Codified by my buddy ben:
three rules of bourbon:
Inspired by the horrifying "How to Irrigate Your Nasal Passages."
Ben: bukowski, huh?
Me: sure.
Me: he's a bit fucked up.
Ben: oh yeah
Ben: but in an awesome old and shitty way
Me: hehe.
Me: yeah.
…
Me: basically, if something happened to sara, and i'm left a childless widower, i see that as being a possible outcome for my life.
Me: just go down that road.
Me: fuck it.
Me: lonely drunk friendless whoring writer.
Me: hm. that sounds pretty bad, actually.
Ben: yeah
Me: maybe just drunk writer.
Me: that's a little better.
last night, after a two year absence from the stage, saw the re-emergence of Louisville's own Old Man. It was a great show, with some old classics and new hot ones from the album that's in the offing.
The Rud was much the same as I remember (my band also hasn't had a show in quite some time, and we haven't played the Rud for quite some time besides), but now they've settled on the "back stage," which i think is a major improvement from the "mid" stage. The sound is still mushy as ever. I think the Rud's sound system (or sound guys, i'm not sure which) is better suited for simpler acts, like… well, mainly vocalists, poets, plays, etc. I think you throw some guitars and drums in the mix, and the system has to work beyond it's limits to get the sound out there. Which is not to say that it's bad, just that there's some color to it. I still think the Rud is a great place to play, and a great place to see a show.
so Old Man rocked it out, did a superb job, and i enjoyed it thoroughly. oh, and there was a song with neil on the harmonica, putting the folk into "punk/folk." very cool.
following Old Man was an actual old man, alone on stage with his acoustic, strapless guitar, and his haunting voice and often nonsensical lyrics. i think everyone was pretty much alternately astounded and confounded by the performance. some of the lyrics i couldn't make out, and the ones that i could, well, some didn't seem to make any sense at all, as if they were just words stuck together for no particular reason, others made complete sense, but perhaps the most interesting part was that there was a deepness of emotion behind every lyric. in the end, the only pronouncement i could make was, "it wasn't good, but it was awesome." oh, and i told neil somebody should do a study on the guy, see how his brain works.
most of the rest of the evening was spent hanging out with friends, some of whom i haven't seen in several months. it was good to catch up, hell, it was good just to be around them again. it also gave the prick an opportunity to talk about finally making use of the practice space we've had for a month now. hopefully this week, we'll at least be able to get our stuff moved in, which will act as a catalyst towards getting us to the practice space at least once a week to *use* that stuff. i'm looking forward to it. i'm excited by the idea of a "new beginning" for the band, and have been itching to strum the strings for a while. (i'm a terrible guitar player, if i'm not at practice, i hardly ever touch the thing, except to move it from one spot to another.) if all goes well, perhaps we'll be ready for our resurgence party in 6 months or so.
Technorati Tags: Louisville, Old Man, the Rudyard Kipling, stage, show, sound, band, practice, friends
| categories :: | Cool Links - Drinking - Friends - Happy/Love - Local/Louisville - Lucifigous Prick - Music - Nostalgia - Personal Projects - Raves |
Ahhh…the year-end wrap-up. Where to start? To be honest, most of the shit that happened to me I didn't post about. Why have I been maintaining radio silence? Who knows?
I finally joined the rest of the web-using world and started utilizing digg. I even dugg a post I posted here. Oh…I'm such a whore.
Today I'm bemoaning the fact that we're not a more regularly updated, noticed "blog." I mean…they could have sent us a couple of these, for fucksake.
I've spent an inordinate amount of time listening to Neil Young, lately. Mostly Crazy Horse material. It's speaking to the parts of the brain Brooksie and I have started activating for the new band. Speaking of the new band, it's tentatively titled "Birth Machine." We expect to rattle the foundation of a local venue this spring.
