Crowdsourcing the Suck

It seems like a fairly easy question:  What’s the worst music concert you’ve ever attended?

If you’re anything like me, for starters, I’m very, very sorry.  However, I’ve subjected myself to so many shows that had virtually no merit whatsoever it is difficult for me to discern where bad ends and where beyond bad begins.

I keep coming back to the first time I saw Spoon.  This has been my early gut-check least favorite for years, because there wasn’t anything at all going for this set.

There have been so many awful shows over the years it is absolutely stunning.  Yeah, I’ve seen a whole lot of good shows by now.  Many more good than bad.  I’ve paid more than the total cover charges, it appears.

Some debacles in my personal top ten (in no particular order):  London Quireboys/LA Guns/Enuff Z’Nuff; Ratt/Warrant; David Allan Coe; Faster Pussycat/Slaughter/Kiss (through no fault of Kiss, except booking the openers); I know I went to a Kix/Britny Fox mess of some sort, but can’t find out exactly when that mess happened; Phish in St. Louis (do not remember the trip, the company, the theater, or the show.  This would have likely been the first time I saw Phish.); Phish at Bonner (again, nothing to do with the music.); Cracker; Yo La Tengo.  That mess covers a lot of ground.

Other offerings (I’ve been surveying others, for help finding the worst suck of all possible sucks.):  David Allan Coe (repeat offender, but this was a truly awful effort.); Milli Vanilli; Counting Crows; Lita Ford; Bulletboys; Blackeyed Susan (from a different party, for different reasons than the previously mentioned Bulletboys concert.  Blackeyed Susan was the opener for Bulletboys, somewhere in Westport in the early ‘90s.); Third Eye Blind; Pavement; Dave Matthews Band; Kenny Chesney; Schloss Tegal (without hesitation); Sebadoh; Jane’s Addiction; Citizen Cope; The Cold War Kids; Beastie Boys (due to awful acoustics in Kemper); Grant Hart (forgot guitar, amp, etc.); Chemical Brothers (preference for 180 decibel level); Danzig (free tickets, circa 2002, no crowd, sad Danzig); Shawn Mullins (The Lullaby guy);

After hearing other’s lamentations, I really haven’t had it that bad at all. I only attended four of the eighteen shows mentioned, and have only seen maybe half the offending acts.   Most of the better quality bands were just having off nights (as in my case), and the ones that just sucked, most people including the performers probably knew in advance that they sucked.  Since we are embracing the suck, we’ll hit a few highlights:

The Bulletboys/Blackeyed Susan fiasco in Westport intrigues me most.  (This could have been at the Hurricane, Aug. 10, 1993.  The Bulletboys would have been just about washed out, and this whole mess would make some sort of sense.)  CT cited heavy drug impairment, while TAL noted the poor overall quality of the opening act.  Same show, two completely different sources went to the show together, and still noted this show for totally different reasons.  TAL remembered only a bizarre and awful harmonica set in the Blackeyed Susan show.  CT thought the Bulletboys were skipping like a broken record.  They were probably both damn close to spot on.  If I was there, I was blacked out.  Certainly possible, and probably the best way to be for a mess like this.  I was blacked out at the Hurricane several different times.  This could have been one of them, but who knows?  I know I would have been very unlikely to make such a trip at that time, because I never liked Bulletboys.  For as shitty a venue as the Hurricane was, they drew several strong acts for a number of years.  I don’t know that they ever nudged out Lawrence for premium shows, but some of these mid-sized acts had a place in KC where 300-400 tickets might be sold in the summer.  I guess that counts for something.  Big fire hazard, if you asked me, but no one ever asked me.  I think that place is closed now…

BB1 has absolutely no proper excuse for Milli Vanilli, and he knows it.  I guess Young MC and En Vogue were also on the bill.  This deal was at Sandstone in 1990, and he was old enough to know better, but we all make mistakes.

JS suggested that Counting Crows at the Legends grand opening in KCK was the worst he’d seen.  It was a free show, which makes this achievement a little more special.  He just recalled there was nothing good about the act, and that he was more or less disgusted by wasting his time in such a way.  At least he wasn’t out anything but the price of gas, but he’ll never get that gas money back.

Now, sometimes I feel like Kreskin the goddamned psychic, and when I suggested that LR submit her pick, I said, “Just in case she went and saw Lita Ford or something similarly awful.”  Turns out LR had already submitted Lita Ford as the worst she’d seen, with Pat Benatar a close second.  I am hoping she told me this at one point or another and there is just some random part of my brain that still works.

No one should ever be at a Third Eye Blind show.  Ever.  For any reason. Especially Third Eye Blind.  They should have stopped whatever they think they’re doing a long time ago.   SA knows this, but he is able today to proudly wear this suck, being a grown man, etc.

A moment on the Pavement:  This was indeed a bad show.  I was there.  It was the worst of the four times I saw them.  I ended up backstage trying to get Malkmus some water.  He got it, but it was too late, and there wasn’t enough vodka in it for his taste at the time.  It started bad, and unwound fast.  It was embarrassing.  Sometimes, rock shows can go this way.  It just takes some mixture of too much liquor, drugs, and discontentment.  TD nominated this show, so it is mentioned here, though he insists Dave Mathews was far worse sober than Pavement was drunk.  Sounds about right.  Also, Pavement was on the fast track to splitting up as a band on Oct 13, 1999.  They played additional shows in St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, and finished the final European leg of the Twilight Tour.  And that was it.  They split up something like a month after this concert, but they were clearly already living in splitsville.  They played an unbelievable rendition of The Hexx, but that was as good as that show was going to get.  I missed their reunion tour as a direct result of this 1999 performance, but I’ve been known to hold a goddamn grudge a little too long sometimes.

I didn’t even bother to ask KT what made Kenny Chesney a bad performance.  I’m positive this was bad if a person isn’t all Chesneyed up.

Schloss Tegal was offered up without hesitation by BH.  He knows shitty music when he hears it, and Rick the Cook doesn’t suit anyone’s taste, within the kitchen or without.  German industrial death metal has limited appeal, we all know this.   I chose early and often to get along with Rick because I certainly didn’t want him as any sort of enemy.  He was the best-armed person I knew, and he lived in the fucking basement.  Fuck, I mean…come on.  People who chose to be adversarial with Rick created their own issues, I’m afraid.  Rick was always a known quantity to me, why the fuck else would I be buying his glow-in-the-dark T-Shirts and shit?  I figured he’d stab me last, or first, and either way would be better than to be one of the random other dozens or so that might be shived out once he finally snapped and had a full head of steam after smelling all the blood.  BR once said of a Schloss Tegal show, “It sounded like whales…and other things dying.”

Sebadoh at Granada, circa 2006, is an interesting choice right up until a person learns Sebadoh was touring without a drummer.  BB2 offered this one up quickly.  Said he wanted his money back.  Goodness, I guess.  I’ve probably seen Sebadoh four times, and I would have been appalled if they took the stage without a drum kit.  It’s insulting.  It wasn’t even an acoustic set, they just played a drum loop on a box, I guess.  How awful.  Sebadoh knew better than this, but I suppose the boom box didn’t demand much of a cut of the ticket.  Another show cited by BB2 was a much later Jane’s Addiction show, sometime in the past five years or so, up at the soccer stadium I think.  Perry Ferrell’s voice was apparently shot at that point, Dave Navarro looked embarrassed to be there, etc.  Bad rock show by old rockers.  It happens.

Citizen Cope and The Cold War Kids were nominated by JN, and credit where credit is due:  New contempt has been cultivated on the fertile fields of these acts.  Somehow, I’d never heard of either, or didn’t want to ever hear of either.  She says they were popular ten years ago or so, and I’ll just have to believe her.  I was amazed that either of these shitstirrers had any following at all, but there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who put up with nonsense like these outfits with some consistency.  JN had offered tickets to a boytoy of the day, and it appears this was a tremendously unfair punishment to pay for trying to be nice to someone.  I couldn’t make it through 25 seconds of Cope’s most popular track, and I actually freaked out a bit trying to shut down the Cold War Kids track and was forced to listen to way more than I wanted to.  I didn’t get that shut down until a minute or so into a song (I’d heard this song before, never liked any part of it), and fumbled around closing the wrong windows a couple of times before finally reloading the Spotify and slaying that beast.  What an awful couple of acts.  I can see where this could become a dead heat.  Hard to tell which is shittier, for sure.  I don’t want to know.

