Advantages of living in a small town

Sometime during the night, our air conditioner went out. More specifically, the fan motor gave out. Believe it or not, I made a phone call about 8:30 AM and the new fan motor was running by 2:30 PM. Now, you might want to check the calendar, because it is the end of June in South Texas and I got the town's best A/C person here on the same day. If I lived in nearby Houston, I would be making arrangements to stay tonight with friends or La Quinta.

Home Sweet Home!

Mighty serious (not to be confused with Yahoo Serious)

I was reminiscing about high school/college and remembered how serious some stuff was back then that I consider laughable now. When I was in high school, I would study the album jackets of my records more than I would study my schoolwork. As a result, I became familiar with the names and discography of many musicians and I knew the lyrics to many New Wave songs in the 80's.

The "artiste" in me found profound truths and meanings in these hack lyrics. I was trying to read things into pop song lyrics like they were classic poetry. That was some serious stuff back then, but now I laugh at myself for taking everything so seriously.

I would also inflict my seriousness on others, quoting these lyrics like they were Shakespeare or using the lyrics as my own romantic ramblings in love letters. I see teenagers still doing this, so I'm guessing it's a phase many people go through. It's still worth a chuckle.

Spyro Gyra - Incognito

Not one of the all-time great CD's, but one of my personal all-time favorites. My Amazon review reads, in part:

Although I had been familiar with Spyro Gyra since hearing Morning Dance on AM Radio when it was a crossover hit, Incognito was the first Spyro Gyra album that I bought. I was sixteen years old, and most of my album purchases were along the lines of Duran Duran and Adam Ant, but this album captured my attention from the first playing. I remember the mystery that surrounded the packaging. No pictures of the band. Band personnel changed from one track to the next. What was with this group with the misspelled name?

Of course the purchase of this album immediately brought about the purchase of other SG albums, but this has always been my favorite. It is immediately relaxing and puts me in a good mood from the first bass note. The album, then CD, have never been far from my stereo. I highly recommend this CD. Albums in this period, including "City Kids" and "Freetime" represent, to me, the peak of this group's career.

I enjoy listening to this CD when I'm melancholy or on a rainy day like today. This was one of the first "jazz" albums I ever bought and opened me to a new kind of music. Of course, at 16, I was open to all kinds of new music. These days, I've become more close-minded.

This was released in 1982 on MCA Records. I've listened to it quite a bit over the past 22 years. In fact, I'm listening to it as I write these words.

Daddy like.

Musical Wallpaper

Silence drives me crazy. Unless I'm reading or composing music, I normally have some music playing. Even if I don't listen to it closely, I know its there. For example, as I type this, I'm listening to an Ahmad Jamal CD. Mozart called this musical wallpaper. He would compose music to be played in the background at royal social gatherings back in his day.

I bring this up because when I'm writing a paper for a class, I normally pick the same music for my musical wallpaper. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I usually listen to Chuck Mangione's "Live at the Hollywood Bowl" CD's when I'm writing. I was finishing up a paper this morning for my summer class; I had those discs playing.

I started this "tradition" back in my undergrad days in Commerce (aka Comatose)in the mid-1980's. I would listen to my vinyl record set of this live recording while writing English compositions or whatnot. When I started grad school back in 1998, I found the recording on CD and began listening to it again. While Mangione is not the best player, his compositions are usually interesting and he surrounds himself with good musicians. In any case, it suits its purpose for my tastes.

I'm aiming for two more years of school. I have a feeling those CD's are going to get a workout.

John Mayer

No, I don't have a man-crush on John Mayer. I bought his first CD out of a used CD bin and thought it was pretty good. The wife got a hold of the CD and I haven't seen it since. Since then, I've been following his career with a passing interest. I saw him on the Grammy award show and was blown away by his guitar-playing ability. Bought his second CD, ripped it to my computer before the wife grabbed this one. I watched him perform on CBS this morning. Again, blown away by his fretwork and by his passion for performing. He just looks like he's having fun when he plays. He's good-looking, talented, performs his own material, enjoys himself when performing - Daddy jealous? More than a little.

Daddy says keep your eye on this guy. I'm predicting some great things musically.

College Stories, Vol. 1

I went to college in the hellhole that is Commerce, Texas. I lived in Commerce from August 1984 until December 1988. I hated the town, the campus, and some of the professors. The only thing that was tolerable about the school (besides the scholarship money) was the group of friends that I had the pleasure of meeting and hanging with for 4 years. People do stupid things in college. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Keeping that in mind, I'm starting a blog series on college stories. Enjoy.