I guess the biggest news of the season is that i had to have Clyde put to sleep (the Thursday before Christmas; it made the holiday even more fun). Some of you long-time readers (if there's any left) will remember Clyde as my beloved cat of the past decade. She had a tumor on her chest that spread to her lungs. Toward the end she was having trouble breathing and would only eat fresh turkey and "catmilk" (speaking of which, I have two things of that stuff left, if anyone needs/wants it), which made us think it was all just some elaborate scam on her part. Regardless, we couldn't take it anymore and took her back to the vet. He gave us the dire news and we all endured a bit of pre-holiday heartbreak.
Needless to say, she's incredibly missed.
Clyde – 1996-2006
| categories :: | Bipolar: Year End Recap - Birth Machine - Clyde - Computers/Tech - Drinking - Family - Music - Nothing - Photography - x:13 Family |
wow. what a weekend. probably the most solidly fun couple of days I've had in a while. friday night i ended up at a party in some friends' practice space. lots of booze, lots of other stuff. lots of fun with lots of friends. i was up until about 4am.
and then i was back awake at 9am to go shooting at the knob creek gun range. before saturday, i hadn't shot a gun for a good 10-15 years. i guess it just doesn't come up in daily life in the city. well…at least not the parts of the city i've lived in. despite my long lapse, i think i did decently well. i hit within the circle 11 out of 18 shots (one of them on the right side got ripped off when we removed the target from the box it was taped and stapled to) I fired 20 rounds, but I wasted two shots blowing up a dr. pepper bottle that was on top of my target. here's a gratuitous shot of me glockin' it up.
after that, we went to ernesto's for some mexican and a couple pitchers of dos equis. i ended up getting home a little buzzed and alot tired, so i took a nap.
i woke up from my nap at around 8:30. from there it was out the door to pick up some equipment and then head out to the dead child show. i will go ahead and say that this show had the best line-up of bands that this city has seen in years. pusher, lords, blade of the ripper, dead child…wall-to-wall metal mayhem. i recorded the whole thing. expect the sets to start showing up on transmission3000 soon. after the show, i ended up staying up until 6:30am, generally getting up to no good.
fittingly, i didn't do jack shit, yesterday.
today…back to work. i have to take my car back into the fucking shop when i get off work, as the door handle stopped working about 4 hours after i picked the car up, last thursday. i think i got about 5 opens out of it before it died again. splendid.
jesus, it's been a long day. (see technically, this is still the 22nd for me, so this is Saturday's post).
i finally decided (thursday) to take Sara up on her suggestion, and join her running team. now, mind you, i have no intention of running any races, or doing any of that really crazy stuff. if it's raining or snowing, my ass will be sleeping. but nevertheless, i got up at 8 am, donned my newly purchased running apparel (with that fancy "water-wicking" fabric, bought on sale at Tar-jay), got my ass down to the track at Seneca park, and proceeded to run/walk 3.something miles. ouch. my thighs still hurt.
afterwards, we went out for a celebratory breakfast at Bob Evans–her celebrating that i finally got off my ass and exercised, me celebrating that i did so and didn't keel over from a heart attack. then we went home for about… oh, five seconds… then ran out to meet our realtor to look at a condo and a house we were interested in getting second opinions on. her dad joined us, to help give us advice. turns out, both places were really not great, so we're now moving on to other possibilities. with each additional "unnacceptable," we're moving farther out from the epicenter of our target area, but y'know, there's not much we can do about that without winning the lottery or something. next step, a place sort-of out by bowman field.
i also finally got my papers from the military, and it looks like i'll not be eligible for the VA loan i was kind of holding out a dim flicker of hope for. so, now we gotta find out what exactly we qualify for. then, the "real" search begins.
after that, we chilled at my place for about… 15 minutes, then headed out to a birthday party for her little five-year-old niece. food, family, and er… fun-ish.
the last stop of the night was a birthday gathering for the inimitable puffin, at ZA's. we hung out until the early-to-bedder's (including my lovely fiance) had to beat a retreat, then proceeded to make fun of the ska and rap bands that set up to play a show. we were all getting pretty soused and having a good time, none moreso than neil.
a highlight of the evening was getting to hang out with brian for the first time in god-knows-how-long. but really, the whole evening was great, and i think the puffin could hardly have asked for a better birthday celebration. good food, good drink, good friends, and bad bands.