I have to mention I’ve seen this fool Cope live a couple of times and never knew it, if he was actually touring with Basehead.  I cannot wrap my head around Citizen Cope being the DJ for Basehead, and then moving on to do whatever Citizenry he’s suggested since.  He should have stuck with Basehead.  Smart money here suggests he got the boot.  Basehead seems entirely incompatible with Citizen Cope.

SF nominated Grant Hart, who forgot his guitar, borrowed an electric guitar, but lacked an amp as one of two worst shows he’d seen.  I strongly believe I attended the other nomination, Oct. 1, 1999 at the Uptown.  This was the Chemical Brothers.  I am damn near certain I went to this show, because my ears are ringing.  SF claims it’s the loudest thing he’s heard.  Well, I guess.  I am certain it was loud, but I don’t remember much about this deal.  It would have been my what..28th birthday or something, so I’m sure I felt entitled to get insanely fucked up.  I mean, it was a Friday, so I very likely blacked out and pissed myself.  I don’t know if I was driving again by that point.  I hope not.  I shouldn’t give SF a third nomination, but he won free tickets to a sad Danzig concert in 2002 or so where there were only about a hundred people in attendance in a much larger venue.  Sad Danzig.

MF might have the single worst show of the whole survey.  Shawn Mullins.  He’s the lullaby guy.  I watched the video tonight and it freaked me the fuck out.  So bad.

David Allan Coe.  Goodness.  This is another show I attended, and it remains a remarkably bad memory.  For starters, it wasn’t cheap.  $15.  For David Allan Coe, I consider this outrageous today.  However, on Wednesday, May 30, 2001, several hundred Douglas County dipshits anted up this fee, and went to Abe and Jake’s Landing on the riverfront in Lawrence.

Then we waited.  And we waited some more.  We kept on waiting and drinking and waiting, and finally DAC came out and played maybe seven uninspired and unoriginal songs, and spent just about as much time promoting a fucking boxer buddy of his as he did singing.  It was awful.  His band was shitty, he was shitty, and he was something like an hour and a half late.  MP rightly pointed out that this was an awful way to spend fifteen bucks and/or any Wednesday evening.  I don’t think he even performed the one successful song he wrote in his life, but played about a half dozen covers, and I guess it wouldn’t be a David Allan Coe concert if he didn’t play “Mamas Don’t Let Your Daughters Grow Up to Be Strippers.”


The worst single moment I’ve had at a rock show was the opening of the Faster Pussycat set when they opened for Slaughter and Kiss, May 12, 1990.  For about thirty seconds, Bonner Springs was the worst place on earth, including Bangladesh.  Some jackass on helium repeated the word pussy on a tape loop, loudly, and layered the thing so it sounded like an army of dipshits were chanting pussy while sucking helium.  After about thirty seconds, the loop erupted into cat.  There may have been a meow.  I was hissing.  Then they just played their shitty music, and all was relatively well.

Spoon gets the nod from me because I haven’t seen anything quite like it.  It was a Sunday night.  I’d dragged a relatively-newly-married lawyer buddy out with another friend, because I wanted to see this band.  It must have been 1997 or 8.  Maybe 1999.  I don’t think I had a car or license to drive at this point.  Burt lived on the east side of Lawrence, and we walked to the Replay from his place.

It was a Sunday night.  Maybe that is why I can remember this mess, Kansas used to be dry on a Sunday, and we would have been limited to whatever liquor was left about the place from the previous evening.  I wouldn’t have spared much.  I’m not sure how the hell I’d heard of Spoon.  Probably heard them on KJ.  Anyway, I had that first (oops! Second…) album “A Series of Sneaks.”  It was great.  Hell, it was fun.  It rocked its ass off.  Damn right I wanted to see Spoon.  Anyway, I don’t know if I had the album or if it had even been released yet.  My pressing was red, I remember that.  It was sold long ago for generic vodka…

So I’ve talked these two into making the trip, and it wasn’t a big investment.  I want to say it was a three dollar show.  The Replay served hard liquor so I probably would have spent whatever they demanded in admission at the time.  We got there before the opener had played a note, and we spent most of the time in the beer garden out back.

It was pleasant in the beer garden before the opening act took the stage.

For starters, there was a pretty fair crowd at the Replay for a Sunday night.  There had to be something like 80 people stumbling around at the beginning of the show.  The crowd simply couldn’t maintain itself once the opener started throwing that fit that they claimed was music.  I can’t find the date of this show.  There’s some sort of national acclimation of the Replay citing a White Stripes show that only a handful of people enjoyed in 2002.  I can’t speak to the quality of that show.  I can speak to the mess of Spoon and other that was scattered across the front room that night.

Sometimes the Replay had outdoor concerts.  This wasn’t one of those nights.  I don’t think the neighbors probably liked the outdoor shows that much.  A lot of them weren’t very good.  Few could be worse than this outfit that weeded out the Spoon crowd.

There was only one topic of conversation once that opening band hit the stage.  It was how bad the music was.  It wasn’t music, really.  It was just a whole bunch of noise.  BH (who cited Rick the Cook, of Schloss Tegal fame for his nomination.) finally said, “Guys, I’ve got to go.  I prefer musicians who can play their instruments.”  Enough said.

So this is twenty years ago now or so.  I’ve drank a swimming pool full of vodka since that point, that memories can fade was something of the point of my whole operation.  I’ve never quite been able to erase what happened next, though I’m sure I was drinking double whiskeys by the end of the opener.

Spoon would have taken the stage, but they pointed out several times that there wasn’t a stage to take.  They had a point, I suppose.  They set up in front of a bunch of pinball machines with yellow tape across the floor where the customers were not to cross during shows.  It had varying levels of effectiveness.

And the Spoony bastard lead singer had another point, that whatever crowd that once existed was forced to flee by the opening act.  Now, I’m not sure there were ten people left in the Replay that weren’t working or a part of the opening act.  Bryan and I were still there.  Spoon had already checked out.

“It was a great show for about twelve minutes,” BB1 suggested twenty years after the fact.  He was about right.  I don’t know that Spoon finished three songs, and the mike stand was getting kicked, the singer was bitching about there not being a stage, and how utterly disrespectful this whole operation was.  It was good for comedy.  Just about everyone that was left was just laughing about this meltdown.  I was, at least.  So was the bassist.  And the drummer.  It was kind of a disappointing debut for Spoon in Lawrence, Kansas.  At least most of the band didn’t take it too seriously.

I’ve seen a couple of Spoon shows since.  That Spoony bastard will never forget that Replay show.  Neither will I.

A Hundred Some Days

A long time ago, in a country far away, there were Democrats in the Midwest.  A longer time ago, Democrats controlled the South.

More recently, Democrats decided these thirty or so states weren’t important.  In my lifetime, the following states were traditionally Democratic, and have shifted to Republican:  Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Louisiana, Arkansas.  States that shifted earlier or around my birth were all the other states in the deep south, including Texas.

Today the Democrats are the most enlightened people in earth’s history.  Don’t believe me?  Just ask one.  Most of them won’t hesitate to remind you how much better their ideas are than almost any other ideas ever concocted.

Barack Obama was a lucky man on several fronts.  His timing was great.  He faced the worst national political candidate in our nation’s history in the primaries, and was a member of the opposition party during the beginning of a world depression.  Yes, it was a depression.  The only way these knuckleheads continue to call that mess a recession is be REDEFINING THE DEFINITION OF A DEPRESSION!  That’s how stupid we’ve become in the county.

If a fucking reporter ran a headline announcing “Sky is Blue” with a full color picture providing proof, the editor of that paper would have to issue a correction the following day if a single person’s feelings were hurt.  “We’re sincerely troubled about the misrepresentation of yesterdays turquoise sky.  We regret the error of our ways.  Please don’t vote Republican.”

We’ve brought all this on ourselves.  The Democrats doubled down on stupid, because Hillary Clinton is the smartest, most qualified presidential candidate in our nation’s history.

