Obligatory Thanksgiving Post

I ate turkey. I'm going to see the Predators play the Oilers since the tickets are paid for. It is very cold in Tennessee. Life goes on. I am ready for a new year already.

So UnFoCUseD

My brain is so unfocused. I wonder if it's a product of the new media world we live in or if it's just your standard "shudder" middle age "shudder" thing. It's probably just me. Always with a book open when the television or radio is on. Maybe read 2 sentences and then throw the book on top of the pile and grab another one or maybe a magazine. Always starting but never finishing for months on end and then suddenly I get focused and have read 7 books in a row or written 7 new songs. My unemployment is not helping matters. Now I can spread my unfocused energies across the spectrum. I spent an hour the other day writing a piece for this blog, when I suddenly realized I had written much the same piece 8 years earlier. I feel like a gunfighter out of bullets. Nothing left to do but throw my boots and spurs and run.

Flailing

Deepak Chopra was on Conan last night saying one should not think of the past or the future but only of now, because that is all we all. The present. But Ken Kesey taught me there is no present. We are all just merely watching a movie in our minds. Always a synapse firing away from actual now. Be here now is a logical impossibility.

My current mood to all of this is to go full on Monty Python "taunt you a second time" mode. I am currently without a job. Due to my back the only work I can obtain would be office related. I know I should be patient. My skills and experience should land me somewhere soon, but that evil genius Tom Petty was right about the "waiting being the hardest part" even if we was referring to love and not career. To think Clive Davis picked Dwight Twilley over Tom.

I am just flailing right now. All of my close friends live far away. I am mentally and physically wasting away in Smithville. The small town atmosphere was okay when all of my children were small, but I feel like my brain cells aren't merely dying. They are escaping through my skull screaming through the atmosphere before imploding.

Perhaps it's not just locale and lack of a job though. Perhaps I'm on the verge of a full fledged middle aged morbid breakdown. Hair falling out. Fat piling on. Friends I knew back in the day dropping like flies too. Perhaps there is nothing new under the sun and this part of my life is the same normality most people never let on to having. All I know is I have to got to get it together.

Sweet Lou Coney Island Warriors

Sunday's news that Lou Reed died shook me up. It shouldn't have been a shock. He'd been living on borrowed time since the 70's. Yet there I was on the verge of tears...at any minute I might have become a blubbering fool. But I kept my cool. I had to for Lou. After all; he was the coolest (sorry Fonzie, but you're like the Ted Nugent version of cool - all sex and rock'n'roll without the drugs).

I discovered the Velvet Underground in high school. Where The Doors had been bubblegum acid trips, the VU was the sound of the junkie gutter. Depravity. Ultimate rebellion. I was soon so into them that I was even checking out Delmore Schwartz books. I dipped into dreams being responsibilities. I bought Transformer and thought about hitting people with flowers. I learned guitar to "Sweet Jane" and formed a band. And then another one. And another one.

I've been listening to the Coney Island Baby album often since Sunday. It was a "comeback" album for Lou after Metal Machine Music had soured most everyone, besides Lester Bangs, on him. Coney Island Baby was received well by the critics. I think it even sold a few copies. I didn't get this record until I was pushing middle age and my first listen was one of mild amusement. That has changed over the years. I've come to admire it's studio sheen mixed with confessional Lou lyrics. It has a stately gutter punk grandeur to it that I like. It has comforted me in this first week without Lou.

Back From The Land Of The Dead

I am back. I've spent years wandering the land of the dead (Facebook), but I've had my fill of cat photos, political misinformation from all sides, dumb rumors....hell the list of time killing brain cell destroying items could take a lifetime to disclose. It almost destroyed my ability to communicate. To be, of all things, SOCIAL. So as of today I am breaking away back to my first foray into the web. Back to my home Soulfish Stew where the party never ends and where I am master of all. Where I am forced to confront a blank page and produce something for my and your amusement. Right now there is no amusement for me. I am jobless for the first time in 13 years. I made a huge mistake and switched departments where I worked and crashed and burned after a new manager came in. So I've got way too much time on my hand to play Doodle Jump. So I'm spending my days sending out resumes and perusing every job site out there. My fevered mind is in failure mode. Which is another reason I'm back to my blog. Forgive me if this starts slow, but soon I will be in full Wally spontaneous composing method and I will feel much better. I'm kicking around E-book ideas too. So don't cry for me Argentina....well okay cry a little. Things are going to look up for this intrepid fool.