loverly.
oh, and my thighs are still sore.
| categories :: | Birthday - Drinking - Family - Friends - Happy/Love - Music - Personal Projects - Wedding - Wife |
Day Four: oh goodness, if any day on this trip were a potential candidate for some moderately successful stand-up-comedian to base an inane sitcom on, this would have been the day, or at least the morning.
so, we get up at the ass-crack of dawn, because i in my infinite wisdom neglected to remember that one of my best friends was getting married. i had received the invitation in plenty of time, but hadn't considered the need to commit the date to memory because i a) never plan things that far in advance, and b) knew that as the date approached, it would get mentioned at least once and preparations would have to start being made at some point before-hand.
so, yes, i forgot. not only did i forget, but i planned a trip out of town for that very weekend. luckily, after realizing the utterly inexcusable error i'd made, i was able to wrestle the airline (wasn't that hard, really, they were quite nice) into bumping us up to an earlier flight, but just sara & i–not our traveling companions.
anyway, back to the story at hand, which i believe left off somewhere around the dawn of a stand-up-comedian's ass-crack, or something.
we figure we're doing fine. a teeny-tiny bit behind schedule, perhaps, but still plenty of time to get to union station via the metro, which has a stop only two blocks from the hotel.
little do we know that the Metro doesn't start running until much later than 6 something AM on Sundays.
Metro's closed. We walk back to the hotel and talk to the desk clerk to explain our situation and ask for advice. luckily, another hotel customer who'd just checked out had hailed a cab, and was on her way to, of all places, the very airport we needed to get to–in Baltimore. so, we asked and were granted permission to share her cab, which ended up saving her some money, and us as well, if we'd ended up having to get our own.
disaster averted, we made it to the airport in time, boarded the plane (finally) and were headed for home.
the wedding is scheduled for 3:00pm. we arrive in Louisville around noon. after sara's mom picks us up and takes us home, i have to leave straight-away and head for the mall to pick up my un-tried-on tuxedo.
no trouble at the mall, no trouble with the tux, i realize i actually have enough time (barely) to head back to the house to kick my feet up for exactly 10 minutes before i have to leave again to make it to the wedding in time to figure out what exactly it is i'm expected to do.
i meet the puffin at home, and we chat briefly, then head out. of course, once we get there, there's still almost a full hour and a half before the ceremony begins, time that will be filled with stuffing ourselves into suits and getting pictures taken with the sun burning holes in our retinas.
that finally out of the way, we retreat inside and watch as the guests arrive. Jess finally takes a few moments to explain to me how the whole processional thing is going to work, and where i'll need to stand, and what direction i should face and whatnot. no problem, i may as well have done this a hundred times. paul & I are, after all, professional best men for hire.
the ceremony / cookoff begins. the sun is beating unmercifully down on us in our plastic shoes and thick ass black clothing. i think i sweated out more water than i typically drink in a week. no one passed out though, so that was a good thing.
the ceremony was nice, if a tad bit long winded… perhaps it just felt that way to me because the time-center of my brain was actually melting and dripping out of my right ear.
after the ceremony, the beer and wine flowed freely, and dinner was served. we (paul, sara, and I) rounded up the rest of the crew (brian & elizabeth, and jim & lori) to share a table in the main guests of honor dining room. the food was quite good, and aside from a moment where one of the employees of the reception hall told me to put away my flask (since hard liquor is against the rules), it was quite enjoyable.
after the dinner, there was a bit of socializing, sara and i went out and took several photos in the gardens, and then hooked back up with the rest of the crew to hang out and chat
most of the guests seemed to depart pretty quickly, probably at least partly because the reception was split up into a "main" room and a "other friends" room. and since the largest portion of the crowd was outside of the "main" room where the dancing was supposed to take place, i think they just decided to call it early and head home.
