Dayum...them boys were young....

For those of you that are Wilco and/or Son Volt fans, then you gotta love Uncle Tupelo. Here's a short clip from a video shot while singing Graveyard Shift/Factory Belt. These guys were definitely the pioneers of Alt-Country....

Just give me a damn beep

One of my biggest pet peeves is having to listen to 15 minutes of instructions on how to leave a message when you call someone on the cellphone and you get their voicemail. I don't have the patience to sit there and listen to all of my options. All I want to do is either talk to the person or leave a damn voicemail. So give me a flippin' beep and cut the crap. Ring, ring...no answer...leave a message...BEEP! Thank you!!!

How cool is that!

How would you like to be taking a stroll in Central Park in NYC and you look up, and there's a bald eagle flying over you with a striped bass in its talons. Well, that's what happened today. See for yourself...this picture was snapped in Central Park. This joker flew right over the park....

Life's Rich Pageant

So I'm driving around doing some Christmas shopping yesterday, and I put in a compilation cd that a buddy gave me a few years ago. It's got an assortment of music on there, from Van Morrison to Wilco to Train and more. And then the song, "I Believe" from the R.E.M. album Life's Rich Pageant came on. And it was not only a blast from the past, but also a very overwhelming feeling of growing old....

The year was 1986. I was in the 10th grade. This was the era of Genera clothing, Coca -Cola sweatshirts, and the beginning of tight-rolled jeans (you know, when you folded the bottom of your jeans around and then rolled them tightly around your ankles). My gang of friends were REALLY into music at this point, so for Christmas, I got a few tapes (yes, TAPES...compact discs were really popular at this point...):

R.E.M. - Life's Rich Pageant

I remember Weston White having this tape in the beginning of the school year. He had an older brother, Elbert, in college, and that's where he heard a good bit of "new" music. Elbert would come home from college and play the stuff he was listening to at Millsaps. Weston was always one step ahead of most of us regarding music. Anyway, after months of trying to borrow Weston's tape, I asked Santa to bring it to me. "Superman" was our gang's favorite song for a while. I remember riding around in Trew Brewster's car singing "Superman." Good times....

RATT - Dancing Undercover

At this point in time, I had been a RATT fan for a long, long time. In 1986, they released this album and the first single, "Dance." I couldn't get enough of the song, much less the video on MTV. As I wrote in an earlier post, I was certainly a "Rattaholic" and very glad to get this album from Santa.

The Police - Every Breath You Take: The Singles

Just 3 years earlier, Santa brought me Synchronicity, and ever since that time, I was a huge Police fan. As most people know, however, after that album the Police went their separate ways. Sting embarked on a solo career and Andy and Stewart practically disappeared. But in 1986, at least as far as we knew, they got back together to release this album. They released a new version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and the video was pretty cool. So, of course, I asked for this album, too. And Santa was nice enough to oblige.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - The Best of OMD

I'm still not sure where or how this one happened. Earlier that year (1986), OMD had a few hits, to include "Secret" and "Forever Live and Die". This was a greatest hits album, so it also included "If You Leave." For whatever reasons, I became a huge fan and wanted this album. Weston gave me a ton of hell about it, but I still liked a few of their songs.

Anyway, the whole point to this post is that since it is now the year 2006...that means that it was 20 YEARS AGO when I got those albums. 20 YEARS!!! It seems just like yesterday when we were all riding around listening to R.E.M. in Weston's car, The Ghost. The minute I heard the song, "I Believe" yesterday, it shot me right back to 1986. 20 YEARS AGO....and it seems like yesterday. Oh well, at least the music never gets old.....

People

So I'm on the elevator today, heading up to my gym, and it stops a few floors before the 9th floor where I'm to get off. A lady gets on, and being the gentleman that I am, I ask her "What floor?" and obviously offer to push the button for her. She says not a word to me. Stares at the floor, then reaches over and pushed the button herself. Oh, and this is AFTER I said "Hello" and then asked her what floor. Again, she said NOT A WORD. So I'm thinking to myself, this woman is one of those people that just avoids conversation with strangers all together. You know the kind, they try to avoid conversation at all costs. Walking down a narrow hallway in a building or office? This person will duck into the bathroom or bend down at the water fountain, just to avoid having to say "Hi" or "Hello" or "Good day" or something like that. Or if there's nowhere to go, the person will just stare straight ahead or down at the shoes. Absolutely drives me nuts. Sure, small talk is small talk. But what's wrong with actually chatting with a stranger?

