whole love

art of almost

wilco is streaming their new album for 24 hours at wilcoworld.net. i'm listening to the first track right now.

caroline says II

last night, i watched lou reed's berlin documentary. that album has always held a special place with me. it's a perverse, macabre dance of stunningly emotionally torturous prog-rock songs. i first heard it after listening to transformer and loving it. the poppy style, the david bowie production, it was great. then came berlin. much like the talked about dividing line in the aforementioned city, this album divided every part of me. i had trouble listening to it in it's entirety. the song cycle follows a drugged up mother who verbally and psychologically abuses her man and he in turn physically abuses her and leaves her. she then turns to more drugs and men of no virtue. then loses her kids and kills herself. that is the album. and when the last note has played, you feel like it just happened right in front of you. i only bought one more lou reed solo album after that.

"sad songs, sad songs...."

popular

i haven't heard this song in probably 6-7 years. i have no idea why superdrag's "sucked out" got stuck in my head today which for some other reason led me to thinking about this song nada surf's "popular". it was a roundabout of one-hit wonders from the 90's. next week i'll be dissecting the primative radio gods, dishwalla and white town. if anyone can name the songs of those one-hit wonders i will personally put a picture of them on my blog and explain why they are a superstar. no cheating though. superstars don't cheat.

do you know the way to san jose?

because i do. i'm in san jose. i'll be here a week for training. awesome? not really. i'm ready to be home. i've been gone for about six weeks of the past seven weeks. the weather is super nice though. i just ate some lame sushi though. and i don't think my a/c works that great. and i just drank some grapefruit water that nearly made my mouth fold in on itself. so pungent. there was also cucumber water, but i chose poorly. i'm not going back down there. the lobby is a like a club. with grapefruit water.

i think i'm going to bed early. i need to post some pictures of our tomato plants. i hate tomatoes but our plants are awesome. we also have these morning glories on the back fence. they open in the morning and into the day, but then close up for the rest of the day. i'm kind of babbling because i'm tired and i just had an hour long conversation at dinner about work after listening to work training all day.

there is no comedy central on this cable. and no russian television like in kansas city.

i just reread this post. it's really just a long whine.

a grand don't come for free

so my buddy from denver is headed to london today to work and hang for about two, maybe three years. i wish him well. i know he'll do great and love it. me, well i'm happy here in denver. but if the opportunity were to arise for me, i can't say i'd say no to living and working in a foreign country for 2-3 years. maybe longer. we'll see. i really like it here in denver. but to live and work in iceland? awesome. france? awesome. myanmar? not awesome. i think i'd pass on that. although i hear they have amazing roasted tree bark. and the government hands out diapers to anyone who wants them. you can't beat that.

tomorrow i'm going to play in a kickball tournament. i haven't played kickball since 6th grade probably. i feel like i am going to rock it. there is no substantial information to stand behind that assessment. just bravado. and little hot sauce.

i love whistling in pop songs.

gimme shelter

apparently there was an earthquake in colorado yesterday or monday night or something. i didn't feel it. i did however feel love in my heart when i heard air supply on the radio yesterday.

in other news, the astros came to town and got swept by the rockies. i didn't get to go to any games unfortunately. but wandy rodriguez might be getting traded to the rockies. i can have more wandy. isn't that all what we want? i can't help but think of a certain beach boys songs:

"wandy, wandy what went wrong? oh so wrong....
we were together for so long"

i wonder if they were really singing about wandy rodriguez. i bet they were.

in other new, fanta has rushed to the top spot in the cola wars......

rocky mountain high

i'm back. back in denver. that was the longest i've ever been away from home. ever. band camp? that's right, i went to band camp. i actually went to band camp for three summers. that was one week. honeymoon? two weeks. trip to europe? two weeks. this time? i was gone three weeks from home and then home for three days and then gone again for two weeks. so a total of five weeks with three days home. brutal. i have so many clothes to wash and mail to sort through. actually the mail didn't take that long. thankfully i don't have a lot of bills. that's a life of used books and clothes that are at least ten years old.

i am ecstatic to be home. being back in texas made feel back at home, but it felt more like my old home. like a school you used to go to or a church. i actually like to compare it to a first wife. i only have a first wife but i've been around enough divorced people to make the comparison. with your first wife you have kids, buy a house and do major things in your life. for whatever reason, it doesn't work out. you move on. you find wife number 2. by that time in your life, you're older and you kind of know yourself better. you pick someone that's more in tune with who you are. that's what texas is for me. i had major achievements there. life-long friends. great family members. but i found a place that i'm more in tune with. a place that's more like me now.

but, what are some things to document about texas/houston? i'm glad you asked:

1. it's unbelievably hot. i have no idea how anybody lives there when you couple that with the humidity. if it weren't for crops, vitamin d and great surf songs, i would say we should consider retiring the sun. enough.

2. there's way too many people in houston. so many cars. going somewhere. i haven't looked recently but i think the population of houston is exactly eight trillion people

3. the people are nice. they talk to you. and when they talk to you they act like they know you. and they're helpful. that's something i miss.