we stayed and hung out while brian, elizabeth, jim, and lori all drank copious amounts of wine. after a time, we decided it was about time to leave, so i had to run get my tux. the room was locked, and after getting one of the guys in charge to unlock it for me, we found that my tux wasn't in there. i was a bit concerned for a moment, but figured that john had probably picked it up. so, then i had to hunt him down.
when i finally did find him, he & his buddies were all hanging out by his (dad's?) truck, where all the remaining alcohol and other drinks had been moved, and john was offering for the stragglers to take away whatever they could carry.
after asking john about the tux and learning that his best man had taken it (as he was taking others) so that he could return them all to the rental place at the same time. since i didn't have to worry anymore, i ran off to find the drunkards (and sara) to let them know about the alcoholic bounty that was to be had from the back of a truck.
brian & jim, of course, practically sprinted as fast as their inebriated little legs would carry them.
i'm not sure how much brian made off with, but i know that jim landed at least 6 bottles of various wines, and at least one–if not two–cases of some cheap beer. jim was a happy man
finally the day was coming to a close, and sara and i retired to my house to chill out and decompress from the stressful and tiring but still enjoyable vacation.
as we decided though, the next vacation will involve a beach and very little walking/movement. unless, of course, we go to France soon to visit my sis and my soon-to-be niece or nephew
and that, my friends, is the story of my and sara's first vacation together, and our second attended wedding.
don't forget, enjoy the gallery!
Day Three: today, we decided to visit the other monuments in the Mall, and to spend some time at the Air & Space Museum (this was really my only mandatory activity for the whole trip–i wasn't about to visit D.C. without going to the Air & Space Museum).
we set out from the probably somewhere in the range of 10:30 to 11:00, and proceeded to the Mall. we made it back to the Washington Monument, then made our way towards the construction zone, avoiding touring school-children, gaggles of the elderly, and middle-aged couples walking hand in hand discussing whatever it is that middle-aged hand-in-hand type couples discuss.
one end of the lawn was boarded, roped, fenced, and otherwise closed off, but there were gateways through the fencing at the crosswalks to let onto the sidewalks that lead along the reflecting pool at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. now, if you've not been to D.C., or if you've been but have never seen the reflecting pool, let me just prepare you… it is a green festering dirty filthy mess. not nearly so "beautiful" as we may've been led to believe by the movies, photographs, and other images. that shit looks nasty, and, while i didn't walk directly along the edge of the pool, i imagine it probably stunk. it looked like it would stink. much like our society and especially our government, it looks pretty nice from far away, but once you get right up close, you can see that it's unkempt, rundown, dirty, and ugly. "reflecting" indeed.
anyway… before we made it to the Lincoln Memorial, i noticed the Korean War Veterans Memorial off to the side as we approached, so i detoured our contingent to go get a peek. i remembered ben and geoff talking about it at some point in the past, and remembered the images i'd seen from it, so i wanted to go get a real look at it. it was pretty cool, but i think this was really the point in the trip where i started wishing that i could visit these places without hundreds of other people. i couldn't "connect" with the memorial, or any of the memorials we visited, because i couldn't "disconnect" from all the people milling about.
next we went on to the Lincoln Memorial. it is huge. it was cool.
after that, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. my companions were all visibly moved by it, once we reached the other side, but once again, somehow i managed not to take it in or be effected by it. i have no immediate personal connection to that conflict, at least not through a familial loss, because though most of the male members of my extended family (who were of age) did serve in that war, they all returned.
after the Vietnam Memorial, we left the Mall and headed for the nearest Metro stop (10 blocks away or some crazy shit like that) and headed back around to the Air & Space Museum.
you've doubtless heard the old analogy of the kid in the candy store, right? well, that certainly could've been applied to me. rockets and manned space capsules and jets and… just all kinds of really cool shit.
probably my favorite of the exhibits was the Apollo moon shot exhibit, followed closely by the history of aviation exhibit. they also had the crazy ass space flight simulators or airplane simulators or whatever they were–the ones with the pneumatic chambers that shake, move, twist, and turn the little cabin that you're sitting in. i really wanted to do that, but the wait was over an hour, and we were only planning on spending 4 or so there.