Want to confuse a Democrat, and see for yourself what cognitive dissonance looks like in person?  Ask any Democrat to name ONE THING (besides marrying Bill) that Hillary Clinton has done in her lifetime that demonstrates above average intelligence.

I don’t want to spoil the fun you’ll have with this question.  The most likely response will be some achievement on some level that didn’t require anything but basic motor skills.  I’m pretty sure she can feed herself, but that really shouldn’t count.

If you want to have even more fun, press on with the qualifications.  Her first political act was blatantly unconstitutional.  During the Watergate frenzy, she filed a brief to strip President Nixon the right to counsel in congressional hearings.  (Fortunately, this was thrown out as the rubbish it was)  The Democrat does not understand that she was an unqualified disaster as Secretary of State, and previously was as bland (though every bit as crooked) as any Senator ever produced by the State of New York.

Now, of course I’m a deplorable sexist for bringing up her obvious LACK of competence and fitness for the office.  As soon as someone calls me a sexist for not voting for HRC, I just start rattling off women I’d vote for before HRC from both parties, which is pretty damn easy.  I just mention just about any woman that’s ever held political office, and then about any other that might be semi-lucid.  The bar isn’t very high for me.  Trump never got close to this level of competence in the campaign, except that he won the campaign.

The Democrats could have run 1,000 different candidates who would have beaten Trump in a presidential election.  I stand by that number, though it may be awfully low.  I believe the true number is much closer to 60,000,000 than 1,000.

And I’m a voter who wouldn’t vote for Trump in ten thousand lifetimes.  That’s how far the Democrats are from even being in at least one game.

I used to wonder a bit about all the newspapers laying around my folks (and especially, my grandparents’) houses.  The Times came every morning, and the Star and Journal World came in the afternoon.  There were newspapers everywhere every Sunday.  And we’d all have sections, read things, and talk about some of the stuff.

This doesn’t happen anymore.  Everyone is cordoned off in their own cubicle, straight-faced to their solitary choices, and the discussion is now to be found almost exclusively with those who think very much like that individual.  It doesn’t take any sort of damn genius to understand this is a poor idea on many fronts.

Is this about to turn into a “back in my days…” sort of rant?  I hope not.  Maybe it’s too late.  Oh well.  This is about the fundamental changes in society over the past generation or so.  In a few years there will be a majority of people who don’t remember life without internet.  This seems so odd.

I’m as guilty as anyone.  My life was quite a bit better when internet wasn’t here, I think.  I haven’t figured out how to adjust to it yet, and I am making an attempt.  It isn’t coming quickly or quietly.

I know for damn sure what granddad was up to—he was seeking a bunch of different views on the events of the day.  There were additional newspapers and magazines not mentioned here, and the man was a voracious reader.  I’m pretty sure he’s read WAY more than I ever will, and I go out of my way to read.   Sometimes.  There were big gaps where I wasn’t reading much at all.  It shows.  I’m dumb as shit right now.

It’s hard to keep track of the dingbats running the media outlets these days, but I have to make an attempt.  Here’s how stupid I am:  I will attempt to name the owners of various media groups, and we’ll see how far I am from the actual owner.  It will be fun!  Play along if you like, my guesses and the actual answers are included below.  I know I will do poorly on this, because there is no longer a great need to commit things like this to memory, but it’s a decent exercise.

1) Washington Post
2) New York Times
3) CNN
4) NBC
5) Fox
6) ABC
7) Drudge Report
8) Huffington Post
9) Chicago Tribune
10) Los Angeles Times

Wow, that was fun!  I’m dumber than I thought!  Now, we’re finally getting somewhere.  This list is biased, of course, because it’s MY fucking list.  Tough shit, reader.  (there are no readers, which makes this a great forum for self-flagellation.)

So anyway, now that you’ve had your fun as well, I’ll point out that google didn’t give me much help finding out the owners from #7 on, so I don’t know if these handy-ass helpful windows that appear to the right in chrome are for these poor little guys left on the edge.  What a shitshow.

I’ve become a fan of the Tribune and Times because they run stories the others don’t.  I know exactly where to go to find lunacy, right-wing and left.  It isn’t tough.  It’s fucking everywhere.  I have no way of knowing the news consumption distribution across the board.  I’m sure it’s sickening, though.  People have zero tolerance for views that fall outside their own.

Folks have lost the ability to listen like they used to.  There was a time in my lifetime when people could have civil conversations.  There were some people I was often told to not get started into any political arguments, even back in the day.  These folks are the ones now out in the pharmacy lines spouting off about how some fucking elected official was ruining their world.

I’m going to give these motherfuckers a hint here:  You dipshits pointing fingers across the aisle don’t need a political foe to ruin your goddamned lives, you’re doing it quite well on your own.  Every single motherfucker voting either Republican or Democrat to a national office is some sort of a complicit war criminal anyway, so fuck both your whored out and used up parties.

How ya’ like that hyperbole, warbird?  Who has your favorite R/D bombed the shit out of today?


Fun Quiz Results:  Mine first, then actual, as of 5/25, 2017:

1s) Bezos, Jeff, Amazon dude.
2s) Times Media Group
3s) Did Turner sell this to NBC?  Who the fuck owns NBC?
4s) GE?  I think GE owned CBS.
5s) Murdoch, or some Murdochesque franchise.
6s) Disney.  But who the fuck owns Disney?
7s) Matt Drudge
8s) Arianna Huffington sold this thing to a bunch of junior high cheerleaders.
9s) Tribune holding company of some sort
10s) Same as 9s.

1a) WP Company LLC, Nash Holdings LLC, Bezos.
2a) New York Times Company (Carlos slim, 17%)
3a) Turner Broadcasting System (Time Warner)
4a) NBCUniversal (Comcast)
5a) Fox News Group (21st Century Fox)
6a) Disney-ABC Television Group
7a) Matt Drudge
8a) AOL
9a) tronc, inc. (this is, in fact a NASDAQ traded company shed from the Tribune Company in ’14.)
10a) tronc, inc.

The Conspiracy of Conspiracies

Last 4.5 billion (or six thousand—we’ll get to that later) years been bringing you down?

Never fear—there’s a conspiracy for that!  In fact (or alternative fact—again, later…) our more enlightened friends know that conspiracies are the answer to all our questions!  If something doesn’t make sense, it’s probably a conspiracy.  If something does happen to make sense, we likely have a conspiracy to thank for maintaining the delicate balance of life on our planet.

How did we get here?  Fortunately for us, the gently thuggish invisible wand of those guiding the conspiracies maintains at least a little order.  Otherwise, we’d all be goose-stepping (but only selectively holocausting) Nazis clucking a bizarre dialect composed of Russian, Arabic, and Japanese grunts, all the while bowing tribute to our alien overlords at the Antarctic Capitol.  And we’d damn well like it.  Count your blessings, people, for we are fortunate souls, indeed.

Have you ever wondered “What’s wrong with those physicists?  Why can’t they just concoct a unified theory?”  Have your feelings ever been hurt?  Why won’t anyone just come out and tell you how much infinity is?  Did the chemtrails pull your hamstring?  Whatever happened to the dossier that proved Hoffa killed Kennedy after they lost Marilyn Monroe in a Super Bowl bet with the Bush family’s oil cabal and the mob, at one of J. Edgar Hoover’s annual cross-dressing parties at the World Trade Center?  Conspiracy.  It makes sense, even if you don’t want it to.  And THEY certainly don’t want you to understand.

We all know the CIA is up to something.  That’s what THEY do.  If it weren’t for THEM, the FBI, ATF, NSA, and Area 51, wouldn’t the NWO be calling all the shots with the Bilderbergers?  Or has it already happened?  Why do the illuminati have all the fun?  Where’s our fun?  What did THEY do with Atlantis, anyway?  Just about everyone who is anyone has a cool acronym to boast—what the hell happened to our cool acronyms?  We need to GTFO of our old way of thinking, and take charge of our more thoroughly defined and crowd-sourced THEMS.

What about the Pyramids of Giza?  Cuzco?  Stonehenge?  What on earth were THEY thinking?  It probably wasn’t of this earth.  We should all be happy we don’t have to do all the thinking for THEM.  Our tiny little heads would hurt.  Shouldn’t we all just drop what we’re doing, and go make sweet love to our local freemasons in a wildly insufficient, yet filthy and wholly inappropriate expression of our deferred gratitude for their protection and guidance?  The choice is yours. 