4. lots of restaurants. i mean a lot. i have no idea how there can be so many restaurants. except i guess when you consider number 2 above. i lost my appetite for most of the week because of number 1 above.

5. people in texas have a sense of humor. i get laughs in texas. i get crickets elsewhere. people in texas like to laugh. they have to. they're slowing burning.

when i landed in denver and i saw those mountains, i felt home. no humidity. it was not scolding hot. my home was there waiting for me. so was my cat. i had to run to the store and buy milk and creamer for my coffee in the morning. i love waking up and having coffee at home. i usually go outside and look at our tomatoes and wild flowers. i also read. i don't have to work tomorrow.

i think i'm finally exactly where i'm supposed to be.

all i need

i'm heading home to texas tomorrow. i won't be passing through or stopping in channelview. there is no reason to anymore. that town is a sad relic. it's infested. diseased. and those that choose not to leave will unfortunately forget why they ever wanted to be there in the first place.

who are you? who, who, who, who

this is an excellent article asking who is exactly is barack obama? i have no idea what he stands for or what he wants from our government.

i have predicted this to my wife and now it's time to make the prediction known. my prediction: if rick perry runs for president, he will win the republican nomination and possibly the white house. that first part is the prediction. the second part is something i'm slowly starting to believe. a prediction in progress if you will. new prediction: in the next two weeks, at some point, i will receive a giant sized novelty check. i look forward to it.

still crazy after all these years

i'm back in KC. i have three more days and then i'm headed to houston/galveston. i'm staying at the marriot this week. man, the gym here is incredible. they have dumbbells up to 75lbs. that is awesome. there is also a nautilus machine, which i've never seen at a hotel or even some gyms. plus the hotel is much closer to my client, which means i'm not soaking wet when i get to work in the morning, which was the case for three weeks.

i also have noticed that since i've left home, i'm not sleeping well. to compensate for that, i've been downing caffeine products, which has been causing headaches when i drink too much caffeine in the afternoon. so today, i decided to only have one cup of coffee. that's it. no sodas or anything of the like. i now have a splitting headache and i can't totally see straight.

there is a russian news channel on this cable set and it's actually good.

this is the most boring post of all time.

off the record

the big night was tonight, my morning jacket in KC at the uptown theater. the bottom shot is the theater before the opening band. the opening band was delta spirit. i'd heard of them from hearya. big, big favorite on hearya. they were good. i would check out their album. my morning jacket was awesome though. started out with the victory dance. moved through some of my favorites from the new album, it still moves, z and evil urges. they were totally upbeat and the place was so hot, everybody was dripping with sweat. i don't know how those guys got through the show without passing out. my ears are still buzzing right now. as you can tell from the pics, i was pretty close over on the right side of the stage. i was able to worm my way after delta spirit. they'll be in denver tomorrow night at red rocks. i have friends going so i'll get a review from there too. i'm going home on friday to denver before i have to come back for week. and then i'm done. between the pizza, my morning jacket, pan-fried chicken and nothing else, kansas city is a pretty bland town. i miss my mountains and afternoon showers. rain, i mean. i don't think it rains here. ever. i hope my hearing comes back.

oh right. this morning. i forgot. so at five in the morning today, i hear an alarm so loud i'm sure the hotel is under attack. i literally sat up in bed with my eyes wide open from a dead sleep. the alarm continued and then a voice came on, "this is not a test. move to the nearest stairway and evacuate the building." i grabbed my wallet and put on a shirt and headed out to find the stairway. i went down six flights of stairs and headed out the back. no one was there. everybody was in the lobby. i headed to the lobby and tried to fall back asleep. i stayed down there for about twenty minutes trying to sleep before they told us it was a false alarm and to go back to our rooms. seeing everyone in their pjs was interesting. one dude did not put on a shirt and one old lady had on a robe. that was all. awkward.

sounds of silence

i'm not sure if i'd rather be outside moving piles of rocks than staring at a computer for ten hours a day thinking as hard as i can. it's freaking exhausting. i'm mentally drained every day. actually it's kind of hot now, moving rocks might be tough. what about driving a taxi?

tomorrow is my morning jacket. totally pumped for that. going home friday finally after three weeks. i'm getting a little lonely here. i was told that there would be others from out of town and people went out quite a bit. that was the opposite of true.

i actually took a taxi from the hotel to work this morning because yesterday i walked, like i do everyday here, and i was soaking wet from sweat. is that how you spell sweat? looks weird.

eat the rich

i finally finished the book with the cover/title shown above. good read. the hubris of wall street and the incredible idiocy of the people running these firms is shown in the story. it's not highlighted enough. the read is more of a story of an unforeseen predicament, with men behind the scenes trying desperately to save a system that had inexplicably turned to a swirling tornado of destruction. that's not really how it happened. and you can try to paint hank paulson a savior as much as you want. but he led goldman sachs before joining the treasury and argued for much of the structure that took down the system. anyway, i would totally recommend it. and i hear there was a movie too. missed it. i was probably watching scrubs or the office for the 3,254 time.

don't stop til you get enough

i finally got to get out in kansas city. other than last friday, my pizza night, and not even really then because i only walked like two blocks from the hotel, i haven't really gotten out in kansas city. my dad had told me about this place that he had eaten at like thirty years ago and i looked it up and it's still there. not only is it still there, it's actually won a lot of awards and is super highly regarded as a great place to get pan-friend chicken. so that's what i got. and it was a lot. mashed potatoes and these amazing cinnamon rolls they give you after you eat. it was awesome. that's the extent of my trip so far. my morning jacket is wednesday. i'll have pictures from that too. see that big piece in the back, i'm going to eat that one tomorrow for lunch. and i have two cinnamon rolls too.