Well, I wasn't going to let her win. I just kept talking to her. About the weather. About the parking garage. About anything I could think of in the limited time I had with her in the elevator. And guess what. She didn't say a word. Maybe she was deaf? I have no idea. She just kind of looked at me with a weird smirk and said nothing. In my opinion, saying NOTHING is more awkward than just carrying on a conversation. You don't have to know the other person. Just be nice. Chat. Whatever!!

Then I go to Dick's Sporting Goods later today. I find what I need and I proceed to the register area to check-out. As I approach, I notice that the set-up isn't like what you see at a grocery store...where the registers/lanes are separated by racks of products (gum, magazines, etc.). At this place, each lane had two registers...one on the left and one of the right, but they were diagonal from each other. The one on the left was about 5 feet in front of the one on the right. Anyway, as I approach, there's a guy standing in front of the lane I want to go to, and I stop and wait for him to choose a side. He doesn't move, so I ask him which line he was in...the left one or the right one. He says to me, "Whichever one becomes available next." I didn't exactly understand and was trying to digest what he said, when a few seconds later, a lady comes up behind him, heard my question, and SHE answered the same way, as if I should have asked her because she was apparently in front of me in line (which wasn't the case. I hadn't really gotten behind the guy because I didn't know which line he was in, so she walks up and gets right behind him and snips at me.) Again, I'm taken aback, and I sit there trying to figure out what was going on. I decided to say something to the guy, but right then, a register freed-up, and he scurried away. The lady took a huge, exaggerated step in front of me, as if to prevent me from stepping in front of her. She then proceeded to turn sideways and keep an eye on me out of the corner of her eye.

Now I'm really starting to boil. I start thinking about what has transpired, and I'm about to boil. It's complete BS. Just think about it. Can you imagine going to the register at the grocery store, and as you approach the line, there's a dude standing between registers. You ask him which line he's in, and he replies, "Whichever one gets me to the register faster." So he expects everyone behind him to wait until he knows what line is moving faster.

That's not how it works. You choose a damn line and get in it. If you made the wrong choice, and the other lines move faster, tough luck. It's just like sitting in traffic. The minute you change lanes into the one that seems to be moving faster, it slows down and your old lane starts moving. That's life. Deal with it.

So all of this is going through my mind as she proceeds to a register and I'm waiting for this witch to finish paying for her crap. She's being all snippy at the girl at the register and slammed the pen down after signing her credit card slip. She glares back at me before she walks off, and I just said, "You have a VERY merry Christmas...MA'AM!!!!" She scoffed at me and stormed off. I hope she was one of those idiots that gets mad when you don't say "Happy Holidays."

The girl behind the counter just kinda laughed. She said, "You know, I deal with people like her everyday. You just have to learn to laugh about it. It's her problem, not mine, not yours, not anyone elses. You just can't let people like that get to you." What she said made sense. But I still don't have the patience for people like that....

Terry Tate vs. BJ Hall

One of the funniest commercials I've ever seen is the famous Terry Tate "Office Linebacker" commercial that Reebok put out a few years ago, I think during one of the Super Bowls. I laugh my butt off every time I watch this...especially at the end when Terry Tate is chsing the dork around the corner in slow motion. Funny, funny stuff. Check it out for yourself...

What's even funnier (to me) is the West Point cadets' parody of the Terry Tate commercial. Leave it up to a bunch of smart-ass cadets to come up with a darn good spoof of that commercial...BJ Hall "Barracks Linebacker." Perhaps it's only "cadet humor" and you don't find it funny. Well, I find it hilarious, so I don't care what you think! Seriously, check this out....you gotta admit it's pretty funny...