A Tub Of Lard.

I was listening to some Bruce Hornsby this morning and thought I'd post a song of his. This song fits my mood this morning 'cause it's too dang cold to do anything today (besides try and shovel the frozen solid driveway.)
 
Bruce Hornsby 'This Too Shall Pass' 2002.
 

Gotta get somethin' done today
Give a accomplishment a shot
Might not have a full palette to use
But im gonna paint with the colors I've got

Then your hopes and ideals you embrace
Then there's what's staring you in the face
Sorrowful times are here but they won't last
'Cause, this too shall pass

This to shall pass

Feelin like a lazy tub of lard
Rajneesh Jr. gave me his business card
Think I'll take a personality test
Document my fineness this far

Then your hopes and ideals you embrace
Then there's what's staring you in the face
First place man will one day roll in last
'Cause this too shall pass

And this too shall pass

Better get on out to the startin' line
Comin' soon they're gonna fix it in time
I just want to get what's mine
Not a function, gonna just, gonna adjust the lights

And this too shall pass

What you gotta do to find a cure
For the things that make you feel so inpure
Just now i don't know for sure
Sometimes misery has a stange lure

Then your hopes and ideals you embrace
Then there's what's staring you in the face
Sorrowful times are here but they won't last
Because this too shall pass

Then your hopes and ideal you embrace
Then there's what's staring you in the face
Sorrowful times are here but they won't last

Because this too shall pass
This too shall pass

Yellow Snow

We have a large back porch with seven sliding glass doors. We've been putting 1x1 wood sticks in the tracks at night for security. It's impossible to slide the doors open now. I found out how impossible today.

I recently painted some baseboard and shoe mold which I had atop a couple of horses in the living room. Today I the put all the dried wood on the living room floor and took the horses out on the deck to use for outside work when the weather broke. It was about twenty-five degrees outside.

I took the horses outside and as I slid the door shut I heard the 1x1 wood piece fall from where it had been propped up. I looked and saw the stick had fallen in the track, locking me outside in the cold. I immediately had to pee of course and as I went in the great outdoors on the snow I thought of that stupid Zappa song and couldn't get it out of my head.

I tried prying the door up...didn't work. I tried the front door we never use. It was locked. I went to Bill's across the circle. I think we had given him a key to our front door sometime past. No, Bill didn't have a key. I could've call wife but I know she had given her key to one of the girls.

I thought of the windows and knew there was one that wasn't latched on the inside and the storm window was stuck open. AHA! Thank God I'd never gotten around to repair it. I got a ladder and screwdriver out of the shed and took out the storm window. Wife had two antique depression glasses sitting on the window ledge.

I could move the top window down just enough to get my arm through to bend my elbow. One of the glasses fell and by some miracle it didn't break when it fell into the kitchen sink. I could just barely grasp the other glass and took it out. I think I'd rather die of hyperthermia than face my wife with broken antique in hand.

I was half way in the small window when a Louisville Metro Police cruiser pulled up in our driveway. A week ago we had called and requested extra patrols in our Circle because some punk had been rummaging through our vehicles at night. (Middletown aint the sleepy suburb it used to be) They had a few questions to ask me. I told them the story and he kind of smiled and took off.

I'm grateful for Louisville Gas & Electric and the Louisville Metro Police Department. After I warmed up I went to the local locksmith and made two copies of the front door key and I'm having new locks installed on the sliding glass door entrance and do away with those 1x1's.

Frank Zappa 'Don't Eat the Yellow Snow' 1974

Boardwalk Empire

I'm currently watching the first season of 'Boardwalk Empire'. The time and place is the 20's Atlantic City, New Jersey. I'm always a sucker for period stuff. Martin Scorsese produced it and Steve Buscemi plays the title role of the corrupt city official, Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson.

The Price of Beautiful

We had come here after meeting the Luntes for pizza and beer at Impellizari's (best pizza in Louisville.) I had a couple of beers so wife drove us to Von Maur. She needed face cream. I seldom drink beer anymore and I had that floaty feeling. It's nice to be driven sometimes.

