Take Me Out to the Crowd...

The idea for a trip to Chicago arose quickly, and is probably one of the more spontaneous things Wife and I have done. It started on Tuesday afternoon when I realized events at work were going to pan out for me to take a long weekend. With our eighteenth wedding anniversary coming up, I sent text inquiry to wife asking about places she’d like to be swept away to. Chicago wasn’t in her list, but once I suggested it and clarified that I had no intention of taking the kids, she was game, having never been there. Saturday evening, following the ballet recital that brought in Our Mothers, who were agreeable with keeping track of the Boy and the Girl in our absence, we boarded a plane for the short 80 minute flight to Chicago.

We had several interesting cab rides during our brief stay, including the ride from the airport where the windows were rolled down permanently and the drive left me ffeling that my face had been sandblasted. The cab we took from our hotel to Wrigley Field Sunday evening missed so badly I was afraid we might not make it, and I found myself silently rooting for the driver in his battle to not bring the vehicle to a complete stop. At last, we arrived and took our place among a collection of Cubs and White Sox fans to see the Cubs defeat their cross-town rivals by something like 7-1. A cute blond with open toed shoes and a voice that was up to the task sang the National Anthem. Rob Reiner led the singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch, and, no, I didn’t get a look at his shoes.

I scored the game. I like how such minimal notation allows the telling of such a complete story. I got the calls right, particularly in the first when Patterson went from first to third on a single by Derreck Lee, and scored when the Chi-sox short stop mishandled the relay (E-6). However, I had some trouble keeping the score notations in the correct innings. And one guy asked me who was pitching for the Sox and I have him the name of the Cubs pitcher.

We left after Reiner did his thing. The return cab ride to the hotel was more assured, and our driver came to complete stops with confidence.

Corb Lund and Stuck Trucks

This Corb Lund song reminds me of some of the faux-fierce arguments kids in my high school had with other kids in my high school about their trucks. Where I grew up, we didn’t have questions about the sorts of things people fret so much about these days. All questions about religion were settled on the softball field and people would have thought alien occupation was 10 times more likely than gays marrying. But the question of whether a Ford was better than a Chevy—now that was something to talk about. Dodge was under-represented in my home town, kind of like Wrangler jeans in a world of Lee’s and Levi’s. You knew folks who had them, but you just assumed they must not have had a choice.

I never got into the whole truck debate. In a Ford and Chevy world, I drove a red Toyota that I named Christine, and wondered how it was that kids just barely old enough to drive could be so passionate about which truck they wouldn’t want to be caught dead in. As with religion and attitudes about race, their opinions probably came down from their parents. Years later when I had kids and needed a van but didn’t want one and therefore rationalized an SUV, I bought a red Dodge Durango that I called Christine. Now I drive a white Dodge Intrepid because that’s what they had at the dealer when I went to trade in the Durango a few years ago, around the last time people really got worked up about gas prices.

People who liked trucks enjoyed looking under the hoods of trucks. I’ve tried it and, much like a chess board, I never was quite sure what I was looking at. I learned early stage that my best hope in life was to have a mechanic I could trust and have a job where I made enough money to pay the mechanic. In New Orleans, we had a lazy mechanic near our house, which was good because he didn’t want to bothered with the things we needed him to do, let alone making stuff up. Otherwise, I just try to demonstrate confidence and ask that they let me see the part they are replacing, as if I’d know if the old one needed to be replaced or not.

Despite my acknowledged lack of mechanical aptitude or truck-loving quals, of late I find myself wishing I had a truck like the one a friend had when we were both in high school. It was a clunky late 70’s model with three speeds on the column. I recall it being a Ford, although I wouldn’t bet on that. I drove it a few times, and the fond recollection I have of that truck isn’t one of exhilaration; rather, it was a subtle sense of satisfaction that comes with simply getting a thing going. It may have had a radio and an air conditioner, but neither must have been worth much, since I don’t remember ever being in it when the windows weren’t rolled down.