  

Think about it, people:  If we really went to the moon half a century ago, where is all the moon cheese at the grocery store?  Wouldn’t we be eating the moon by now, so we could concentrate solely on war, instead of growing crops, working, living, etc.?  Thank your local conspiracist for this relative peace we endure.

Like so much fluoride in the water supply, conspiracies are an everyday part of our existence.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re going to be here, no matter what.  There’s already too much hate in this world.  Have you hugged your favorite conspiracy today?

There’s still hope for all that moon cheese.  Well, there’s hope unless the moon is a hologram, and then we’d just have to eat holographic moon cheese and like it.  But what if we lived in a world where all the conspiracies tied together neatly?  Shouldn’t that big spotlight hovering 28 miles above this flat earth of ours actually illuminate a better way of thinking?  Wouldn’t we all be less confused and bewildered?  It seems like most of us could use a new THEM, anyway.  Let’s all figure out what THEY are really up to, so we know where to more properly focus our individual (and collective) angst, contempt, and disgust.  

We must create a Theory of Hypothetically Executed Melees that explains the bonds intertwining all conspiracies.  If you’re a time traveler who has already accomplished this feat, thank you in advance, and please disregard this notice.  But shame on you for doing it in the future, if time actually exists.

However, if the rest of us (those still bound by the artificial time-space constraints—you know who you are!) work together, we’ll create a better and more perfect THEM.  Only one thing can stop us, and that’s paranoia.  Well, paranoia and THEM.  That’s two things, but it’s only that way because that’s what THEY want you to believe.

Let’s do this, people.  It seems like we should be the judge for a change.  Do you think THEY want that?  If you have links between existing conspiracies, or have budding knowledge of a conspiracy not yet listed here, please share.  It’s a big, bad world out there, and we all know it’s out to get us.  

Let’s just live, laugh, and love this thing out, because that’s exactly what THEY don’t want us to do.

A Toss of the Coin: Soundgarden at Starlight Theatre, Kansas City MO

Lots of decisions around here come down to the toss of a coin.  What does it matter?  Not much.  Unless it does...

Burn bright, fade away, etc.  Soundgarden, Starlight Theatre, KCMO, May 14, 2017

Sunday night I went shopping for Willie Nelson and Tom Petty tickets.  I ended up at the Soundgarden show.  It was Mother's Day, and we'd gathered at the folks, and it was nice.  Then, I was restless.  Truth be told, I was restless on the spot, because family gatherings tend these days to a reflection of my own shitheadedness on many levels.  It shouldn't be uncomfortable.  Sometimes, it is.

The tickets were cheap.  It was a thirty-five dollar show, or something like that.  Heads, I'd be going.  Tails, well...I'd have Nebraska or Acadia or Eagle to blame.  It was heads, of course.


The Soundgarden was sold for liquor years ago.  It hasn't been replaced.  Of all the bands that took major hits during the liquor-fueled selldown, none were hit harder than Soundgarden.  Other bands were cleaned out as well, Sonic Youth, Spoon, and too many others to mention here bit the bottle.

There have been moments of reconsideration of this rule once established around here:  Any record could be sold, I just wouldn't have permission to replace it.  For the most part, this has been adhered to around this place.  I picked up a copy of Eric Clapton's "Slow Hand" a few year's back, but I had made an exception to that purchase.  It had an exemption.  There may or may not be further exemptions.

"Kill 'Em All" was the one I couldn't sell.  I knew I was done drinking, but didn't know quite how it was going to occur.  I think someone offered me $3 for the thing, and I was in bad fucking shape, but I wasn't in that bad a shape quite yet.  It appears "...And Justice For All" was hawked.  That one surprises me a little, but not too much.  Anyway, it was a matter of days after that "Kill 'Em All" incident that I was done.  Maybe that's when all the Soundgarden bit the dust.

Chris Cornell was my drinking buddy.  He didn't know me, but I'm sure he'd met thousands of me, everyday, and all over the world.

Very few bands or artists bring with them today a vivid memory of my first exposure to the product.  The late Philip Pell introduced me to Soundgarden sometime in 1989 or 90 in Rick McCaffrey's class.  I might be a year too high, but I think this is the timeframe.  I didn't know who Soundgarden was, and my first listen provided evidence that it was rubbish, but a hell of a lot better than the subject matter of the class.  All subsequent listens brought a whole lot of something else.

I didn't know how many of Soundgarden's songs had been committed to memory until Sunday night.  It was a gorgeous night in Kansas City.  Absolutely beautiful night for Starlight Theater.  Cloudless, with just a light breeze to move the air about a bit.  I sang along for the better part of the show.

The show was damn impressive.  The thought crossed my mind more than once to make a point of seeing these guys should they ever come again.  I hadn't seen them live in better than twenty years, unless I have blacked out one or more of their shows.  It is certainly possible.  I think Lollapalooza is the last time I saw them live, though.  I was with a pretty chick for that show.  I wonder what the hell she was thinking.  She was wearing a watch, but she always wore a watch.

This show there weren't any accomplices.  When a person buys tickets for a show thirty-five minutes in advance, there sometimes isn't a great deal of foresight or planning involved.  Mostly, I sat in the back row.  I spent a lot of the time looking up in the cloudless sky, a lot of time singing.  So much of it mindless (at first) but reflective.  Soundgarden had been a pretty damn big part of my life.  Going up to Starlight on this Mother's Day was one of the damnedest coin tosses I'd ever won.

What had it meant, that I'd given up the Soundgarden for a buzz?  That is something I'm still trying to figure out, but going to that concert shook me a bit.  More than a bit, but it was more or less expected.  I didn't figure the Soundgarden crowd to be terribly sober.  It wasn't.

Sunday be damned, this was a hell of a party for a lot of folks.  The band finally took the stage around 8:45.  I looked at my phone.  These days, I always seem to have to look at the phone.  Then, they played one of the best rock shows I've seen in my life.  I thought often of recording some of the numbers.  I decided against it.  Perhaps a coin should have been tossed.  I just didn't want to feel like a douche recording something on my phone when I was enjoying the live experience as much as is possible (for me at least.)

The Set List  (Stolen directly from Tim Finn's review at the KC Star):
Incessant Mace; Hunted Down; All Your Lies; Spoonman; Outshined; Black Hole Sun; Crooked Steps; My Wave; The Day I Tried to Live; Been Away Too Long; A Thousand Days Before; Burden in My Hand; Rusty Cage; Drawing Flies; Ugly Truth; Fell on Black Days; Jesus Christ Pose; Slaves & Bulldozers

And that was it.  You know, there was a time when I was so crossed up I probably thought Chris Cornell was dead.  I suppose he'd already died eight years ago at the Love Garden, when I took him back home.  Not too many months ago, I saw a copy of Superunknown going for $80.  It was the transparent pressing like the one I'd pawned many moons back.  I hope I got a kick out of the generic vodka I likely guzzled.

I've said many times that there aren't too many albums that I sold that are actually missed.  This is more than a little disingenuous by this point.  For at least some period of time, there was an actual need to get rid of these noises in my head.  Turns out, they will always be there, and that there are better ways of dealing with issues than others.

Soundgarden is a permanent part of me.  This feels like a hangover, but it isn't.  It's a thing.  Yordano Ventura's death ripped me up as well.  These things suck when liquor and drugs are involved.

I spent a lot of time wondering why the hell I was more torn up by this baseball player's passing.  He's a guy I've never met, a guy that would piss me off and thrill me within minutes, days and years.  So it is with Chris Cornell.

Shelter, someday.

Sitting there, looking up in to the stars Sunday night, I had to consider further exemptions to this whole record replacement bullshit.  Soundgarden never made me drink.  I forced Soundgarden to put up with my drinking.  This band, and Chris Cornell's lyrics are woven in the fabric of my existence.  This cannot be undone.  The show Sunday night took me through some of the darkest corners and brightest lights of my past.  Little time was spent in the middle ground.  Such is the life of a drunk.

