Babes, Buds, and Blogs

To say I am a little obsessive could be an understatement. Coupled with a really short attention span, it makes a strange behavioral mix. ADD was not in vogue back in the day, so I have heard statements about focus (lack of) and potential until they almost make me sick. Think Clockwork Orange.

Anyway, the other day I was tripping back to "remember when world" (as wake calls it) and it occurred to me that as a young man, I was either partying like there was no tomorrow or dating an angel. There was not much overlap of the two events and I apparently was born to be pussy-whipped. It must have been pretty easy for my buds (Cuts, Scooter, Ian, Elp, Dave, Phil, Boner, Damian and Jon - to name a few) to know when I was dating. I simply disappeared. If she went on vacation, or we broke up, or there was a lull, I was back.

One time, wake's wife told me that I didn't want a girlfriend, I wanted a nun. Keep your habit comments to yourself, please ;-D

The girls and young women that I dated were definitely what was called "straight", which had nothing to do with sexual orientation. But my friends, the folks I hung with, were usually not. They were, most often, referred to as "get highs." Which possibly explains why the two didn't mix well (at least in my mind). Even in college, where it seemed everyone was partying, I wound up dating Straight Sara, the bank VP's daughter.

My wife certainly fits the profile of the type I dated. Stephanie is very sweet, has not been exposed to some of life's harsher elements and types, and has no real desire to see how "the other half lives." And since we began dating, I made the conscious choice to let go of the more, um, "edgier" side of me, figuring the positives of being with her was better than the choice of being stoned and alone.

Fast forward 20-something years and enter the blogosphere with me. Oh wait, you ARE the blogosphere. I am sure that, like me, you have been around looking at manyblogs, especially when you first got on here. Somehow, for some reason, the blogs that interest you, the ones you go back to read time and again, share some bent in your personality. There is something about them that draws you back. In a sense, this blog community has become my current buds.

There is some sort of kinship that draws me to your sites. Some of you may be offended by this, others amused and still others will wonder what the heck I am talking about. But it interests me to look over the sites I go to, and realize again that I am hanging with "get highs." This doesn't mean stoners now anymore than it did then. It just means people that have a little bent, a kink that allows us to look at the world through another side of the prism. I hesitate to call it anything other than a thing, because I do not want to be judgemental about it. There is nothing that makes it more or less cool. Not more hip or less hip. It's just a thang, as we might say in Texas.

And so I find myself trying to bridge the gap again. "Real" world versus "blog" world. I relate much more to some of you bloggers than the real people I encounter. I can share laughs with you easier than with most. I feel you "get" me more than some whose eyes I see look away when I say something off-the-wall. For that I thank you. And Stephanie? It's ok, I am just hanging with my buds when I am on here. It is more healthy than you think, because none of these buds have tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Here" through clenched lips, trying not to let any air escape (some of you know what I mean).

Enjoy the weekend.

i asked him not to yell at you anymore...

OMG! it's friday again! i have enjoyed trying to find all the songs y'all gave me last week. i can tell you that i love the Friday Random Ten as much as anything on the web now...i have learned so many new artists!
Here is the sugggested procedures for participation (i am sorta "anti-rules").
Here are my 10 for this week -
10)Chief - Patti Griffin
9)Erin - Antje Duvekot - listen to Dandelion if you go to the myspace page!
8)A Nervous Tic Motion of The Head To The Left - Andrew Bird (another good song)
7)Ship of Fools - Elvis Costello
6)The Apartment - Salim Nourallah
5)Highway Blues - Marc Seales
4)Brown Eyed Women - The Grateful Dead
3)Fame (David Bowie cover) - Addison Groove Project
2)I Don't Want To Think About It - Wild Strawberries
1)Plane Crash - moe

Oh, and one more thing - HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY BUNNY!!

wow, this could change everything...

i only partially heard this playing last night as my wife watched it. she was sent this link from a co-worker. ordinarily i am not a big conspiracy buff, but this looked way too interesting to ignore.
i thought some others might be interested in it as well (dusty, annamaria, rat....)
September 11th - what really happened that day?
wake has not participated in this, in case he needs the distance...>:-)

Thirty Days in the Hole?