Such a yearning is clearly just an expression of desire for a simpler life. I doubt I would appreciate the lack of a decent air conditioner on Cool Springs Boulevard in lunch time traffic. But I do find myself turning the radio off and rolling the windows down more and more, particularly as I drive the white Dodge slowly through the canopy of trees on Pantal-Critz just to hear if there is anything the cows are trying to tell me.



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Music I’m Listening to Now: Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Vanguard Visionaries on Rhapsody.com
What I’m Reading Now: Madame Bovary

100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time, plus One I Think Was Missed

The current issue of the Rolling Stone lists the “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time”. I’ve poured through this list as though it contains the next big power ball numbers, including listening to each song, in reverse order, on Rhapsody, while reading the RS blurbs. Although I’m not a guitar guy, and have never before listened to some of the music in the list, I consider it an important part of musical education.

As I said, I’m not a guitar guy. In fact, I lean much more to the Woodie Guthrie view, which is “If you are using more than two chords, you are showing off”; and as some guy once told Todd Snider, “I like the songs with the words”. Indeed, listening to this list has confirmed my true musical tastes, because last night after listening to all that reverb, distortion, and wah-wah bar wah-wahing, I felt a bit drained. So I pulled up a Townes Van Zandt album, and crashed into the nice comfy arm chair in my bedroom. And, like the story from “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”, a little Townes Van Zandt led to more Townes Van Zandt, and the next thing you know, I’m listening to a tribute album to some guy I never heard of named Blaze Foley who lived in Austin and “placed duct tape on the tips of his cowboy boots to mock the ‘Urban Cowboy’ crazed folks with their silver tipped cowboy boots, and I’m wondering where this has been all my life.

But I digress.

Chuck Berry was number one, with Johnny B. Goode, and I’m cool with that.


I’m sure the next RS will be filled with letters to the editor with people complaining about the list. I will not be writing in, because, well, see previous comments about my lack of authority on guitars. That being said, I think Cross Canadian Ragweed should have been in the list. I’d have put “Alabama” in there somewhere after Johnny B. Goode.


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Music I’m Listening to Now: A tribute to Blaze Foley, In Memory and Loving Tribute...Volume One on Rhapsody.com
What I’m Reading Now: The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard

An Educational Posting

I went to lunch this week with a co-worker who is soon-to-be-first-time mother. I drove, so of course we listened to Todd Snider (East Nashville Skyline). Being the good parenting mentor that I am, I demonstrated that there were a couple of keys to continuing to listen to most of the music you enjoy: (i) know the songs, (ii) know how quickly the volume will diminish on your radio and (iii) if you are listening to Todd Snider, you’ll generally want to avoid live music. I demonstrated this in the first song on the disk—“Age Like Wine”.

“I've been through seven managers, five labels/ A thousand picks and patch cables/ Three vans, a band, a bunch of guitar stands/ And cans and cans and cans of beer/ And bottles of booze and [start-turn down] bags of pot [turn back up]/And a thousand other things I forgot/ I thought that I'd be dead by now/ But I'm not.”

I told her my general rule was that if a song had more than three turn downs it wasn’t worth it. And of course, some songs are rated PG-13 or higher for reasons other than language, so you just had to save those up until the kids were out of the car. (My wife has a set list she plays through in those glorious moments she has alone.) One song that my kids will just have to sneak on there own is Todd Snider’s “Conservative Christian…” song, played here, along with a funny Garth Brooks story.



Here are several other unique Todd Snider clips that Birmingham Steve recently posted on YouTube. If Obama still needs a running mate, I think Birmingham Steve should be it, because Steve’s YouTube contributions are indeed world changing.

Here’s one with a poem about a bully and a song about tomorrow (or not tomorrow)


And finally, here’s a real sensitive song


Seems that Todd has been practicing on the guitar. I think that guy at Miss Vergie’s bar would be proud.


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Music I’m Listening to Now: John Prine, Live on Tour on Rhapsody.com
What I’m Reading Now: The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard