The Blog Thread

[mightyjack]

Merry Krushev everyone and to all a good naught!

Since it has been a most terrible year for me. One would think that as 2005 gasps and wheezes its final breath, that I would sputter a sigh of relief. Ah, but that's where a bad year takes its final merciless shot at you. Because years go out on the most awesome of holidays; Christmas!

Christmas is a great time of year, unless your life stinks. If your life stinks Christmas is a bitter wedgie of death. This will be the first time in a loooong time that I'll be celebrating Christmas without a wife by my side. So it's easy to sus out that life at this point stinks like an unwashed jock strap.

This is all together new experience for me and one I was not prepared for. One side effect I've discovered is that my eye's have started leaking without provocation. I'm not talking great weeping and gnashing of teeth, no public wails of anguish here. No, nothing that dramatic. But rather my eyes squirt out simple streams of water without warning.

The other day I went to Taco Time to partake of their delicacies, when it hit me. From out of the blue I sprung a leak. It was quite uncomfortable and I can't imagine what the counter person was thinking.



I drive home and the floodgates open. I tell myself that if people notice they'll probably think I'm doing my Dick Shawn in "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" imitation. Yeah, probably.

I do the laundry in a haze of misted eyeballs.

My beard is soaking wet.

I wet 'em... bad.

Turkey day didn't do this too me. I didn't even tear up the time I dropped the Beatles Anthology book on foot a few weeks back. For the most part I've been numb. The walking dead, my emotional switch cut off. Then came Bronson, er, Christmas and suddenly I'm shooting out water like a Baby wets 'em doll.

I figure New Years could be worse - In a drunken stupor I break a window and cry out "DEBBIE!" (with my friend Crow). But after that I expect 2006 will bring smooth sailing. I hope to God it does; it can't get worse can it? I mean I can't see myself staggering up to the Taco Time drive through crying "CHIMECHANGAAA! I love ya baby!"

Gadzooks.

Merry Christmas everyone and here's to a leak free new year!

[mightyjack]

Christ I miss him.

There's been no one who spoke to me musically like Lennon did. I searched, hoping lightning would strike twice. But the only time I came close to finding it was when I heard Kurt Cobain on Nevermind.

John had the whole package. The haunting vocals, the melodic hooks that got under my skin and never left and more importantly - the lyrics that gave voice to my own feelings.
I was a shy and quiet lad who didn't know how to express himself. But when I heard songs like Nowhere Man and Help... it was then that I discovered the key that opened up a whole new world for me.
I was never ever the song writer Lennon was, but I found a way to express myself through music.

My love and respect for John Lennon goes beyond him being a brilliant artist. Through his art he helped me discover my own voice.
That's probably why I don't like to get into music discussions. Because for me, music isn't just a "nice beat you can dance too" - it's something very personal and when you insult a man's taste in music you insult something very precious, sincere and beautiful within that person.
Maybe that doesn't hold true for everyone - but it does for me, so I try to shut up when at all possible (though I've slipped up a time or two in this resolution)

When John was murdered, it opened a crack that revealed my own bitter mortality. Before he died I was pretty comfortable within my own universe. Confident that it would always endure. But then my heroes passed. My friends and family begin to slip away and suddenly I'm forced to face the fact that my universe isn't infinite. From the moment I opened my eyes I was on an inevitable trek to that shadow land called death.
When your young you can deny this truth but death wont be ignored for long. It is always there to remind you of your ultimate destination.

So I reflect and wonder what it all means. What John meant to me was special but it will end. And when I'm dead no one will care or really understand. My Universe will crumble away and fade, the things that meant so much to me will mean nothing to a future generation.

In a way this is very sad, but in a way it makes my life unique. My universe is mine, it can be no one else's. And while John's music touched a lot of people, perhaps in very similar ways, I believe it is like a fingerprint. No two exactly alike. Therefore it belongs to everyone and no-one. For each ear it becomes a distinct and rare treasure.
My universe might not exist forever but while it existed, it was special and when it's gone it can not be duplicated.

It could be this is all bunk. A desperate attempt to find some enduring meaning in my life. I don't know but it makes me feel good.

John Lennon was special and I heard him like no one else did. Likewise I can never completely fathom what his music sounded like to another. I know music is constructed of mathematical properties, but I think I breathes too. I think there's something alive within it.

John once said that he stopped trying to own his own music because the minute it was presented to the public it was no longer his alone anyway. It belonged to everyone who heard it. Because everyone who heard it made it their own.

What that song meant to him when he wrote it, will mean something different to the person who tunes it on the radio or places it in the player. That person transforms it and takes ownership of something unique and new.

And we all shine on?

John is gone, but through his music he lives. And his life grows and is beautiful and distinct.