the freakiest thing of the whole trip though, was when we decided to get some lunch after walking through a couple exhibits. there was a food court area in a sectioned off area of the building, and the restaurant was a combined McDonald's (ick), Boston Market, and Donato's Pizzeria. i can hardly describe the level of freakishness that this fast-food place has managed to achieve… think of a drive-through restaurant for race-car drivers, only there're no cars… think of cattle lining up to be slaughtered, and each being able to pick which particular shape of knife gets to be drawn across its throat… think of being shoved in a bright, metal & glass elevator car, going up at ridiculous speeds and having grease, meat, bread and french fries squeezed through a strainer in the ceiling above you.
ok, now think of something just a touch less freakish.
yeah. fucking packed… PACKED with people—scads, scores, gobs of people—in long lines where you first place your order with a disinterested person sitting in a bright metal chair, and then are told to go to the next person who will collect your money. then, after paying, you have to step up to the "counter" to pick up your "meal." each successive person looking like they give even less of a shit than the last, and the food you're handed, if hot, is only just barely so. hell, i'm freaking out right now just thinking about it.
so anyway, we ate the crappy food at the freaky food court, then went on back out to get some more exhibits under our belts before meeting ben & mary (who'd been sitting on a bench or in the planet-arium for most of the day).
after the Museum, we were dog tired (and still freaked out about the food court), so we went back to the hotel and crashed for a few hours, before going back out on the town for dinner.
this evening we kind of jazzed it up a bit. we walked out to this place that ben had found (we tended to leave the dining decisions to ben & mary it seemed, so we ended up eating at much more high-class establishments than i can imagine i would've picked) and checked in at the front table. there were actually two separate restaurants in the same… er… restaurant–one for the lower upper middle class, the other for the lower upper class. ben picked the one he thought was the former, and we proceeded downstairs to a nice big round table with all the accoutrements including the cloth napkins all folded and placed decoratively on the plate. we opened the fancy menus in the nice leather-bound folders, and stared aghast at the $15 asking price for a house salad. needless to say, we stared even more aghast at the $40 – $60 dollar entrees, then promptly told the waiter that there'd been a mistake and we needed to go back upstairs to the "cheap seats".
somehow, at this point, $5 for a Beam & Coke, and $15 for an entree didn't seem all that bad.
the food was good (thank god, or someone would've lost an eye or limb) and we were satisfied with our last day & night in D.C.
well, almost. sara & i decided to go back to the White House, as there was some issue of film not advancing properly in her camera the night before, and she wanted to make sure she got some night shots of the White House. we did, and we had a nice leisurely stroll through the streets of D.C., just the two of us hand-in-hand, talking about whatever it is that young hand-in-hand type couples talk about on their last night on their first vacation together.
we went back to the hotel and prepared for our early morning departure, and a day of potential chaos.
| categories :: | Computers/Tech - Cool Links - Drinking - Friends - Happy/Love - Indifferent - Love Life - Politics - Rants - Society - Travel - TV - Upset/Dislike |
well, what a helluva week.
i feel like i've just been running around crazy the whole time, accomplishing very little besides running around crazy.
in preparation for the show, the band had our normal practice on Sunday night, an extra practice on Monday night, normal practice on Tuesday night, then, of course, the show on Wednesday.
right now i'm trying to remember what i did last night. i stayed late at work (since i was three hours late going in), had dinner, read a comic or two, wrote yesterday's post, uh… talked on the phone for some lengthy amount of time… and i guess that was it.
tonight… more of the same. except tonight is Friday. this means that tonight is drinky-drink & hangout night at the bar. i missed last week's session because i ended up falling asleep around 10:30pm and sleeping 'til 10:30am on Saturday. This week i'm going to actually go out.
now, since nothing else exciting has been going on this week, and certainly not since yesterday's post, i'll leave you with this little blogger's cliche–the search strings.