I lived in a small 2 1/2 bedroom, 1 bath house with 2 other music majors (I lived in the 1/2 bedroom). We would normally throw a party at the house following a performance. One morning we were trying to wind down one of these parties about 2 AM. (It was a school night, after all). We had a big trombone player (I'm guessing 6'3" 300 lbs) that refused to leave. He was too drunk to drive, but he lived around the block so we tried to convince him to walk home. Instead, he would walk around the house harassing the three of us. To be fair, this bone player was normally a nice guy, a good ole boy. Finally, our drunk asses got the idea to call the police and report a disturbance. One of my roommates made the call from his bedroom:

Commerce Police: Good morning, Commerce Police Department.
Eric: Yes, I'd like to report a disturbance at 1311 Lee St.
CPD: Yes sir, and where are you calling from?
Eric: (long, long pause) uh, the back bedroom. (Click, dial tone)

By the time the police made it to the house, the bone player had tired of us and left the house. My other roommate, on the other hand was sitting outside the house in his Firebird in his whitey-tighty underwear - don't ask me how that happened. I guess I got some sleep and made it to orchestration class at 8:00 the next morning.

More college stories to come!

Guilty Pleasures on TV

I love trashy reality TV. I don't mean unscripted shows like Survivor or The Real World which bear little resemblance to actual reality. I'm talking about shows like Cheaters, Maury Povich and Jerry Springer. Cheaters is the best. They follow a cheating spouse or lover around, gathering surveillance tapes showing them cheating. Then we get to see the confrontation between the two, usually in a public space as the cheater is with his other man or woman. (Interestingly, this show has no qualms about showing gay and lesbian relationships.)

I don't get to watch Springer anymore since they moved him to early morning here. (I like to watch, but not enough to set the VCR). Here in the Houston area, Springer was on at 3 P.M. for years. Imagine the young minds that warped.

Maury has about three different types of shows: Good things happen to deformed people, is it a woman or a man in drag, and paternity tests. I'll skip the first two shows, but I love the paternity tests. It amazes me that these women sleep around so much they don't know who the father of their child is. The alleged fathers always say the same thing, "I'm 110% sure that I'm not the father of the baby!" I feel sorry for the children, but I enjoy watching the show. I'll be the first to admit I live a charmed life, but these kind of shows make me realize I have absolutely NO problems when compared to these losers.

Thoughts on getting older

Until the end of May, I worked in a job that allowed me to sit on my ass for 5 - 6 hours a day. I was not very active. Since then, however, I have been very active. I began walking every morning (with and without my dog, Emma Tamale), playing golf, and playing baseball with my two sons, Taylor and Trent. My 38 year old overweight body told me yesterday to stop pushing so hard. After a morning round of golf, my body completely shut down. After lunch, I slept for 2 hours followed by watching TV coverage of the US Open until 5. Another nap until 7, supper, an episode of Las Vegas, then to sleep for 11 hours last night. I'm groggy today, but my sore body is recovering. I'm going to take things a little slower from now on. This old body's not what it used to be.

If the creative process is ongoing, I'm always getting something done.

Daddy tired.

Mobile phones

I'm not a big fan of mobile phones (cell phones), but I can usually tolerate them. I have one mainly so that I can contact other people, not so they can get in touch with me. I'm selfish that way. And text messaging I don't get at all. What a pain to enter the text. It's much easier for me to send text messages through a website.

I can understand people forgetting to turn off their cell phones when they go to a movie, church, whatever. We're all human and can be forgiven for overlooking this. I do have a problem, a BIG problem, with people who answer their cell phones in the movies instead of sheepishly turning it off. Mobile phones have been around for a while and society should have come up with an accepted etiquette by now.

Garfield

The movie, not the president. Suffered through this with my sons today. It had some promise - Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield. And Jennifer Love Hewitt is easy to look at. It was moving along alright when Garfield suddenly breaks into song: "New Dog State of Mind" to the tune of Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind." This quickly brought the movie to a screeching halt. The movie was mercifully short (not even 90 minutes) and it ended not a moment too soon. To give you a point of reference, this was worse than last summer's Kangaroo Jack.

Daddy no like. Go see something else.

Ben Stiller

Daddy doesn't like Ben Stiller. Will not be paying $8 to see Dodgeball. Have you seen his wife?!? Shows you what fame and money can get you.

out

The Bo-Keys - The Royal Sessions

My sister sent me this CD for my recent 38th birthday. I'm glad she did. This is a nasty, greasy mix of full-on funk, R&B, and soul ripped out by some masters in Memphis. These cats played with Isaac Hayes, Booker T and the M.G.'s, and sat in on Stax sessions. They throw down the jams live to tape and we get to listen in. If you want some music that feels like late 60s music updated for today - this is your stuff. This is released by Yellow Dog records in Memphis and can be purchased on Amazon and the like.

Daddy like. Smoke up some ribs and spin this ASAP.

Flag Day

June 14th is traditionally Flag Day in the US. This morning, I put up a US flag in front of my house - the only one on the block, sadly. I'm surprised that the politicians aren't all over this holiday and using it for photo ops, etc. It's a shame that I hear more about carbs than Flag Day.

til next time...

Introduction

I started my first blog earlier today as an assignment for a grad school course I'm taking. It will deal with that course, but I figured I'd go ahead and start a personal blog so that I can impart my wisdom over to the global community. It will be interesting to see how long I'll stick to it. After all, pretty soon everyone will have their own blog, won't they? I'm guessing that I'll write mainly reviews of CD's, books, and movies, but you never know when I may wax philosophical.

til next time..