I Need Two of Me for September

I haven’t had the mental capacity this week to ponder such questions as “Did Obama’s speech deliver?” and “McCain’s choice—Bonus or Bust?” that Yahoo shoots at me each time I start up my computer. My answer is I don’t know. Ask someone whose been paying more attention.

For the past week, I’ve busied myself with weightier matters, such as:
• Should I buy the $35 wristband for the American Festival Music Showcases, or should I buy the $45 ticket to the American Music Awards show at the Ryman? (I opted for both.)
• Is it possible for me to get from the Station Inn after Bruce Robison’s show in time for Cross Canadian Ragweed’s set at the Cannery Ballroom?
• What should I do on the evening of September 20: Go camping with the Boy and his cub scout pack, catch The Duhk’s and Buddy Miller at Mercy Lounge, or hop over to the Station Inn for Peter Cooper and The Wright’s?

Also, I’m full of angst over the fact that I dare not even suggest heading over to Memphis next weekend for the Keith Sykes' Songwriter Celebration, where Todd Snider and Rodney Crowell are performing on September 5 and Guy Clark does a show on September 6.

I’m probably most excited about going to the awards show. For one thing, I have a definite favorite in most of the categories; I’m still researching my pick on instrumentalist:

Album—Hayes Carll’s Trouble in Mind
Artist—Steve Earle
Instrumentalist—Buddy Miller or Sam Bush
New Emerging Artist—Justin Townes Earle
Song—“She Left Me for Jesus”—written by Hayes Carll & Brian Keane
Duo/Group—Drive By Truckers

My second reason for being excited about the awards show is the opportunity to see the performances. I haven’t been able to find a program, but I’m hoping the various nominees will be performing. And then there are several “special” awards presented each year, of the Lifetime Achievement variety. The two YouTube clips I have posted here were taken at the 2007 Awards show, with Guy Clark performing “To Live is To Fly” as part of Townes Van Zandt being posthumously honored with the President’s Award, and Todd Snider performing one of his own songs as part of a tribute to KPIG dj Laura Ellen Hopper. So I must say my expectations are high for the 2008 Awards.



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Music I’m Listening to Now: Buddy Miller, Universal United House of Prayer on Rhapsody.com
What I’m Reading Now: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.

If a Body Catch a Body

I finished reading “Catcher in the Rye” this week, which is a good thing because the Williamson County library wanted it back. I know this because they sent repeated and increasingly threatening emails about this and several of their other books I continued to hold beyond some arbitrary time they establish for holding a book. At one point they even have suggested that I buy several books, presuming that they were lost. Don’t get me wrong; they weren’t that over due—maybe a month or so past the due date. But with all those emails and mean words like “bring this book back in scumbag or we’re going to charge you for it, in fact look, we already have, so either bring back these books or bring us 83 dollars or you’ll never use the library again,” I really expected to see more of a celebration when I brought the books back yesterday, seeing as how they were missing them so bad and all.

I wore my Todd Snider t-shirt to the library to return the books—the one that has the symbols for peace, love, and anarchy on the front. The library girl noticed and said “I like your shirt. It’s quite ironic.” I thought “Yeah, babe. I’m all into anarchy. That’s why I don’t pay any attention to due dates on library books.” The fines totaled a little north of $11. All I had was $4, so I gave that to the girl, hoping it would allow me to check out more books, but no way. In Williamson County, if you have a fine outstanding, they don’t let you check out more books. (An interesting aside here, and likely a telling comparison, is that in New Orleans, if you owed money on a book fine, they would let you keep checking out books as long as you were making payments on the fine. Also, a couple of times a year, they would have food drives through the Orleans Parish library, and you could pay fines by bringing in canned foods.)

I enjoyed “Catcher in the Rye”. I particularly liked the writing voice, which is first person narrator with a really quick clipped voice that I found it consistent with the way a 16 year old boy would think, particularly a boy with the kind of issues Holden Caulfield has. In fact, the voice was so contagious that I found myself writing in my journal in that same voice. The book was also somewhat suspenseful to me because I kept being afraid he was going to kill a bunch of people at the end, because of how this book has been associated with they guy who shot Lennon and the guy who shot Reagan, and I know the book has been banned in a lot of schools. I told my wife several times while reading the book that I hoped the kid (Holden) didn’t kill everyone at the end, because I sort of liked him. Not to spoil it for you, but he doesn’t kill anyone.

There has been more than enough critical discussion of this book, so I won’t try to perform any in depth analysis here. I have posted these three YouTube clips I found interesting. However, I will say that the part of the book I found most relevant was near the end, in chapter 24. Mr. Antolini, an English teacher from a school Holden was kicked out of before the one he was kicked out of at the beginning of the book, speaks frankly about a “fall” he envisions for Holden, which is probably not anything new to Holden. But Antolini goes further to say that Holden’s not the first to have difficulty dealing with his environment, and that if he will apply himself in school, he may find a channel for that difficulty. Unfortunately, this is a message that Holden can’t appreciate in a one-off setting like this, particularly when the message is obscured by a confusing act like the head petting thing Antolini does. Such a message is the sort of life lesson parent’s must build in over time. This discussion with Antolini does two things for me. First, it reminds me that I’m not alone in my own difficulties in dealing with my own environment, and second it reminds me of my responsibilities as a father to equip my children in the same way that Anolini is attempting to bring Holden along.





I hate to cram too much into one post, but I also recently finished reading Lisey’s Story, by Stephen King. This is another home run Stephen King book, with a couple of compelling “scary guy” characters, with the lawn boy probably being more eerie than Zack McCool. But some of the repetitive words used in this book were among the best of any Stephen King book, particularly “Bad Gunky” and “Gomers.” Yesterday afternoon I found myself in a daze for some reason and I thought “Oh wow. I think I was a Gomer there for a minute.” Also, I have these paper cuts on my hands that won’t completely heal because I keep re-cutting them, and I thought how what I really needed was a quick dip in “the pool”. I thought Lisey’s Story was equal to Duma Key, overall, although with Lisey there were times at the beginning that the only reason I kept reading was that I trusted the author to make it work. My trust was rewarded.

Here’s a clip of Stephen King discussing the original idea for the book.



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Music I’m Listening to Now: Miles Davis, Kind of Blue on Rhapsody.com
What I’m Reading Now: Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, by Susan Gregg Gilmore. I had to dip into my personal stash for reading material, seeing as how my library privileges have been suspended until I pay the remainder of my fines.