"fool me once, strike one, fool me twice.........strike three." from the office. that was just on tv. great.

hunter pence is a philly. we've traded lidge, oswalt and now pence to the phillies. we were snookered on the lidge deal and the oswalt deal. we'll see how this one pans out. bourn, wandy and lee need to go now. and then we need to bring back tony eusabio. that guy could hit.

be my baby

we're having a potluck thing on monday and the kicker is, as part of a team building experience, we have to give an interesting fact about ourselves that the others didn't know.

i was talking to demitria and i said my interesting fact is that i used to be a baby. i don't think i've ever said anything as funny as that before in my life. i am still laughing about that.

another thing that's funny. tanner and i used to have this routine where we would quote lyrics from mungo jerry's "in the summertime" and how inappropriate some of the lyrics are. "if her daddy's rich, take her out for meal, if her daddy's poor, just do what you feel." and we were like what is that? "do what you feel" because she's poor. that's suggestive.

anyway, it was great fun. so i'm watching jimmy fallon last night, a very underrated late-night talk show, and he was doing the same thing with "splish splash". he's like, "what's going on here? this guy is taking a bath and has no idea there is a party going on?" it was awesome.

dancing on the ceiling

is anybody else getting the feeling that obama really wants to cut entitlement programs and is using this situation as a means to get the cuts while blaming the republicans for it who have always wanted it? i'm not on the side of the republicans, don't misread that. i just wonder who really wants what.

or are we seriously trying to default on purpose under the guise of some sort of back and forth ideological argument that doesn't really exist? i mean, the two parties are the same. both are bankrolled by the same global corporations. is there an advantage to defaulting? i mean, is this a response to all the money printing of QE1 and QE2 that didn't work? defaulting will make interest rates go up by the natural downgrade of our debt courtesy of the rating agencies. is this a means of forcing rates up by blaming the ratings agencies? i don't know. but something seems off here. ignore the rhetoric. ignore the back and forth. people, they're on the same team. what do they have to gain by a default? i guess we'll wait and find out.

strawberry fields forever

is there anything better on earth than berries? blueberries. strawberries. blackberries. raspberries. they are awesome!!!!

the day is coming

there is an update to the most memorable moment in KC. it seems as though my morning jacket is playing here in two weeks. and there are still tickets available. interesting.......

it's good to be king

i've had two moments in my life when true genius struck. there's probably been more, but i only remember two. they both involve food. that's probably why i remember them.

one night i was hanging out with pete and tanner and we went to the house of pies. i was really, really hungry that night. when our food came, i ate mine so fast that everybody else still had about 95% of their food left. for some reason, i put my plate on the table behind us. i have no idea why i did this. the waitress, who i noticed did not bring our food, came over to ask us how we were doing. i looked around and made a play. i told her that everybody else had received there food and my order didn't come. she said she was sorry and brought me another sandwich. i ate two sandwiches that night for the price of one. awesome move.

last night was another stroke of genius. as some of you know, i'm in kansas city. i had been out that evening and came back to my room, just laying around the room, watching television some time around 11 or midnight. my next door neighbors were being really loud. i thought about calling downstairs to the lobby or writing them a note telling them to shut the hell up. i thought there had to be a better way to get back at them. i had overheard them ordering a pizza on the phone. i thought, how awesome would it be if i jacked their pizza? that would teach them.

so i waited outside my room, by the elevators ready to intercept their pizza. i was pretty sure they had prepaid for it and all i had to do was pick it up. my wife called and i told her what i was doing. she did not agree with it, but she said i might as well do it right. she told me to go the lobby and meet the guy there. that way he would be glad not to have to come up to the room, we would not be close to the room if for some reason he needed to get in and it provided me with an escape if it backfired and they hadn't prepaid. so i did. i went downstairs and right as i was walking out of the elevator, the guy gets there. i hang up with my wife and approach him. i told him that miguel had called, which was the dude's name next door because i heard him say it, and that i was there to pick it for him. i tipped the guy and he gave me the pizza. i went back to my room and ate half of it laughing the whole time. i didn't hear them order another one, but someone did come to the room late, about forty-five minutes later. might have been another pizza, i'm not sure.

i heard them talking today. they're here for a wedding. so it's probably going to be a louder, later night than last night. if they order another item, i might go for it.

sheer genius. and the pizza was good too. really good. and big. that will probably be my highlight from my time in kansas city.