Watching the woman run her fingers across the keys in the post Christmas cavernous almost empty space of the department store, the notes had an empty sound. She was around seventy-five and I imagined her as an old maid who, in younger years, gave piano lessons to middle schoolers.

There's that mysterious link between wife and the sales clerk, full of female cues and symbols the meaning of which most men are clueless. They finally came to an agreement  which potions and lotions wife should purchase. Sales clerk rang her up as the pianist was reaching a crescendo. Surely I had heard wrong.

As we were walking to the car I asked her if what I heard was right. Wife said yes but it's cheaper than botox.

A Simpler Time

Listening to the radio today a song started playing I'd long forgotten about. It sounded so good. Remember this one?

'This Guy's in Love With You'   Written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David. Performed by Herb Alpert  1968.

Eez Inger Ed Ookies Are Ood

Sometimes I think about backpacks. Let's see, the newspaper in my left hand, coke in the other. I spy the tin of homemade ginger bread cookies a client gave my wife for Christmas. I put down the newspaper and coke, take the tin top off and get a cookie. I tuck the newspaper under my left arm to hold the cookie in my left hand and grab the class of coke with my right.

I hear my wife downstairs. "Barry, can you bring down the can of chex mix please?"

I put down the newspaper, cookie, coke and take the can of chex mix out of the pantry. I cradle the chex mix between my right arm and chest so I can hold the glass of coke. The newspaper, tucked in my left armpit, cookie in left hand.

"Honey, can you fix me a coke too?" (In most southern stated this translates to filling a glass with ice and pouring in any kind of soft drink, including coke products.)

I put down newspaper, cookie, chex mix, and my coke. Fixed wife a coke. Cradle chex mix on right side, wife's coke in right hand, tucked newspaper in left arm pit, and my coke in left hand. The ginger bread cookie delicately held between my teeth. 

I stepped downstairs, Wallenda-like, without spilling a drop.  

Merry Christmas

Robert Earl Keen  'Merry Christmas from the Family'

XXX-Mas

Who Are Those Geezers?

The Rolling Stones have been around since 1962. In 2005 they released their 27th studio album called 'A Bigger Bang'. I think it's the best they've sounded for a long time. They have returned to their roots...straight ahead rock and roll.

The Rolling Stones 'Rough Justice' 2005.

New Round

Remember singing 'rounds' in grade school...Row, row, row your boat? I was listening to Beck in my truck the other day and the song 'New Round' came on. I never really paid much attention to this song but it struck me how the song got it's name. It has become one of my favorite songs by Beck.

Beck  'New Round'  2006.




New Round

When the oceans are dark
The heavens are foreboding
A chain link wind
Is breaking you open

And lessons of the day
On a blackboard night
It seem to be erased
And the beacon has a light

The eyes of confusion
Looking for a string
Everything they need
To keep the dogs at bay

There's no escape hatch
No submarine
Could take you to the moon
rake you in the leaves

And keep you just the same
All in my arms
Some day, some day
Say bye bye bye bye

Bye, bye, bye

I'm smaller than a stone
Bigger than a road
Farther than an ocean
Closer than a soul

Every little word
And every little step
Every new direction
Closer you would get

The farther away
You go from where we went
I'll try to keep with you
Hold you like a star

Found the frozen bank
To a hollow tune
Pushes up beyond
And all they come from home

When you bring them down
All they fall aside
On the radios
Don't forget it's yours

Bye, bye, bye

[Spoken]
What?
Dinner time, yeah.

We're Floored

We added on to the front of our house back in 1992. I cannot believe it's been that long ago. Today we had the eighteen year old carpet ripped out and a new hardwood floor installed. Australian Cypress. Looks good.

All that's left is baseboard and shoe mold and we're good to go.

Birth of Venus

There is a new female Correctional Officer at work and the first time I saw her she reminded me of someone or something. It was her face.