There was a time around here when I couldn't have the Soundgarden in the house.  They weren't alone, of course.  Almost anything that I felt gave an unwanted representation of the time spent drinking had to go.  A lot went.  I spent years without a record player at all, perhaps fearful of some stone that might be turned in time.

Turn over the wrong stone, and a trigger could direct me back to an unwanted place.  For eighteen months, Soundgarden had no place in my life, except its housing of eternal dimension.  I could stay away from it, but that wasn't quite all.  It was always there.  Ignored or not, it will always be there, and I came to realize this on Sunday night.

I didn't go to the Soundgarden show to say goodbye.  I went to say hello again.  RIP CC, simply one of the best lyricists and artists a person could ever find.  I'm glad I found him this one last time.

Excitement, Enthusiasm, Etc.

So there's been another relative low achieved.  There's fleas on the place.  They suck.  It's shitty.  Nala the cat seems to be handling it better than I.

I think often of Caddyshack.  I know how Carl feels.  It's a struggle.  These fuckers are going at it when I'm sleeping.

There was a fumigation already.  It obviously didn't do the trick.  It almost killed me, but what the hell?  It didn't seem to do a damn thing to stop the next round.  That stuff said it would kill the eggs, or hatchlings, or something.  It seems to have produced a more resilient strain of flea.

There will have to be another fumigation.  A bad one.  It's getting nice outside, so I guess the tent is always an option.

This is being recorded digitally, mostly as a reminder that this particular now can't be visited again.

On the bright side, since I flatly refuse to discuss immediate family or work with my folks, we're more or less restricted to talking about fleas and personal fitness.  "I think it was Jermaine Jackson that brought the fleas.  I did this," I mentioned to the folks tonight over basketball.

They each looked at me funny.  I guess the looks I perceived were the looks a guy could expect when he's named the last litter of Patty's kittens after the Jackson Five.

On a side note entirely, I think one of the estranged/presumed dead Jacksons came around this morning.  There was another tom in the group, and the goddamn thing looks EXACTLY like the recently-late Pattymom.  I nearly hit him with a BB, but it flew high and wide left.  Jermaine is the only Jackson budgeted for the current tour.  If there's some sort of hostile takeover, that's cat business, and I'll stay out of that.  Jermaine should try and take care of the possum and raccoon first, I reckon.  Me too.

Anyway, back to the Jacksons.  They're the outside crew, and Jermaine has been around five years or so.  He was here for the last big winter.  We have an understanding of sorts.  But part of that understanding never should have been me being stupid enough to leave the window of the F-150 down for a couple of months.

Patty was the main sleeper in the truck, historically.  This has happened before.  I'm pretty sure the fleas came from the F-150.  There were tarps in there.  I think I brought them in for cleaning, and shook out the start of something very, very bad.

I hadn't treated Nala for years.  There haven't been fleas, that I've noticed.  I'm noticing the shit out of them now, and that's when it's almost too late, by surface appearance.

The place is going to have to become spotless in order for this to work, I think.  I'm not liking my chances.  This would require a fundamental personality change.  I suppose it's possible, but I'll obviously have to be the fellow getting it done.  The fleas have to go.  It's depressing.

Many battles have been lost (and won), but I am going to win this fucking war.  Fucking fleas.

Mark 1-8

It appears that around the beginning of Mark's Gospel, the entire Bible had been entirely consumed by piracy.  I wonder if the New Pirates are anything like those of the Old Piracy?  What an odd collection of volumes...

Mark 1:

Jesus talks to himself:  Those Old Pirate dudes said some stuff in Isaiah and Malachi was gonna happen someday.  I gotta do some of that stuff, man.  It was written.

John the Baptist baptises NPJC (New Pirate JC) and becomes NPJC's temporary manager.  The tour encompassed Judea, Jerusalem and beyond, but the opening concert at the River Jordan set the stage for a whirlwind tour, complete with a splitting of the heaven and a speaking appearance by Cap'n Jehovah himself:  Me Boy!  Melikes!  Walk the Plank, we see what ye be made of!  'Tis an order!  Arrrgh!

And NPJC was cast into the temptations of the Satanic wilderness, bereft of any piracy whatsoever, for 40 days.  On his return, he said, "It's time.  Repent.  Believe.  Do. It." and a bunch of people did.  Destined for stardom, NPJC found James and John struggling with their nets in the water.  NPJC said, "Come.  Fish for souls.  It's easier."  James and John followed.  On the sabbath in Capernaum, NPJC and his posse pirated the shit out of the synagogue.  An upset Jew apparently needed an exorcism, and NPJC came through in the clutch.  NPJC was the biggest act in Galilee by this point.

Right after the synagogue exorcism, NPJC and his posse (DJs-Double-J feat. John, known later as DJ-3J, then DJ3Js, before the NPJC posse broke loose with their transition name da Boys and finally merged with the remaining Boyz-2-Cum, to settle on their tour name, DaDirtyDoz.) found Simon and Andrew.  Simon's wife and mom were sick, so NPJC healed them.  NPJC nearly doubled his posse in this one private show. NPJC had taken over Meek SA's crib, and that whole quarter of Capernaum was pretty much NP territory by this point, synagogue included.  NPJC wisely fortified his new turf by healing all means of demonic and other ailment, and said:  Dudes, let's go to the desert.  NPJC, DJs-3J and Meek SA went out on a Galilee-wide tour, with NPJC preaching piracy and casting out demons. 

A leper found the posse and plead for a private show with NPJC.  This happened, and NPJC told the guy:  Just tell one guy you saw me.  Go to the synagogue, tell them Moses sent you to clean things up.

The leper told everyone but synagogue guy, and NPJC and da Boyz (his posse had chosen this temporary name while in exile) had to reschedule the entire tour, as virtually every town bailed on the bookings.  They set up shop in the desert, and still drew decent crowds.

Mark 2:

By the time "Repent to Capernaum" hit the shelves, NPJC was the top-grossing show in Galilee.  To kick off the tour, he forgave a fellow for having palsy.  Critics were split on this performance, some calling it an act of compassion, and others (mainly Philistines) raged of the blasphemous nature of the act, citing various OP law.

NPJC said:  Would you rather I tell him to walk?  Go forth, dude.

The previously palsied man raised himself and left, and even the Philistines were mesmerized by the show.  NPJC had never been more on top of his game, and he was just getting warmed up.  Love him or hate him, the show couldn't be missed.  NPJC, always with a keen eye for talent, scouted Levi and said:  Come on.  

So Levi joined da Desert Boyz with the tour turning heads nationwide for its irreverent and highly provocative nature.  Wherever NPJC and da Desert Boyz went during that portion of the tour, there was sinning, and there was trouble.  When NPJC and da Boyz were caught looting and pillaging corn on the sabbath, NPJC gave a longwinded and confusing rationalization of something OP David did way back in the day, and finished by saying:  Sabbath's for people, not the other way around, dig? Dead men don't tell tales, anyway, dude.  Argh, man.

Mark 3:

  

Leviticus 1-10

Oh No.  Leviticus Again...

Yes, Leviticus again.  So many reasons to take a five-year break to tackle Mosaic Law, all of them good ones.  The first seven attempts weren't enough.  Had to come back for a couple, three more whippings.  I'm going to try to look at the bright side this go around.  Busted out an old family bible.  Someone might just pirate the shit out of some Mosaic summation. 'Tis for the best, mateys! A long journey beckons, webe listen to the call of dead men. Santa Biblia also beckons me back, mayhaps?  

Leviticus 1:

Jehovah becalls he Moses, bespake the tale of the blemish-free calves o'slaughter.  Burn it at the altar, ye oblations me mateys, the blood be spattered 'bout by Aaron's mateys.  Flay it, burn it more! Let they bleeds a bit o' severed head o'beast.  Clean the guts avast the fire.  If yebrings a lamb, burn it north o'altar, Aaron's mateys 'twil hack to shreds, but bekeeps it clean the guts. Be they birds to burn, take east o'altar, don't yebe eats the beasties, spray the blood about in its special place, and make the savor for Jehovah. 'Tis an order!