Predators Bummer News

Rads suspended. This dude in the photo rejoices!

heard you missed me....not really

Moribund. One of those words I've always dug. Which is what this blog is now. Cobwebs cover my monitor. There's just no time. Work. Family. My kids playing basketball, soccer, and softball. Hockey games to attend. DVR filled up with shows to watch. Books to read. Time is shrinking like Lily Tomlin did. Snowballing to hell like Merle Haggard sang.

The one thing that still connects me to this blog is the spam comments that still come to my email in-box. The generalized stupidity of these people amazes me. Are they that stupid that they don't know I moderate comments. I delete anything even remotely spammy. My site log shows I'm down to 20 or so visitors a day anyways. Yet I'm not going to pull the plug.

I've just got to make time. And today I'm making time to talk about the new Van Halen single "Tattoo." Dave always liked to say "heard you missed us, well we're back" and this time all I've got to say is not really. Sonically the track sounds hot, but the lyrics are borderline wretched. The chorus goes "swapmeet Sally, tramp stamp cat, from mouse wife to momshell in the time it took to get that new tattoo."

C'mon Dave, give me a break. Pandering to middle aged housewives is low. So very low. I can't get beyond it. So I've broke blog silence just to criticize Van Halen. It's true, that ant can move a rubber tree plant.

Bad Back Raise My Pain Ceiling

My back is seriously messed up. Muscle pulled and I look like a twisted and bent Quasimodo. I hope I will be able to work tomorrow....which should tell you what my pain level is now. And in the meanwhile, the US gov't continues to go down the wormhole to total collapse (give or take a few years to a decade) and I'm getting comments to be moderated that are obscene. So, it seems to be a typical summer after all.

what is up what is down what is and isn't

Kicking it old school - which means beware linear thoughts and forget about punctuation and other assorted grammar tricks that get you all A's and so on etcetera ad infinitum.

Went to the U2 concert July 2nd and was, to my delightful surprise, bowled over with the evening. Tremendous songs and the 360 degree stage show lights still have me on a contact high. I used to think Bono was an egomaniac full of himself, but that has been tempered. I think he's got a good heart.

Current listening faves - U2, Stones, Oasis (digging into the post Be Here Now stuff which I gave short shrift to back in the day) and Bead Eye, Motörhead, some ancient hip hop stuff. And Yngwie Malmsteen...can't forget I have been digging his old stuff too.

Reading Just Kids by Patti Smith, well I finished it yesterday and it was cool. I really liked the book up until Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe started to become successful. It became boring once they had made it which is why most of the book was about the journey to stardom.

Getting some laughs out of White Line Fever which is Lemmy's autobiography. If you like your rock and roll loud and your stories about drugs and partying not to be weighed down with morals, but with belly laughs this is the book for you.

Television fave of the moment is El Chavo De Ocho. It doesn't matter that I can't understand about 90% of what they say. The comedy is broad enough to make the words not necessary.

That's about it for today. Not as spontaneous and punctuation free as I thought it would be. I guess only getting about 3 hours of sleep last night did me in more than I thought.

if you're bored wash the baseboards

I really must be bored tonight. I watched Joanie Loves Chachi on Youtube this evening. What an incredibly bad television show. Unlike some old bad tv shows that are endearing just because they remind you of being young, Joanie Loves Chachi does not. Yet I was still compelled to watch the train wreck of an episode titled "Beatlemania."

Next time I need to remember to just say no. Push the computer away. Get some sleep.

Stressed Out - Just Think About Metta World Peace

What a week it has been. Working late most days, trip to Kentucky which saw a drive home in a monsoon and a $163 speeding ticket (thank goodness I wasn't driving), and even tonight I was on the job trying to make sure something got where it should be going (the cellphone was smoking before it was over) and now to top it off it looks like I'm getting my August bout of whatever a full month and week ahead of time. But it's okay, there's Mo's birthday next week and then on Saturday I will get to bask in the great ego that is Bono and his band of Irish merry men U2. I was never over the moon about U2, but they've had some good tunes and it's not like I'd be doing anything else. So I'll be at Vandy with Mo in section H if you want to give us a shout out. I doubt this concert will be as good as Macca last year, but I'm open to pleasant surprises. I'll have some pics and a review afterwards. Until then I need to relieve the stress that has been this week. So I think I'll ponder Ron Artest changing his name to Metta World Peace. It's no Lloyd B. Free changing his to World B. Free, but it's close. I'm thinking about changing mine to Kelly Leak Was The Brother I Never Had But Wished I Did World B. Free Peace.

Beany & Cecil

Al Perry doing Fish Karma

Okay, so the title of this post sounds weird. I feel like I know Al Perry even though I don't thanks to my friend Chris who went to school in Tucson. Chris would come home for summer and rave about the Tucson music scene with Al Perry and Fish Karma at the top of his list. Enjoy this truth and have fun before it happens!