I figured it out the other day; she's Venus in Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' painted in 1485.

 

Cauliflower Brain

On my way to roll call the Captain stops me outside his office. "McClain, you're going to BHNE to relieve Ramsey." I do an about face and walk to the parking lot and arrive at the hospital fifteen minutes later. It's going to be an easy, but boring day.

Ramsey hands over the restraint keys, cell phone, and weapon. He's anxious to get home. The inmate is sleeping as far as I can tell, with the sheet over his head. He occasionally stirs.

Besides keeping an eye on the inmate, there nothing to do but watch TV. There's a cops & robbers rerun, then a little food channel. What's his name was stuffing hens with a cranberry dressing mixture. For drinks he made a champaign cur royale with craneberry juice. I'm not sure I would like it. Too foo-foo.

A CT tech comes to take the inmate to get a head scan. I wheel chair him behind the tech, who is wheeling the IV stand. They move and adjust his head inside the donut hole. The image appears on the screen and as the tech moves the mouse an invisible plane moves down through his brain like a time lapse of a blooming cauliflower.

These Are The Days

I was watching James Taylor and Carole King performing live at the Troubador on PBS. It sounds every bit as good as it used to.

Carole King's first big hit; 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow'

Black Friday

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Depending on the source, the term dates either from the 1980s or back as 1966, although its usage was primarily on the East coast. The term has become more common in other parts of the country since 2000. On this day many U.S. retailers open very early, with most of the retailers typically opening at 5AM or even earlier, at midnight.

The day's roots may have originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Others claim it was part of mid-1980s anti-consumerism backlash, when people took a pledge to "blackout" that day - staying home, rather than shopping.

I'd rather be drawn and quartered than to go anywhere near a mall on this day.

Steely Dan  'Black Friday'  1975

Messin With The Camera

Has it really been that long ago?

 

Ready for the big day.

Law and Order

Ben is no longer an officer but was promoted to detective and was on TV a week ago.

A Day in The Life

'A Day in The Life'  is one of the Beatles most famous and influential songs.

the song comprises distinct segments written independently by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with orchestral additions added later. While Lennon’s lyrics were inspired by contemporary newspaper articles, McCartney’s were reminiscent of his youth.

George Martin, the Beatles' producer, later described explaining his improvised score to the puzzled orchestra:

"What I did there was to write ... the lowest possible note for each of the instruments in the orchestra. At the end of the twenty-four bars, I wrote the highest note...near a chord of E major. Then I put a squiggly line right through the twenty-four bars, with reference points to tell them roughly what note they should have reached during each bar ... Of course, they all looked at me as though I were completely mad."

McCartney had originally wanted a 90-piece orchestra, but this proved impossible; the difference was made up, as the semi-improvised segment was recorded multiple times and eventually four different recordings were overdubbed into a single massive crescendo. The results were successful; in the final edit of the song, the orchestral bridge is reprised after the final verse.

Following the final orchestral crescendo, the song ends with one of the most famous final chords in music history. Lennon, McCartney, Starr, and Evans shared three different pianos, with Martin on the Harmonium, and all played an E-major chord simultaneously. The final chord was made to ring out for over forty seconds by increasing the recording sound level as the vibration faded out. Towards the end of the chord the recording level was so high that listeners can hear the sounds of the studio, including rustling papers and a squeaking chair.

'A Day in The Life'  The Beatles  1967.

Ooooooooh Scary

Hailee as Eighty's Girl and Tristan as Dash Incredible. Tristan's mask looks upside down but we turned it over and that looked upside down too.

Death Grip

I was pulling the dead zinnias out of the ground. They'd served the previous season's purpose, giving summer color in our house. I'm surprised at the death grip strength of the roots as I pull. I can't help but feel a slight sorrow for the zinnias and the passed Summer. Do plants have a slight consciousness? Do the trees around me mourn at their dormancy?

Not to worry; next Spring comfort will come in seed packets and the trees will wake to watch the planting and watering in of their next of kin.