Leviticus 2:

More orders from Cap'n Jehovah to Moses, be he a land pirate o' tent.:  Arrrgh! When ye makes me meals, don't scrimp.  Keep me favorite condoments at bay! Basically, ye be gives me the best of your all, including ye oils and breads.  Burn the best of ye wood for me fires, too.  Ye be use the leavened bread on someone else's sweet savor, not mine!  Arrgh! If ye be gives me the first-fruits, make sure ye use the covenant salt for more savor.  Arrgh!

Leviticus 3:

Continued orders from Cap'n Jehovah:  Arrgh!  Ye be brings me peace-offerings, make 'em top notch, sailors!  No booger baskets on me ship!  Flay it, Aaron's mateys know what to do.  Make the beasty bleed.  Hack and flay at the door of the temple.  Me sweet savor:  'Tis an order!  Ye only brings me lamb?  'Twil please me none less ye be flayed the beastie into tiny parts, only a few ye be burn.  The rest, Aaron's mateys be take care the stink, I'll have no kidney nor backbone nor such in me sweet savor!  Arrrgh!  A goat?  Ye brings me a goat, I'll have less quarter with the goat than the lamb, but ye boys know to burn what you can.  Frankly, methinks ye be makes mistake to eat the goat.  'Tis a recommendation.  Arrrgh!

Leviticus 4:

Cap'n Jehovah orders Israel via Moses:  When ye be sinners, ye can always kill a bull.  This mayhaps make your account with me.  But ye have to fuck around with the slayed beastie just right, or ye be no-account sinners in me log!  Arrrgh!  Ye have a sinner among yer mateys, ye best be singled out.  Smack the gossip 'bout, methinks.  Make it a mighty fine rum romp, me party.  Sin all ye wants, but keep this part for me, matey:  Mewants one of Aaron's mateys to do me special dance with the bullblood.  'Tis important!  Ye be told this four times for four different accounts of sins, but me wants me bullblood, and methinks if the sin be witless or a political type, then the lamb or goat besuit me timberstiff.  Just make sure Aaron's mateys ass off with the innards much more with the lamb or the goat when me sweet savor is bestaked!  Arrrgh!

Leviticus 5:

Cap'n Jehovah discusses hygiene:  Arrgh!  Much is unclean!  Ye be sins assing around with unclean beasts.  Don't touch.  Don't touch who touches it.  Don't even look at it.  Mekeeps a good crew, not an evil one.  We be good pirates!  When ye be sin a bit, admit it, sailor!  As long as ye has goats for Aaron's boys, methinks playing around in carcasses is okay.  Me just needs ye goat when ye sin this way. But there be much bureaucracy when ye be sin, me orders for peace offerings and sin offerings are much the same, but me head needsbe this way.  'Tis different!  Arrgh.  Aaron's mateys know what to do with the two young turtle doves and pigeons.  Burn them!  Burn only the parts I want burned.  Tell Aaron's mateys what I like.  Now, ye be have property disputes, loot and plunder the trespasser, take the shekels, he be put ye shekel in the temple fund.  'Tis an order!

Leviticus 6:

Cap'n Jehovah continues:  Ye befinds a crook among ye pirates, charge 20% interest.  And a ram for me.  Methinks weneeds a talk about Aaron's mateys.   They needsbe have a flame each night, all night, for me, at the altar.  With a burnt offering, mewants the mateys wearing clean garments before spreading me ashes from me fire all about.  'Tis important!  The meal offering, memakes mention again of me frankensense and me oil and be fine flour.  No cheap stuff!  Arrgh!  Methinks ye know about the leavened bread?  Mewants me offerings in specific portions.  Damn specific.  Take a tenth of an ephah of fine flour perpetually, half in the morning and half at night.  Don't eat it.  'Tis mine!  Burn it! Burn it, change ye clothes and spread me ashes 'bout!  These places where ye needsbe kill me beasties be holy to me, and mewants the altar and me altar deck swabbed.  Keep me altar clean, 'tis important!

Leviticus 7:

More Cap'n's orders:  We betalks more o' the trespass-offering, methinks.  'Tis most holy!  Arrrgh!  Burn the fat!  Spare the kidney--methinks it unclean!  Eat ye mateys, Aaron's boys at least, be they manly.  Ye be use me condiments fur yer special fare!  Me makes mention of unleavened bread.  Ye knows what methinks of the leaven?  Me thought so, but methinks we speak again o' the bread.  Spray ye the blood o' heave-offering.  Me feels like 'tis a fair time to flail blood at me altar.  Has memade mention o' me freewill-offering?  Ye has no choice in this matter!  Arrrgh!   Methinks Aaron's boys beneeds reminder o' handling unclean beasties:  Take no quarter!  Arrrgh!  Remind me laddies o' Israeli dock no eaties from me list!:  No fat of ox or sheep or goat.  No dead beasties befound.  No blood.  Aaron's boys beneeds a part of me heaves and peaces.  'Tis important!  So ye knows no o' th' burnt an' th' meal an' th' sin an' th' tresspass off'rins, an' ye know o' the consecration and sacrifice o' the peace, and ye be much clear on me matter here, mateys!  Arrgh!

Leviticus 8:

The Cap'n continues on Sinai:  Methinks something missing from me plan...aha! Gather ye Aaron and he boys, get ye plenty of oil, a bull, a couple rams, and the unleavened bread.  Get ye garments, get ye to the hall and do me bidding.  'Tis an order!  Arrrgh!  

Moses descends and goes to the entrance of the tent.  His people are gathered there, and he attempted to explain:  "Me laddies, hear me!  'Twas not me concoction.  Cap'n Jehovah calls he play 'Th' Consecration.'  We be do it fair justice, 'tis a fine show o' th' Cap'n!  Can't be helped, me mateys, perform!"  

What follows is a bizarre amalgamation of the seven previous chapters, followed by a forced isolation of seven days in the tent alone, presumably to think long and hard about all that had just occurred.

Leviticus 9:

The eighth day arrives, and there is a lecture from Moses to Aaron and the other sons of Israel about the next several rounds of sacrifice.  "Cap'n Jehovah wants he encore!  We mayhaps mix it up a bit.  Cap'n's orders!   We be do the sin, then the burnt, then the peace and meal, and we beputs on the glory o' show.  The Cap'n wants to see it!  He be here if we be do the show just right!  'Tis true!"

So the people of Israel dressed for the occasion, and nailed the performance.  Cap'n Jehovah consumed the altar in apparent approval, and Israel dropped their heads to the ground in awe.

Leviticus 10:

Cap'n Jehovah's reviews were mixed, however.  Turns out Nadab and Abihu burnt something the Cap'n didn't like, and he made it known via Moses.  "Well me boys ye fucked up.  On me team, we win as Israel and ye lose as Israel, so me be single out Nadab and Abihu, but methinks ye mateys out best pick up the slack, mayhaps repeat me best parts the show, and Aaron's boys maychoose get something right for once." And an elaborate amount of offering was performed on behalf of Nadab and Abihu, much blood was scattered about, and livestock elaborately mutilated, but this time in the proper order and time.  This would not be the last time one party would pay for the sins of another in these volumes.

What Are Goals, Anyway?

Expect No Correct Answers Herein:

Good question.  Something to do?  That's the answer in one case, at least.  I have to go back in time (if it exists) to try to answer the question in my case.  My answer is still the one stated above.  Something to do.  The first eighteen months after quitting the drink were miserable in most ways.  The positive was that there were no hangovers or unexplained absences.  The down side of all this was that I wasn't drunk.  I still wanted to be drunk every single day.  Didn't want to drink socially, no.  I wanted to be drunk.  Still do.

I say this with a caveat:  I want to not drink just a little bit more than I want to drink.  I suppose that's been the case since the summer of 2009.  Or I'd be drunk right now.  Or dead.  I was drinking enough that the dead thing was looking as likely as the drunk thing.

Not all goals are created equal.  We all know this.  If I set a goal to shave a cat and set it on fire, it's pretty easy to concoct a moral, practical, and legal argument that far superior goals are out there for the taking.

