Music.....

...... a strange thing happened last night, I suppose........ The Missus arrived home late after a trying day at work, and I began playing music files from the computer for her to try to calm her down a bit....

... at first it was the "name the song or band" game... (as I have some VERY odd selections on the computer, it can be quite challenging, I assure you.... ever heard "Werecow"?) ..... anyway, after she became bored with that, I then played a few of her generation's songs and that I knew she would like....... and it seemed to cheer her up a bit....

.... Kate Bush, The Pretenders, The Smiths, some Skaa stuff (... think Madness....)....... and then I wandered, once again, into Tom Waits......

.... I played her 'I Can't Wait To Get Off Work And See My Baby"...... and then, "Invitation To The Blues"...... the latter song, good lord, I had not heard for nearly four years...... but as it played, I began to sing...... and I knew every word.......... every single word after four years.........

...... tonight when she arrived home and had dinner, she told me that she had woken up with that song in her head this morning.......... "Invitation To The Blues"........

.... I told her that I loved the story that the song told..... how that the idea of a poor man with a "worn out pair of shoes" and a "ticket getting out of here" would somehow change his mind because of a waitress at a greasy spoon diner was absolutely enthralling..... and that there were phrasings in it that were true works of art..... she nodded her head in agreement..........

..... lives are such strange things sometimes..... good lord........

..... Prine, Hiatt, Waits..... Buffett, and Zevon..... Taylor, Lightfoot, and Croce........ she hates them all, but she somehow puts up with my taste for them and their music.......

..... but you know, music is poetry when it is really done right...... it's not for dancing to necessarily...... it's not for slamming shots of tequila to..... or for running to...... or lifting weights until you puke...... music - the storytelling kind - is something to sit back and savor like your favorite lines from a good book.....

...... when I listen to music, I listen to music...... the beat does not matter to me....... all that matters are the words.... the message, story, or idea that the writer is trying to convey........ the clanging of the gongs or the thumping of the base are secondary to me........ I give the beat a wide berth when I listen to music........

...... the rhythm is secondary........ it has always been the words that I craved........

.... while I love the song, I still think that it is odd that she awoke dreaming of a Tom Waits song that I'd forced her to listen to the night before..... especially when all she was really craving was old 80s songs that reminded her of Big Hair.........

..... if she starts taking my Waits CDs from the Audi and sneaking them into her Cadillac, I sense a serious upcoming disturbance in The Force, boys and girls........

.... serious.....

Eggs.......

.... it has been an interesting day here around the compound, campers....... and I am awfully tuckered out...... so I shall simply offer you a little something to help you get to sleep tonight........ I'll certainly have it down low on the stereo tonight as I fall asleep...... it is one from my private collection.... and it has always done me right.......

.... enjoy, I hope, some Tom Waits....

...... he's just a click away......

.... everyone on Earth should own an album that contains this song...........

Chasseur.....

..... I spent the better half of the afternoon locked in mortal combat with a obstinate weed-eater, ten fire ant mounds, and a ditch-line of unruly weeds....... and how'd your sweltering, steamy, sticky Sunday go?..... hmmm?.....

... it's all good though..... and actually it's time for a long, cool shower and a gin & tonic...... with a nice chicken a la chasseur baking in the oven.......

.... after all, one cannot spend the entirety of a day dressed as Che Guevara (except armed with a weed-whacker instead of an old Soviet rifle.), without sitting back, taking stock, and enjoying the spoils of your labor afterwards, yes?....

.... anyway, speaking of dinner, Wikipedia says that the dish I'm preparing tonight was present on the menu during the first run of the original Orient Express back in October of 1882.....

..... who says we ain't kultcha'd around here?......

Women....

.... I rewatched Bruce Willis kick ass again last night in "Unbreakable".... and, just like every time before, I was left with many more questions than answers....... down deep, though, I am a fairly committed Bruce Willis fan, so I can let most things slide when it comes to Bruce..... but I suppose the most intriguing thing is the whole Superhero/Antihero Yin-Yang thing that the story suggests is timeless......

