He should also think about the fact that if he bags his own groceries, I will get out of here faster. He should also think about making this asian dude's life a little easier. But no, he is too good to bag groceries. As precious as his time is, it is not precious enough for him to stoop to the level of bagging groceries. If I had seen what car was his, I would have keyed it to the metal from bumper to bumper.

Next time you are at the grocer, bag your own fucking groceries.

UPDATE:
Triton Unleashed, which is a blog linked at right, posted today about manners that compliments my point, as does the article he links to, although he leaves out the negativity & cuss words that I use.

changed the world

The Chronic - brought hip-hop rap culture to every 13 year old white boy who never latched on to NWA because his mom wouldn't let him get records with bad words. It introduced Snoop & his izzle fuschnizzle. It popularized the rebirth of deez nutz. It invigorated interest in George Clinton with use of some of the best samples out there. And, not to make you feel old - but it was released almost fourteen years ago.

Equally as important, it contains one of my favorite "Dumb Lyrics that Rhyme":

"So would you just walk on by, cuz I'm too hard to lift, and no this ain't Aerosmith" -- Really? Are you sure? Because for a second there I thought it was Aerosmith.

I purchased what is actually the first copy I have ever owned late last week. I was amazed at how well I remembered the lyrics after not hearing some of the songs for 5 years or so. I was also amazed at how much it made me feel like "the man" (as in part of the system, not as in bad ass) to roll down the street with it cranked. I mean, here I am an almost 30 year white male old law student driving an 81 volvo with the windows rolled down and Dr. Dre thumpin on my 6x9s. What a joke.

Things felt different when I had long hair & a gotee that was so long it didn't fit in my drivers license picture. Things were different when I felt like part of the white counterculture, even if it was sometimes cheezy hippie love fest.

Now I'm left grasping at little ways to stick it to the man, which pretty much means I'm just stickin it to myself.

veterinarians day

Whan I was a kid, I was very happy that there were peole who could fix my pets when they got sick, but I never understood why they got their own holiday.

Did you know that the WW II vets were older this year when the White Sox won the World Series than the Civil War vets were last time they won it?

Both my grandfathers were veterans; probably most people's grandfathers were veterans. I miss them. My mom's dad died in 2000, so he fortunately did not have to see all this crap we have gotten into. My dad's dad died a year and a half ago. When we were going through his things I found the begining of a hand written letter to the editor of VFW magazine expressing his outrage at the military action in Iraq. "This is not what I fought for" he said. It made me sad to know that when he died, he felt like one of his biggest sacrifices was being dishonored. It made me happy to know that the week before he died he was bragging to his neighbors that I was going to law school. He dropped out of school in the 5th grade to support 6 younger siblings when his father split and his moter got sick & died.

This is a picture of my grandfather living in Germany in the late 40s to help rebuild the country.

The CSI Effect

Some commentators, and indeed prosecutors & judges, have coined the phrase "CSI effect" to refer to juries that expect evidence comparable to what you see on TV in order to deliver a conviction. "Surely, if the defendant is guilty" they think "there is a roll of duct tape with fibres whose tear pattern matches the grid on the ball of their shoe that left a fibre in the stomach of the victim when she made a drink using the same ice scoop that was used last week when the crime took place in back of the neighborhood Baskin Robbins." That is not how evidence works in the real world.

I have decided that the CSI effect is something entirely different - it is when you are home on a Thursday night & have decided to leave the books on the shelf & just chill out and watch some crappy tv, but even the crappy tv is too crappy because none of the networks even try to put on good shows on the same night as CSI.

tempting fate

So far so good - I paid the $100 to have the wiring replaced on the Houride's oil switch, and that seems to have been the problem. I hate to say that too loudly and I'm still waiting for the oil light to come back on.

The bad news is that the whole wiring harnes will need to be replaced at some point, but such is life. That is one of the common failing components of pre 86 Volvos, and frankly I am shocked that mine is still the original. I assumed that since I haven't had problems with it before now, it must have been replaced.

Next on the list is a new paint-job. I would go with the original color, but then I would want to get all the crhrome & trim fixed, and that will be hard to do since they stopped making the coupes in 1983. Instead, I might get creative, and I'm leaning toward something like this:

hours of fun

Today in class our Con Law professor commented that he was just looking at a bunch of blank faces. Little did he know we were scoping out the "Magic Eye Image of the Week"

this just in...

In a shocking turn of events, Texas has approved a constitutional ban on gay marrige.

Meanwhile, since the police have been ineffective, a French town has decided to debate violence. Gwen Ifill will moderate.

I like you man, but you're crazy

You got a dart in your neck.

For whatever reason, I've had a little trouble feeling inspired about posting this week. Sometimes I go on tears where I have 3 or 4 post ideas a day - right now, without my car woes, I would be dry.

And I just figured it out - Nolege & The U.S. of Cuda had both been on long hiatus without a post. They don't know each other, but they both came back last week, within two days of each other. They must have sapped my strength.

Have you ever worn a head/sweat band and played 4 games of ultimate frisbee on an unseasonably warm & sunny november day and forgot to use sunblock and ended up with sunburn & a white stripe across your forehead? No? Me neither - but I know this one guy ...

terminal

After about a year of dealing with some symptoms of poor fuel/air mixture, things have been running great for the past while few months. But the Houride has developed an intermittent "check oil" light. I took it to the Dr. today and he is not optimistic. There are three likely problems. There is no way to tell which problem it is without fixing the others. Trial and error is not a cheap way to take car of a car.

The first remedy (which is under way right now) is $120 to test the oil pressure switch and replace the section of the wiring harness that runs to the dash & idiot light.

The second is to replace the oil pump. That will require dropping the front suspension & oil pan. $400 in labor alone. I love my car enough to consider this option if the first try didn't work, but I would need to know that it would solve the problem - and there is no way to know that.

The third possibility, which you can only come to after dealing with the first 2, is that the bearings in the crank case are bad. I didn't even ask how much that would be.

I've had some good times with the Houride - 11 years worth. She is the only car I've ever loved, and if it's time to move on I will do so with a heavy heart... But she has been on the brink of death before. She has drifted down the golden highway headed for the sunset on more than one occasion, but we have nursed her back to health and this time may be no different.

what's that saying?

"Home is where the bar is"

peanuts

...I also used to take a handful of peanuts and close my hand and try to make a Snickers bar when I opened it. That never worked either.

Then I developed a serious crush on Sally, Charlie Brown's little sister, because she gave up Halloween in order to be with Linus. But of course, she ended up whining & crying about it in the end when the Great Pumpkin never showed. Crushed me.

SNAP!

When I was a little kid, I thought Rice Krispies would actually enunciate "snap crackle pop" and I was crushed when I had my first bowl and they just made noise.

WHAT!

I went to an 'Irish' bar last night and they were out of Guinness. When the waitress told me, I literally yelled - without meaning to.

It reminded me of the time that I was at Waffle House in Pelham AL at 3am on the second night of an epic three night run by the boys at Oak Mt. and the manager announced she was closing because they were out of food and hadn't cleaned in hours. They had been on a wait for literally 13 hours straight.

Some guy came in with his camera and started taking pictures. She was pissed and asked him what the hell he was doing. He said he had never heard of a Waffle House closing and wanted to get a picture of it.