[vanhagar3000]

mightyjack said:

Christmas is a great time of year, unless your life stinks. If your life stinks Christmas is a bitter wedgie of death.

I swear, I was going to blog the same thing, except more on mine! Just talk about how Christmas is great for great people, but if it's shitty, all it does is remind you how shitty your life is compared to those great people.

[Blurryeye]

Oh, Mighty Jack, your first blog had me rolling on the floor! It's so great that you have such an appreciation for the absurdity that arises from deep pain and sadness, and you can make it funny. Not that I'm happy you had a sad Christmas, of course not. But you made me laugh. And the second blog, those were some of the most touching words I've read online. I also don't usually like to discuss music and movies that are close to my heart and soul. Your thoughts and feelings you've shared on this board have had an effect on me. I just want you to know I will always remember you. You are a special person to me. And you're a fine writer, too.

I'm looking forward to your blog about New Year's Eve!

[mightyjack]

Thank you for those kind words Blurry

New Years, New Years was pretty weak. I wish something extraordinary had happened but it was pretty mundane. I had to take the cat to the vet. Which probably speaks to how mundane 2006 might become.
In an attempt to generate some fun – I went out to an old pizza joint I used to frequent in my College days. But it wasn’t the same… because my old College buddies are long married and moved and I can’t stay up all night and drink like we used too. So I was sitting alone and the calazone wasn’t as brilliant as I remembered. Do tatsebuds grow old, because I used to like food a lot more back then it seems. There’s a sandwich called a stromboli that was Heaven back in the day. And it wasn’t as fantastic either.

But I’m rambling, the point being, you really can’t go home again. I always thought that was a stupid saying, but it’s true. Nothing seems to match up with the memory of the thing – the food isn’t as delectable as it once was, drinking isn’t as fun (mainly because the bladder doesn’t work like it used to and you end up having to make those long treks through cold, dark halls all through the night) and you spend much of your time asking your brother questions like, “What ever happened to that Bowling alley on Mission?”

Here I am, 25 years later and while much of the Gonzaga district is the same, many of the hangouts survived (Gino’s, the Bulldog Tavern - The Square Dance costume shop even… not that I hung out there, but you know what I’m saying); I can’t bring back the same youthful exuberance. The bottom line is that despite my best efforts, I was a pathetic old man sitting alone nursing a Smirnoff in an empty College area pizza joint. Happy New Years!

So I drove home to my brother’s basement and took a nap. Because naps are like manna from God when you get older. I awoke; we did the countdown, clicked glasses, talked about our aches and pains and then tucked the kids into bed.

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this ‘growing up’ thing. I’m fighting it like mad because it’s a raw deal. Trading pizza for Liptor isn’t the kick one would suppose. I can’t rock and roll all night and party every day like I used to. In the last gig I played in Nashville, after our set was finished, the Bass player sat on his amp, slumped over, wiped his brow as sighed… “Rock and roll is for the young”. We were tired and couldn’t pull the ‘all nighter then go to work in the morning’ routine anymore - and at first that seems like a major rip off. But then I take one look at Keith Richards and realize that it isn’t. You either go with the flow, or fight it. retard your growth and look like that.

Yipes!

Life really is what happens while your busy making other plans.

[mightyjack]

Quick thoughts:

* What is the funniest food of all time? I nominate the potato. I came to this earth shattering conclusion after watching an episode of Lexx. The one that featured 3 astronauts from the planet "Potato-Hoe" - As a series, Lexx can be downright... wrong. And this episode is so...wrong. But hilarious - and the potato quips were a big part of that hilarity.

But I don't base my theory on a single example. I offer exhibit 2: Red Dwarf. Rimmer has contracted a holo-virus and in one of the most side splitting moments of the series, he starts babbling about the "King of the Potato People".

Exhibit 3: Our very own MST3K. Deathstalker and the Warriors From Hell. When Stalker suggest consuming a rabbit, the shocked potato woman pronounces..."Potatos are what we eat" and one of the bots respond.. "Uh I meant a potato rabbit"

Exhibit 4 would involve the very spelling of potato(e). Googlesearch Dan Quayle for the reasons why.

I'm sure there are other exhibits out there. And I am offering a no dollar reward for information on the whereabouts of more potato comedy.

[Cleolanta]

I adore that Red Dwarf episode. "I'm sitting here wearing a gingham dress...and combat boots..." he says in this menacingly dry, calm tone "....and you say I'm perfectly sane?"

:P

Anyway. Another example of potato humour--well, what about the Weird Al song, "Addicted to Spuds"? Always a favourite of mine. :)

...Notorious

[Bix Dugan]

Mr. Potato Head.

From Beverly Hills Cop:
"I'm not gonna fall for that potato in the tailpipe thing"

crap- that was a banana. never mind.

Potatoes get old, and the Eyes start growing into roots!