The Burden of Time:  System vs. Goal

What can Dustin Hoffman teach us about setting goals?  Not much, it turns out.  Life isn't like Hollywood.  Or at least, it didn't used to be.  I don't know where the whole digitization of every single person's entire fucking life is headed (hint:  Uh, actually...yeah, maybe I do, or at least have a perception of that "do".) but the entire fabric of American society is built upon escape these days.  Terrorists:  Keep 'em out!  We've escaped 'em!  Crime:  Build more jails!  We've escaped 'em!  It's a little hard to live in a place where the response to roads and bridges crumbling is to defund highway maintenance to help subsidize the effective theft from the people of public schooling.

But there are oh, so many escapes!  Social media?  Why, it's the most perfect escape ever!  Used to be a fun place to jump around, get caught up with old friends and see how people are doing, generally speaking.  I am so close to the point of wanting absolutely nothing to do with that process, but have become more than a little convinced that virtually nothing is real, anyway.

I think there is very likely one "real" setup.  Everything branches off this setup.  I don't know where the real setup is located.  I don't think it is here.  We're living in an odd-ass time, friends, and I figure the odds of me living at exactly this time in exactly this way are either 100% or zero.  Which do you think it might be?  This is a binary distribution, so I have passed over the realm of probability and into statistic above.  No one knows what the hell that is anymore, so again, a waste of time.

If time exists.  I have now.  Well, I have my perception of now.  I can cling to that, in times (ha!) like this where the essence of all meaning has broken down more than a little bit.  Been noticing for a while that tomorrow never comes.  Will anything be different tomorrow?  Yeah, everything will be different, as much as everything will be exactly the same.  We'll have our little pleasantries and interactions, our faiths will be tested and revealed, and at day's end there will have been some marginal and/or massive change in each of our own lives.

Goals:  The National Parks

What does it say of a man when his primary goals are nearly completely accidental?  The past couple large ones were by much better construction than the first two.  I don't even recall at all what I was thinking when these were concocted, or if there was even a preconceived notion at all.  All I knew was that that initial fog had passed, whatever the hell that was.  It's all weather.  I think there was just some day when I said to someone, or perhaps only to myself, "I think I'm going to see all the National Parks."

Petrified Forest Marathon View of the Painted Desert

I know this for goddamn sure, whenever I uttered that phrase in mind or voice, there wasn't a clear understanding of what the hell was going to have to happen for it to occur.  What a scattershot mess.  I wouldn't trade what I've seen to this point for any other experience so far in life.  It's been going away the most rewarding concoction of mind, and it certainly wasn't an original thought.

There must have been more than a little credit for inspiration to Ken Burns.  Back when I had television, I loved his documentary work.  I'm sure I still do, but haven't had exposure to anything the man has done since it first aired on PBS.  I don't remember him mentioning there were 58 (now 59, because, time.) but I would bet a large sum of money it was mentioned once, if not often.  Wait, I don't have any money to bet.  Sorry!

God damn.  That's a big goal.  All I really knew at the time of this decision, I can say with near certainty, is that I didn't appreciate what the hell a stunt like this would actually require.  It would have been insane to state some sort of goal like this without knowing the ins and outs of the whole process.  My answer to doing the necessary research was to set a time limit for the entire operation.

I often say I am uncertain I've made one good decision in my life, but with the passage of a little time, my conclusion is that this was an essential decision to make.  The limit was set for the end of the decade, I'd declared at the beginning of the current one.  I don't count 2010, because that was way back in the dark age, along with the tail end of 2009.  That whole mess must now be considered a necessary extension of the actual time spent drinking, because it was a mirror image in those moments.

So, by my definition, I have until the conclusion of the year 2020 to finish this deal.  SOB would I love to finish by 2019.  I want to settle down a little.  Wow.  I just wrote that sentence.

To this date, I lack eight parks in Alaska, two in Hawaii, two in California, Maine, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands.  Is that right?  It has to be right.  I think.  Fifteen more.  That sounds right.  Four years seems a whole lot more doable than three.   I was doing a little mental math, way back in the day, apparently.

Goals:  Road Racing Fifty States

Once the running was emphasized, I had a dumbshitted and briefer goal of running a marathon in every state.  Within five years of stating such rubbish, it was obvious my body wouldn't go through such a stunt without substantial bad medical operations.  Fuck that nonsense.  A permanently modified goal was set to run a road race in every state.  Notice how I didn't set a limit on the road race?  I like what I did there.  To this point, I've counted only the half-marathons (or equivalent distance therein) for my mileposts.

Jackson Hole Marathon, Mile 2

At March, 2017, I've run road races in sixteen states?  This sounds absurd now, but I guess this is right.  It's absurd on a number of levels.  The one that jumps out first at me is that there are fifty states in the Union.  This is the type of thing that would make me a secessionist, but too many of those goddamn races are peppered across the south and west.  It would fuck up my whole campaign.  I've given myself as long as I fucking live to knock this one out, because this sort of nonsense eats up a fuckton of time.  The prep work is horrific, and the time commitments to ramming in three races a year or so are numbing.  So I can and do take my time on this one.  I've got fairly decent health, because I'm running all over Douglas County all the goddamn time.

This thing is an extension of a goal set in childhood to see all fifty states.  Still working on that one, but I think it is down to three:  Rhode Island, Alaska, and Hawaii.  Good thing they aren't spread out or anything.

Goals:  Major League Ballparks

Baseball's always been my first love.  It's just been that way.  The timing was right.  If I was ten years older, my love would likely be the goddamned Chiefs, but they would have killed me by now.  I'd be drinking heavily if this were the case.

Kicking the drink made me put a lot of this emotional commitment bullshit in the trash can.  I barely follow sport at all these days.  I'm still prone to it--everyone is.  I don't want to go back to living like a robot (a necessity at one point) whereby every single decision I made I tried to remove the emotion.  That didn't work any more than emotional guidance.   The answer is almost always in the middle.

San Diego, still missing the brown and gold.

Again, major props to Ken Burns.  His Baseball documentary is an American masterpiece of film.  So, naturally, a guy like me that's committed to happy feet and running all over the goddamn country has to make the thing a little more stupid by concentrating some activity on the most densely packed urban areas in North America.  At this point, I could do without most of the cities, but that's where the ballparks are located.  It seems like decent progress is being made here, I think the count is now eleven left.  I've jumped all over this one, I like this stunt.  It's expensive too, but I've blended it into the fabric of these other dipshitted things to do almost as well as I could.

Goals:  Presidential Libraries

What's it say about a guy who adds Presidential Libraries to this list?  Well, it says I'd very much like to finish all the lists, but am awfully impatient.  The sprint to finish the ballpark thing is crucial.  The number would be only nine if not for the constant addition of new facilities.  I've been trying to stay out of the way of places known to suck, or that might relocate.  This has been a blast.  I've loved the libraries.  I don't have to "do" anything, but can "be" and learn.

Bush 41, College Station, TX, view from bookstore.

What do these all have in common?  They all have been essential to keeping me out of the bottle to this point, so they need their props here.  It's the idea that there's something out there to look forward to.  We all need this.  Some have it in their kids, pets, themselves, their loves.  Wherever it is, everyone has some concoction of this.  For many, it's video games, some are passionate about all sport, I certainly was for a great deal of time.

This year, I have nothing on the calendar.  Yet.  This has to change, because I'm running out of decade.  I'd imposed time limits on the ballparks, at least.  Figured some bastard could always start adding libraries, and then I'd need more time.  

Five-Iron

I don't know exactly when the speed-golf kick began.  It must have been early fall, because dad got the membership for my birthday.  I'd just started in for a few weeks at that point, so September, I guess.

I have no recollection of what might have been going on in my head when a decision was made to break par in around 35 minutes.  That was the goal, and I've gotten only as close as five-over.  The five-over was repeated many times, but this was the plateau established before the winter set in.

It was like all the other plateaus in life, the first one seemed like it came easily, then there were all the valleys that accompany the peaks.  Still, for the most part, I'd kept playing when the weather afforded the opportunity.

It's been a Texas winter in this part of Kansas.  It's been cold, and brutally so on a couple of occasions.  For the most part, it has been mild.  Throw in a healthy dose of post-New-Year's unemployment, and yeah...I was out on the fucking golf course from time to time, even when I didn't much want to.

Fuck, I haven't had a whole lot of want-to in any category lately.  When I quit or cut back on the exercise, bad things happen to the head.  I don't know how much is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the thing tends to feed on itself.  Bad deal.  I've got to figure out how to manage this phenomenon a lot better next go around.  This winter was a fucking dud.

