Making Peace

So Wednesday was another Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers show. I didn't blog about it yesterday because I was slightly "under the weather". Some idiot decided to buy a last call round of tequila shots, and I woke up feeling a little puny. (Remind me not to go out with that girl again.) So of course the day when I'd rather stare into the mid-distance ends up being the busiest day of the week. Damn you Jose Cuervo!

So anyway, though my memories of the show are a little blurry, sort of a pleasant soft focus, it was the usual good time had by all. And I've more or less decided that Nada isn't just my favorite Roger Clyne song, it's my favorite song. Ever. And yes, another RCPM show. And no the band hasn't taken out a stalking restraining order on me. In the world of Peacemakers fans, I'm actually pretty low-level. There were people there who drove in from Austin and Oklahoma. On a Wednesday night! That's love, man.

I do have a sharper memory of the warm-up band, Garble-Garble-Blah-Blah. Somebody should tell the lead singer that while it can be considered a certain kind of vocal style to slur the words to all your songs (not my taste, but whatever), you should always say the name of your band clearly should anyone (again, not me) want to find one of your miserable, tuneless little albums. The lead singer looked like a young Gordon Ramsay (which might have been my taste if it weren't for the mush-mouthed thing). The drummer looked like he came to the gig from his Hebrew school class. My friend Hawkeye would call him a crime against drummer-hood. Talk about born to be mild. Then they had a guy that either looked like an extra from Deliverance, or possibly the safe cracker from a French heist film, who played heavy metal banjo and punk accordian. He was wailing on that banjo. Freals. The other two guys who played guitar were virtually indistinguishable, except for the fact that one sucked and the other deserved to be in a much better band. Every song they played was like the bad track on album that you like, but don't that one song hate enough to get up and push the forward button on the stereo. I kept thinking they must have a better song. Nope.

But I made it past their general suck-wha set, and enjoyed every second of RCPM. And it re-affirmed for me my committment to maintaining radio silence on a band before a show. I'd stopped all Peacemakers tunes on my iPod the traditional week before the show. So it was like my ears were re-virginized. Can't wait for the next show.

A vampire lucky to not have a reflection

I've never read the Southern Vampire series. But I've always thought - eh, maybe sometime when I'm looking for a new series. Vampire + hot sweaty southern nights has possibilites. And I even vaguely considered getting HBO for a few months when I heard Alan Ball was doing the series. And it's got that little Anna Paquin. It could be good, right?

Then I see this picture. What the hell? That's the vampire? Is the Southern Vampire series about dork vampires? He looks like he was working as a middle-school history teacher when he was "turned". And if your hair won't grow after you've gone to the dark side, this argues against ever living with a bad haircut. One bite from a creature of the night, and you're stuck looking like a SuperCuts tragedy for eternity. And are those fangs? Or just a really bad overbite? All I can think of is him going for my neck, and me saying "Ew, ew, get off me. Yes, I did my homework. Go away." A young Frank Langella he ain't. He's not even a young George Hamilton.

Thanks, no, HBO. I'll pass.

Think Global, Drink Local

I try to buy local when I can. But it's just not a real big trend in Dallas so far. Anything that smacks of hippie takes awhile to catch on here. I'm not sure what the hippies ever did to Texas, but there is a bedrock distrust for anything that has the air of long hair around here. Aside from a few local producers, mostly regional fruit and veg, some wines and honey, nobody seems to be in all that big of a rush to get Made in Texas on the shelves.

With that in mind, I was blown away when I went to my local liquor store and found 2, count 'em - 2!, Texas-made vodkas on the shelves. I was astonished. Who'da thunk? Vodka isn't exactly the first drink that comes to mind when you think Texas. Hell, it's not even the 5th or 6th. But I had a choice of reasonably priced Lone Star State vodkas to chose from. I bought one (Dripping Springs), and my friend bought the other (Tito's). Wow. Booze made in my own area. I feel so green.

I haven't had a chance to try either one out. But I'm sure they'll both be super smooth and tasty. And dang, if I can find local hooch here that isn't made in somebody's backyard, there just might be hope for this old town yet.

It's called noblesse oblige, honey. Look it up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/business/worldbusiness/01vogue.html?no_interstitial

Hmm. Showing an impoverished Indian person holding a $10,000* handbag is vulgar and in poor taste. But a TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR HANDBAG isn't? Gross consumerism is just that - gross. Vulgar. Distasteful. No matter whose arm it hangs on. And getting called out (however inadvertently) for spending more than the international poverty line on something to haul around your Tic Tacs, cell phone and Black Card, well, that stings a little. And I truly adore the comment that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful." Oh, a rich person can buy fashion. And the wealthy might even be able to purchase style. But taste? Apparently not.

* Per capita income in India = $997(US)/$2700(PPP); number of micro loans for women in the 3rd world that could be funded by $10,000 = 400; behaving like an aristo 3 seconds before the Bastille was stormed? Priceless.

And one more thing . . .

Well, while I'm on the subject, here's another vice that's becoming rapidly untenable - sleeping in. Totally, totally sucks. If I sleep in longer than an hour or so, I end up feeling like holy hell. And the marathon sleep session until noon was one of my favorite crimes against my upbringing.

My parents view sleeping in as indulgent to the level of, say, wiping your nose with $5 bill or using the vometorium. WASTING daylight hours. Personally, I usually found a good lie in to be investing in my mental health, rather than a waste. But they would suddenly go Trotsky-ite on my decadent bourgeois, Americaniski habits. Too the gulag with you, enemy of the people!

And since my parents disapproved, that would make a Saturday morning in bed just that much sweeter. Aaahhh. Roll over. Snooze some more. Wallow in it. And wake up feeling that delicious rested-all-over sensation.

But now I wake up with a muzzy head, and not feeling any more rested than if I got up at my normal time. If I get my usual 8 plus maybe 1 or 1.5 hours more, I'm good. Any more than that, and it's just the Law of Diminishing returns. And sometimes, I can't even do the +1. I'm up with my regular alarm. What a waste of a perfectly good Saturday morning. I could be sleeping, but instead I'm wandering around looking for coffee. Just poop. Sucks getting old.

Sarah Palin

Yep.  Abstinence-only education.  Very effective.

Another Labor Day, Another Storm

Okay, I have to leave my house.  Because if I don't, I will spend all day watching Gustav coverage.  I've already seen they've made Gary Tuchman from CNN evacuate from the Lower 9th.  I swear to Jesus, one of these days I'm going to see that man reporting from a hurricane in scuba gear.  He loves some heavy weather gear.  (whoops - there's some major dead air on CNN.  They're starting to lose communications)

What the hell is it with hurricanes?  Do they hate Labor Day weekend?  

Looks like one gift from Katrina and Rita is that we are starting to treat hurricanes with the respect due.  Hopefully for many years lives will be saved because we remember what happened in 2005. 

Now I really need to go outside or I'll make myself crazy watching those damn levies.  See y'all tomorrow.

[Message to Des:  Hope you didn't get anything but a little rain out of this.  Stay safe and dry!]