August's winners:
i'm getting my ass boyfriend back showing myself off to everybody
pee in my butt
child-birthing photos
(that last one's not all that strange, i suppose, but i had to include one that leads to one of my posts. yeah, you see where i'm going with that comment.)
well, i'm off to visit with Mr. Beam, y'all have a good weekend.
| categories :: | Bipolar: News - Comics - Drinking - Friends - Lucifigous Prick - Work |
i don't know if i've mentioned this before, but–aside from all the hot girls in skimpy clothes–i really fucking hate summer. especially summer in the Ohio Valley where the humidty reaches claustrophobic levels. and especially when the AC in your house has decided to be lazy. factor in the fact that my AC in my car is also not working (and that i'm too broke & lazy & anti-spending-more-money-on-my-car to fix it), and you can understand why i feel this way.
there's something about waking up sweating, taking a shower and sweating when you get out, then sweating in the car on the way to work–where it takes about 45 minutes before your body cools down enough to stop sweating. then, at the end of the day–after your car's been sitting out in the hot sun all day under it's direct harsh radiation–you leave the comfortably cool confines of your workplace for your iron-smelting factory of a car, drive home sweating your ass off, then walk inside the house only to realize it's about 1 degree cooler than outside and just as fucking humid.
the something that i was talking about is this:
it sucks. i hate sweating when i'm not doing anything to deserve it. i don't mind a good healthy exercise sweat, i don't mind a good sexual escapade sweat. but i do mind a walking down the stairs, or sitting in front of the TV sweat. blah.
so, anyway, it's hot and i hate it.
our good friend Nate came down this weekend for the cookout that wasn't. so we decided to just hangout and drink friday, and we did a good job of it. as brian mentioned, i got quite quite drunk (as did most everyone else) having consumed a total of (i think) 5 moonbeams most of which were at least 50% whiskey. i'd have to guess that i probably drank about 15 shots worth of whiskey. not too shabby.
and yes, despite the fact that i actually went to bed drunk (which is extremely difficult for me to do), and that i only got in one cup of coffee before doing that, i still woke up with no hangover. i wasn't completely unaffected, but i didn't have a hangover. i had maybe a love-letter from a hangover, or a picture of a hang-over, but not the actual hangover itself. a hint of a hangover.
saturday saw us recovering, and Nathan and I played a *lot* of GTAIII. We went to ZA's about 11ish, and saw Green Formica Table play. I'd heard Paul playing some of their stuff the past week or so, so i had an inkling of what to expect, but they were so so much better than my expectations. They were really good. right up my alley. Take a heavy smattering of experimental Sonic Youth (loud, raucous sound-scapes) tossed with a mixture of esoteric japanese girl-group pop, and you're in the same Zip-code as these guys. The guitar playing was at turns phenomenal and "dreamy." and the drummer was amazing as she sang half the songs while keeping a solid inventive beat. needless to say, i was impressed, and if you're in the Louisville area, you need *need* to check these guys out.
after the show was mostly over (all of our other friends had left when the 2nd band was playing, and we left later on in their set when it became obvious that they weren't going to be able to break out of the formulaic punk music theme) Nate, Brax, and i walked down to the Backdoor so they could split a pitcher. Having drank too much on Friday, i'd declined alcoholic beverages all night, and continued this trend at the bar.
I ran into Geoff there, not having seen him since the day a couple weeks ago when he was laid off from work. It was good to see him again and see that he was doing well. We chatted and joked for a while about various things and generally just took some time to catch up and have a mutual support & reassurance party.
Since Brax & Nate are the only sports fans in our little cloister, they were busily yapping away about sports stuff, so it was just as well that i'd found someone else to hang out and talk to for a while. The rest of the evening, i just kind of hung out and did some people watching. Sipping on my plain coke.
After the bar–more GTAIII. After the GTAIII–the sleep. After the sleep–the call from my sis in France. After the call–you're caught up.
It's been a fun weekend. I've had to set aside my projects, but i'll be back into them hard-core this week.
Ok. It's time for lunch. Gotta go get my Kefc on.
| categories :: | Drinking - Family - Friends - Music - Pleased/Like - Pop Culture - Rants - Upset/Dislike - Work |
