BUI

Blogging under the influence. I doubt that it's ever been done before, considering how staid and downright conservative things are out here in this mess of pipes and tubes known as the Internet. Oh sure, we have our occasional fights over who clogged what pipes and arguments about which tubes should be tied and mini wars about who should pay what to get priority access to said pipes & tubes, but Joe the Plumber recently decreed that we cannot discuss those or any other important issues with outsiders such as yourselves since openness and unrestricted access to information and a free press and the like are all antithetical to a free society (meaning, of course, that they're tools of the Socialists!), so forget I said anything.

Now playing: "Destroy Babylon," Bad Brains - GOT damn, that's nearly enough to turn me into a metalhead
(I hadn't even finished typing that before Minutemen's cover of "Green River" came up... it's a live track off their Tour-Spiel EP, which I have by way of their Post-Mersh Vol 3 compilation... Minutemen (a groundbreaking and political band) covering CCR (one of the original groundbreaking and political bands) is normally a good thing, but this is not a good example... I have high standards for live recordings: I dislike the grand majority of the live albums I've heard over the years.)

This is going to be a rambling sort of post covering a few different topics. Basically, it's going to be Larry King late-night radio style, if you know what I mean. (And hopefully you do know what I mean, because I don't... everything I know about LK I learned from years of listening to Don and Mike, the Radio Gods, who were hilarious but probably ever so slightly unfair whenever talking about LK. "Paint your bald spot? Paint your bald spot?")

NP: "Chicago Piano," Jawbox

I realized this evening that I needed to do a blog posting because I found myself having to wait at Starbucks while they made more coffee. No, I'm being completely serious. I'd stopped by there to order a medium coffee only to be told that they were out and could I wait four or five minutes while they made some more. Huh?! I could only laugh. No, I didn't mind at all, but how weird that SB would run out of coffee.

NP: "Cinderella's Big Score," Sonic Youth

They didn't charge me for the coffee, BTW.

This afternoon I found myself at the office bored -- all of my important projects had either been completed in the morning or were on hold pending callbacks -- and reduced to doing the sort of admin work that must get done but which is mind numbing and quite possibly soul killing. From out of the blue came this realization that I hadn't been to On the Border since Christmas Eve (Why yes, as a matter of fact, I did have a rather un -traditional Christmas. Why do you ask?). In case you don't know, On the Border is a Tex-Mex chain restaurant. Good food. Even better Margaritas. And at that moment, I realized that nothing or no one would be able to deny me a Margarita. No wind, cold temps, or bad drivers on the Beltline could keep me from my appointed rounds.

NP: "All Aboard," Muddy Waters

I go to OTB once a month or so and usually order two Margaritas, on the rocks. I consider myself a beer guy, but I rediscovered Margaritas last summer after my friend and former co-worker, Nancy, emailed some of us to say that she'd enjoyed her first one ever during happy hour several days earlier. Not longer afterward, I got my latest tattoo and I went straight from the tat shop to On the Border and rediscovered my taste for tequila. I used to do tequila shots, but, in all honesty, I couldn't handle them very well when I was in my 20s, so I was sure as hell not going to try doing shots now that I'm in my 40s. Instead, I went with the Margarita and, holy crap, it was good. It was perfect. My leg was still bleeding a little bit and stung like a mofo , but after that first Margarita, well, who gives a flying leap?? So I had a second. And, as I say, I've been going back once a month or so ever since. Tonight, the drinks were just as good, and I almost talked myself into ordering a third, but I really hate spending the night in jail, so I went to Starbucks, instead (ha - and you thought there was no way I was going to tie together any of these stupid vignettes).

NP: "Life Is White," Big Star

I think the whole "I deserve a Margarita" thing was because this had been a pretty decent week at the office. I like my job and I like the company I work for, but one frustration is that there is a feast-or-famine aspect to my particular job: I'll go for a period with very little really productive work accomplished because the work just isn't there or (far more often) I'm not hearing back from my customers. Then, from our of nowhere, all of the work hits at once, and things go from slow to crazy busy. The last week and a half were crazy busy, and I marked a good number of projects off my To Do list, including several that other people had been waiting on. So that's a good thing. And it gave me an excuse to mess with my brain chemistry with a little alcohol.

NP: "Danse Fambeaux," Dr. John

After Starbucks and a quick trip to the grocery store (bananas, beer, coffee, toothpaste, ibuprofen, and dishwasher detergent), it was time to come home. I had some idiot tailgating me for a short distance until he finally took the hint from my slowing down to a crawl. Tailgating seems to be an official sport in this area. Drives me nuts, and I will probably end up getting shot eventually because I don't react very well to it: I tend to get pissed and will usually seek to annoy the offender every bit as much as he or she has annoyed me: I'll slow down, hit my brakes, and/or gesture rudely. Anyway, tonight's offender eventually got into the other lane and was pulling ahead of me when I noticed that the freaking idiot had a small TV jammed between his door and the steering column and angled in such a way that he could watch while driving. It's a good thing I don't own any guns, because if I did, I'd have been sorely tempted to shoot out this moron's rear window.

NP: "High Voltage," AC/DC (yes, believe it or not, I actually own a couple of AC/DC albums)

For no particular reason, I feel like stating publicly that I have no problem with gun ownership. I do, however, have a problem with stupid people owning guns. And I don't like violent, ill-tempered people owning guns. Also have a problem with irresponsible people owning guns. Basically, I guess I want to be the person who decides who gets to own/possess guns. And I definitely want to decide the punishment for those who misuse guns or allow their guns to be misused by others. If that sort of system won't work for whatever crazy reason, then can we require not only registration, but also licensing? At the very least, everybody must pass a basic safety and handling course before they can apply for a license that itself is required before registration. Now, how you put that system into place when there are already tens of millions of guns in existence in this country is not a small concern, but I think most people would be willing to comply with registering existing guns. The hardcore NRA folks will protest and many will outright refuse, of course, but I have a feeling most of those folks live in the suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas, where guns don't create quite the most serious problems.

I have more to say on that topic, but I'm suddenly bored with writing and pretending that I have anything important or original to offer. So, to steal a line from Marc Fisher, that about kicks things in the head for this post. You've been a wonderful audience and I wish you all a good night.

NP: "It Makes No Difference," Solomon Burke
(heh - that song title is just a perfect sentiment for this and just about any other blog, eh? it probably also is a good commentary on the whole notion of gun control. as Steve Earle once noted, it's way too late for gun control in the U.S.... then again, that was an observation he made many years ago while sinking deeper and deeper into his drug addiction, so I have no idea if that's an accurate description of how he really feels about the issue now that he benefits from a clear mind.)

NP: "Keep It Clean," Steve Wynn
(heh again - this song just came up as I wrote about Steve Earle's recovery from addiction)