Breathalyzed

I'm on the road. All day, every day. Making money in bars.

Driving home.

Moderation is another post for another day.

but Lately it seems that DUI victims are all around me.

I've come to the conclusion that if The Man really didn't want us to drink and drive then there would be a Zero Tolerance policy.

This nonsense of Blood Alcohol Concentration seems completely arbitrary to me. What .08 means to me and you are totally different. Plus, you can cross state lines (arbitrary boundaries) and now you're cool up to .09 - or maybe you're already busted because the new number is .06 or less...

You drank, you drove. It's either OK to do that, or not OK. Right?

If new cars can come equipped with fancy GPS machines, state of the art speakers and iPod integration, I would think that a simple breathalyzer next to the steering wheel would be Easy.

Give a quick blow. The machine would say,

You're Good to Go

or

Take It Slow, Brother

or

Chill out for an hour before you drive

or

Take A Cab, Man... Please.

Levels of Cat Consciousness

I consider Ernie my step-cat, but I love him as if he were my own.

I know he knows Where to poop. We've had to move the litter box out of necessity. Ernie finds it. Ernie does not poop anywhere else but the litter box.

Ernie was watching me clean the box today. He usually watches.

What I'm trying to Ask is,

Does he understand why? (I feel he must)
Does he appreciate it? (I like to think so)

on the other hand,

Does he enter a full litter box and think,

"Ugh... this is Disgusting. These are unfit conditions for a regal creature such as myself. I really do wish they would clean this place up, and Soon..."

The Festival Express: Part 3

We gracefully accepted our free plane tickets and went to the festival in Florida, just four months deep down the newfound path of our relationship. Years later we would both acknowledge realizing the risky Test we were taking.

We witnessed mindblowing music. The weather was great. Most importantly, we cohabitated peacefully. For 4 days, in a tent, hundreds of miles from home, surrounded by tens of thousands of smelly hippies. If our relationship could sustain such intense conditions, we assumed we were Good to Go.

2009 was another Vibes, this time in Connecticut. Lovely.

But at this point we're gigging like hounds and feeling that we can hang with some of the acts gracing the smaller stages. We vow not to return to a festival unless it is as a paid member of a performing band.

The gigs churned through 2010. I was a strong believer in "Tom Stein's Theory of the Finite Number of Well Paying Summer Gigs" and so I didn't go to concerts. Or festivals. Or hang with friends. Just gigged like a hound.

Not a good decision. Life is a balance, and those hangs with friends are just as Finite as well paying gigs. Learned that one the hard way.

This past Summer of 2011 found me on the upright, subbing for two gigs with a bluegrass band I have admired and tried to get with for a couple years. One of the two gigs was a Festival.

We were welcomed by a topless young lady, the word STAFF written across her tits in body paint. People danced while we played, smiling and laughing with a twisted twinkle in their eye.

A man stood backstage during our set, holding a large turkey bag full of gas that he was intermittently inhaling. He offered me some, midsong, and I politely declined. He offered the mandolin player some, but the mandolin player was confused. He didn't see the bag. He thought the man was just saying Hello, Great Job, etc... so he nodded in recognition. Yes, Thank You.

The bagman starts coming right as us now, still midsong, and as he extends the bag out, Mandolin realizes his mistake and his face turns white. No, No and he's furiously shaking his head, somewhat intrigued but mostly frightened by the mysterious contents of the bag. Bagman did not take offense, just nodded as to say Alright, Your Loss, and carefully assumed his position backstage watching the band, sucking from the bag.

A Critique of Criticism

I first encountered "literary criticism" in high school. It turned my stomach then, and still does.

Who is "Dr. Suchandsuch" and why does he think he knows so much about 'Billy Budd'? I read the same book he did. Our opinions and interpretations of the book have equal merit, in my opinion.

Music Reviewers might be worse. If they had Actual talent, they could make their own music, using their special Powers of critique & revision, thus creating Perfect Songs. Gold Record after Gold Record.

Instead, they analyze (sometimes) and spend energy creating pithy Hate (always), feeding this spew to our car-crash society: necks turned, eyes wide, mouths agape...

This feels like a bitter response to a Negative Review of my own music, but I've yet to be that fortunate. My music hasn't gotten Any reviews yet, from Anyone. Hate is not the opposite of Love, Apathy is...

I hope Everyone that hears my music feels compelled to critique it.

"If you can't say something Nice, don't say nothing at all" - Thumper