Whoa! Humble Pie on a most played list from one of Kurt's readers? I mean, Kurt has the most sophisticated readership in all of blogdom, and now Humble Pie shows up on a most played list.

And Melanie, please, please, don't take this as a slam against your taste in tunes. It's not that they were a bad band. But for me they never transcended their time. I enjoyed them in their day. They did a good show when they played an outdoor concert with Peter Frampton and Boston. But mostly they're the kind of band I listen to when I'm getting nostalgic - sit on the porch in the rocker chair with a Molson Ale (or maybe a Pearl, depending on which old days I'm yearning for) and regale each other with tales of days gone by.

Maybe it really should be here. Kurt has a tendency to use his blog as a digital form of "porch sitting." And to leave tracks in the dust of memories. And here in the Northeast we had a real taste of summer for Memorial Day weekend - it almost got to 90 degrees. And summer is a time for escaping realities. And renewing connections, with others and ourselves. And these old tunes have a great way of doing that.

I hear a song like Thirty Days in the Hole and my response ISN"T to hit mute and groan about how could I have ever thought that music was any good. No. Instead my mind jumps back to days cruising in a '68 Mustang convertible. To warm and misty summer nights. And I'm filled with pleasure. And suddenly I'm ready to hear a little "Black Coffee." And if I'm hanging with folks who also remember when, or my sons, we're searching through the iTunes library and going oh, you gotta hear this, or remember this song, etc., etc.

But most of y'all who leave comments are far to young to be joining Kurt in residing in the "remember when world." Then again, it isn't long after high school that we begin vacationing there. And then, when we get settled into the work world, these flights into the past become necessary excursions to preserve our sanity. Especially when we gather with our college buddies and other cohorts in early adulthood crimes. Add kids and a few more years of being "adult" and the lure of the past gets even stronger. Having those kids begin moving into adulthood themselves, and suddenly building a second home in remember when world becomes a very appealing option.

Of course Kurt's readership is much too cool to end up there. Or even to begin to slip away from the center of hip. Or are they? Sadly, unless we're in the arts or entertainment business we never can stay on that edge of cool. It's not our world, and almost by definition, as we move into the "real world" we move farther and farther from the cutting edge.

All this isn't meant to depress y'all. Instead, I hope it helps to reassure you when you begin to notice that you have no clue who that band is that you're hearing coming from the iPod hanging off that college kid that you're still okay. You truly were cool in your time. And still are. It's just a different cool now. If it isn't then you really are in trouble. There's nothing less cool than an old fart trying to be young. And it happens a lot sooner than we think: both our becoming "old farts," and our being seen as trying to be young. The high school kids in our youth group get a hoot out of the twenty-somethings who they think want to be seen as cool.

Maybe our problem is that as we age we sometimes forget what makes cool. Or at least cool as I understand it. (Which may or may not have any basis in reality.) Cool in living, is like cool in jazz. It's that sound that's comfortable just sitting there in the background, not overwhelming and grabbing the spotlight by flash and other non-substantive things. But that is also so proficient, so compelling that we can't help but stop and pay attention, to listen and be taken in by it. Cool in jazz has specific form, and yet is so fluid that boundaries are totally permeable. Cool takes you into unexpected places and makes connections you'd never think to make. And brings you back to home. Cool is what it is. It doesn't try to be something else. It doesn't project an image, even though it does have a certain way of carrying itself, a certain personna. Cool isn't the latest thing, and yet it lives on the cutting edge. Not the cutting edge of trends, but the cutting edge of discovery. Which is why some of the people who seem to have the most mundane existence can be truly cool, why others who are always trying to stay in step with all the latest trends can be as far from cool as one can ever get. It's why a Mr. Rogers could be totally cool and timeless, while Barney and Cabbage Patch and Twinkie Dinks (or whatever they are) come and go.

You may not have a clue as to which bands are the current darlings of the indie crowd. But if that isn't the world you live in everyday you don't need to know to be truly deeply cool.

For another take on this whole subject from someone who does have an idea who the good new bands actually are read Annamaria's post on Greg Dulli and The Afghan Whigs.