Solace by the water.

The Hold Steady never sounded so good.

Bills and concerns, and yearning and fearing.

It's all quiet now and the peace comes with

a reference to Sal Paradise via my iPod.

The boaters boat, the skiers ski,

and one man ceases to stress,

if only for an hour or so.

"If music be the food of love, play on." -- From Twelfth Night

Fernandina, I Close My Eyes And I Am With You

Fleeting

Driver dies in bus crash at interstate ramp

Glum, then comfy.

...a few more are at my flickr.

Goodbye Fernandina Beach. We'll see you next time.

We're home from Florida. I go back to work today and I suppose I missed it a little bit; I'm weird like that. Give me a few days off and I get restless for the structure of the work environment. I guess that's what prisoners mean when they say that they've been institutionalized.

I never sleep well in Florida. I don't know if it's something in the air or what. I just lie in bed for hours while the rest of the house sleeps.

It was nice to see all of the in-laws and I look forward to moving down there in a year or so. I figure I'll sell my two Hondas and buy a scooter as my main means of transportation on the island. The island is 14 miles long and 5 miles wide and scooters are everywhere. My wife would keep the van for hauling the kids around and I'd use it on rainy days. If the job I'm waiting for somehow doesn't come to fruition, I could be a bellman at the Ritz-Carlton. I bet those guys do pretty well, and they get to wear shorts, too!

My only real disappointment this time was that I didn't make time to wander about with my camera. I got some cute shots of the family at the beach and at Joshua's birthday party, but that's about it. There's always next time.

Anyway, it's good to be home. How've you guys been?

Overall, it was a good trip.

You know it's been an exhausting day of road travel with kids when even the New Age music you play when you get home sounds too aggressive.

Silence, instead. Nice.

Fernandina, Baby!

"Who's scruffy lookin'?"

Messages from a beach town

Someone I love was drunk-texting me last night. It started out fun and cute but quickly spiraled into something reading like a dying and lost explorer's last few journal entries.

"I'm drunk. U?"

"Way drunk now. Wish you were here."

"Really wish you were here!"

"Can barely sefe [sic] to text. LOL"

"Whole body numb."

"No more 4 me!"

"Brain gone."

"Good nite. Love u."

Tennesseans get communal

Today's Tennessean has a story about communal living which includes a quote by my step-mom.

What the hell. Break the law. Prez has your back.

Scooter.
Giving President Bush a 100% approval rating. Slimy bastards.

High Class in Hermitage, TN

Cheese and wine for some, Cheez-its and white zin for me. Classical music plays in the background, but I'm about to find last week's I Like Songs radio show on the WRVU archives.

Big, cool news from The Eyeball Kid: Another mp3 from Healing The Divide has been released. It's Tom Waits performing "Way Down In The Hole" live with Kronos Quartet. It sounds fantastic. One of my favorite covers of Tom Waits' material is bluesman John Campbell's rendition of that song. He's since passed away and his True Believer is long since out of print, but put it on your list and pick it up cheap if you can find it used. It's stark, chilling, and mean and serious as hell.

New to the iPod:

• Area Code 615 - Area Code 615 & Trip In The Country (My step-dad played banjo on these two masterpieces by Nashville's top-notch studio musicians.)
• The God Star Social - A Queer Summer Sultry EP (My way talented brother played guitar and bass on this.)
• Miles Davis - Nefertiti (I don't know anyone who played on this.)

"You make a dead man come."

There's this song I heard recently on Noggin, the channel that my children love the most, which has a recurring refrain, "Brown Sugar, Brown Sugar." Of course, old Stones fan that I am, I always silently add the familiar, "You make a dead man come." (Why I add a line from "Start Me Up" to "Brown Sugar," I have no idea. I should be singing "Just like a black girl should." Thanks, Sarcastro for pointing out the obvious to the oblivious.)

I always thought that line was originally penned by Richards/Jagger. This morning, however, while listening to a wonderful podcast entitled Uncensored History of the Blues, I was introduced to the music of Lucille Bogan. And there it was. "...make a dead man come," from "Till the Cows Come Home", released in 1935. You'll have to look up the lyrics yourself. They're here. They're dirty. She was apparently famous for her bawdy sexual innuendos and double entendres, but from what I've heard, she's about as coy as 1989's 2 Live Crew, i.e. not at all.

Explicit song lyrics didn't start with Tipper Gore's problem child, Prince. They've been with us for as long as songs have been written.

It's Dirty Blues Day here at chez bez. Have fun out there.

"It takes a red-headed woman..."

 
(Title is taken from one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs.)

I'll be happier when football season kicks off.

I'm actually a Dores fan, but I'm pretty proud of this pic. It's from my first trip to the University of Georgia's Sanford Stadium back in the fall of '02.

On the music industry and 1997

David Browne writes in The New York Times:

By comparison, hardly anyone seems sentimental for the summer of 1997. Tastemakers recall the album “OK Computer” by Radiohead, and head-spinning techno singles by the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers. But for most people, it was the summer that established the Spice Girls and boy bands, which only the most hard-core Justin Timberlake fan would recall fondly.

...more>>

Lynnster (babbling since February 1997), I thought of you as I read this. What was 1997's great find for you?