The Wilson Staff 5-iron is the only club I've hit in almost half a year.  Even on many days and evenings when I didn't want to at all, I was out at the Baldwin Golf Course, hitting around that club.  When I got back up and going a few weeks back, I had to take some breaks.  My fitness level had dipped to the point that I needed breaks, and the greens at Baldwin are sand.  They need an occasional rake.  I've been raking a lot of greens.

So I'm not actually putting in this goal to break par, I'll take one putt within the flagstick, two without.  The short game isn't much to speak of.  I am at my best when approaching finesse shots as Beavis.  It honestly helps.  Clear the mind completely, and score.  It's the Beavis way.  It's been effective.  I've had to continue this unorthodox practice just to stay on the course.

God, there was a lot of anger and disgust in my game once I'd given it up the last go-around.  It's one thing to get good at something, and it's a whole lot different to stay good.  I lost the focus to stay good once I was somewhat at the doorstep.

Now, golf tends to mirror life more than a little.  My game, when I restarted all this business, was an awful amalgamation of herk, jerk, bounce and flail.  The overriding thing that I want most to accomplish is to avoid injury.  There have been more golf injuries in the past six months than running injuries, though it remains entirely up in the air if I have been running at all.

So, yeah...I'm struggling with the existence of time as a concept, and people are worried if I'm fucking drunk again.  Maybe the golf is part of it.  I've probably spent about as much time drinking while golfing than without.  Maybe that was part of what I was trying to change.  I'm still way out ahead on drinking and adulting vs. not drinking and adulting.  It's no big fucking surprise to me my mental age is about 29.  Jesus.  What a debacle.

After the second relatively serious golf injury, I'd decided I didn't much care what I scored anymore, I just wanted to be able to hold my arm above my head after any given round.  Another injury was an odd oblique strain or something of the sort--I pulled some muscle I didn't even know I had, all in the name of setting a ball airborne.

And what a struggle it's been.  The best part about this whole speed-golf business was that there wasn't enough leftover energy to get too upset about the upsetting shots.  For a player who was once fundamentally sound, it is a spell of torture to totally re-build the swing.  It's humbling.  If there's one thing golf can do to an individual, that thing should be some healthy dose of humility.  Moreso than baseball, golf is a game of making the most of and minimizing the graduated errors.

At one point, I'd ordered the golf instruction manuals that had been previously destroyed in a drunken August in Vinland.  There were three paperback issues that I bought in the eighties, along with a hardcover Ben Hogan's Five Lessons manual.  The paperbacks were a series of Jack Nicklaus comic strips, these must have been syndicated before my time.
  

This is one of the cartoons on the opening page of the Play Better Golf book I'd reordered.  Look at Jack's face.  One thing he doesn't want to be thinking about on the driving range is the blonde in a skin-tight sweater.  Look at Jack's face.  He's pissed.  Intentional or not, the artist depicts a Jack Nicklaus upset at the hottie on the course.  I wonder if Tiger has this frame up on his refrigerator?

Between the accrued knowledge of Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus, one would have some reasonable expectation of knowing where the ball is going.  This doesn't necessarily have to be the case.  If a person can't keep his head still and his limbs under control might as well butcher these copies with a random iron.  I'd certainly done this out in Vinland years ago.

Point of reference:  I used to regularly score under par out at the sands of Baldwin.  Drunk.  It wasn't tough.  I'd gotten good enough, and had hit enough balls, that if things were clicking, I was on auto-pilot.  The weakness was always the short game.  It usually took a great stroke of luck or an absense of cognition to get the short game anywhere near a competitive level.  Baldwin was a gin-swilling, beer-tossing good time, though.  Most every putt on a sand green is a straight one.  That should help.  Sometimes, it does.

I cannot recall if these Wilson Staffs were found before or after I'd quit drinking.  My mind wasn't in much of a state of differentiation for a solid eighteen months after cessation.  I'm not sure it's in that much of a state yet.  Obviously not too much, but that little discovery seemed at the time to be a sign.

I'd always wanted a set of Staffs.  There is no feel like that of a well-hit forged iron shot.  All the modern club technology in the world can never replace that point of perfection of the well-struck ball.  All the advancement in the world is no exchange for that feeling, and I'd been good enough for a long enough period of time to know the feeling.

In my very first bag were a couple of sawed-off blades.  They weren't Staffs, but a K-Mart knockoff of some sort or other.  I do not recall the manufacturer, but these were certainly broken in due course.  Not from a well played shot, but bent around a tree, heaved over a cliff, and etc.  Golf was my first varsity sport in high school.  It's always going to have a soft spot of sorts.  There wasn't a baseball team, and my destiny was to attend school without one.  Until it wasn't.  Then it was again, but that is another story for some other day.  Or not.

I subscribed to the Edwin Watts catalogue, Golfsmith, Golf Digest, Golf Magazine, etc.  One thing I'd figured out after my freshman year was that I didn't like losing, and especially didn't care much for having my ass totally kicked and being a laughingstock.  What a year.  We worked at it, got better.  We were so bad, we couldn't help but improve.  Eventually, we got kinda good.  Then one of us died, and those that were left got a little better.  It was an incremental buildup for me, just as it was an incremental breakdown.  Again, golf and life, life and golf.  Maybe this was some sort of an attempt to cobble some broken pieces back to some more proper place?  We'll find out...

After abandoning first the liquor, the golf game was in total shambles.  For starters, a spate of anhedonia is bound to occur in any ex-drinker's life.  The golf was just one of many manifestations.  Back then, things had to be pared down.  I think it's about time for another round, and there is a new volunteer in the five-iron.

I'd mentioned before it was a decent shot.  I think it was as good a shot as a person could expect when starting the swing with a club and ending with two club parts.  The previous several holes had been the typical exercise of patience and experimentation, but the last couple holes had demonstrated real progress.  I was generating some tremendous clubhead speed for the first time this year.  A couple of the jacks went about 200 yards.

Well, all good things come to an end.  The last shot only went about 190.  The clubhead went about forty yards.  RIP, five-iron.  The even irons have too long been a weakness in my game, anyway.  If I can hit a five-iron 200, it stands to reason that the six should go almost 190.  That will just have to do for now.

For What It's Worth

This doesn't matter much, what's about to be stated:  I'm not drinking, and I'm not drunk.

There.  I said it.  Everyone feel better?  It's true.

This little long-abandoned project began as an exercise to see how crazy a person might get when they try to take alcohol out of a life where it had been more or less present continually.  Here's the thing about experiments:  They don't always work.  They almost can't work, if "work" is this thing that someone might have in mind.

Well, a person can go about as crazy as they'd like when no longer under the influence of alcohol.  I'm proof of that, not at all unique.  It's likely little coincidence that once the running came around, my time spent on this little project took a back seat.  It was something to do.  This, this writing about nothing and nowhere, this space in time was something to do.

There's been a little bit of doing in the past few years.  I think that was probably a good thing, overall.  There are bad things that have come down the pipe as well.

It's tempting to go back and delete the nonsense in the past of this space, but that won't be happening soon.  It's there for a reason.  I don't want to go back there.  Here may not be the best place on the planet, but it isn't there.  Now is better than any of my previous thens.

If someone would have asked me the odds that I'd be sober over seven years down the road, I probably would have lost the bet.  Just to prove a point, maybe?  Hard to say.  I was convinced to be done at the time, but had very little confidence for eighteen months about the long-term ability or ramification of such a thing.  The running has been tremendously helpful on this front.

The absense of that running messes up the body and mind every bit as bad as the absense of alcohol.  It is odd, but I guess it shouldn't be surprising at all.  The physiological and psychological benefit of that sort of discipline in training cannot be easily replaced.  It's saved my sobriety, every bit as much as a continued attendance in a little AA.

It's as much society as I can stand.  Still.  I'll go to a ballgame or a concert once in a while, but found that the library isn't the easiest damn place in the world.

It's still tremendously unclear if any attempt will be made to piece in these four years that elapsed.  There's been a lot of movement.  Little settling.  Shifting sands all about, and yes...no true north.

Oh, well.  Gonna have to do for now.