.... it's a bit hard to swallow, really - the idea that comic books are somehow a window to the tales lost in the mists of time...... and that there are equal and opposite forces at work in our worlds, for that matter..... (I've always tended to think that people are innately good rather than bad, but then I have also been called a naïf on a few occasions.)....

..... but tonight I enjoyed having my Sainted Mother over for dinner (I grilled shrimp and made a oil & vinegar pasta salad), and two things immediately popped into my head as she made her exit....

.... ever heard someone talk about the "unconditional love of a Mother for their child"?....... sure you have..... and hey, any Mother worth her salt is absolutely devoted - heart & soul - to her kids....... so, as one might figure, a proper Mother is Unconditional Love + Protector + Teacher + Disciplinarian + frigging Saint.......

..... but tonight another oft used quote came to mind regarding the fairer sex as my Mother ranted about my sibling's woes........ "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

...... things are afoot in the wind here that promise to be very interesting over the next week or so regarding Mothers & Their Offspring, folks.....

.... I guess my question - and how it relates to "Unbreakable" is this: if there is an equilibrium in this wonderful world we live in, what on earth is going to happen when a Mother is scorned by her child?...... which side will win?..... the Unconditional Love side, or the Hell Hath No Fury side?....... it's definitely one of those Unstoppable Forces meets Immovable Object kind of things, if you ask me........ but hey, I just don't know....

...... so, what do you think will happen?...... or should we all just sit around and read more comic books and grow our hair wild like Samuel L Jackson, or should we just allay ourselves to the fact that some old maxims are just plain bullshit?........

... for me?.... personally?..... well, I think the idea of me with an afro is absolutely hysterical......

Doctors....

..... I woke up this morning humming this tune and couldn't put my finger on it until late tonight..........

..... so for Farrah, Jocko, Ed, Bou's friend, and Jerry's momma....... a little Tom Waits......... I'm feeling a little bit blue myself.........

...... music is sometimes a balm....... goodnight, y'all........

Golf.....

..... the tournament at Wimbledon begins today..... and every year for the past 15, I have watched bits and pieces of the play there..... it's become an annual event for my household........ and never having been a tennis player, I'm awed by the players' abilities.... I took the time to watch The French Open in its entirety this year - something that I've never done before - and while the play was fun to watch, it just didn't have the civility of Wimbledon......

..... I suppose it is the grass.... or perhaps the white tennis outfits..... or maybe the old custom of serving strawberries and cream..... but it just seems so much more gentlemanly (and ladylike) when you watch the players at Wimbledon...... there are no flashy outfits to distract you from play..... it's just more genteel....

.... golf, on the other hand, is another thing all together...... there is an innate gentility to golfing, sure, but there there has always been something about golf that never caught my fancy....... Elisson writes a beautiful post here of fondly remembered golf memories, and it started this whole thought process spinning for me this morning.....

.... while I am a tolerable golfer at times (especially for the first nine holes), I can probably tally the number of times that I have played at well under 100.... and I guess that it is my status as a relative golf novice that keeps me from enjoying televised championships....

.... in all honesty, my first forays into the Golfing World consisted of covert, midnight, commando-style raids to steal harvest lost golf balls from our local country course.....

.... from the ages of 13-16 I was employed by a neighbor to do odd jobs around his home..... I mowed his lawn, helped him paint his log home, repaired broken palettes in his garage (he had a contract with a local manufacturing plant to buy their broken skids, repair them, and then sell them back to them so that the forklift operators could break them again.) ..... and during the occasional moonlit summer night, he'd telephone a few of his golfing buddies for a raid....

... looking back now, it doesn't seem logical for a well-paid, well-known Man of The Community to dress up in camouflage, sneak onto the local golf course, and wade through the ponds searching for errant golf balls...... but that's exactly what we did..... three or four men in their late twenties, and me.... hip deep in a pond, bent at the waist, feeling along the mud for a hard white orb.... and praying that you didn't lose a finger to a snapping turtle or catfish.... many was the time that I swept the murky gloom - my cheek barely touching the surface of the water - that I caught sight of water snakes hunting frogs only feet from where I was.....

..... good lord, I must have been to Ridgewood thirty times before I actually showed up with a proper tee time to play a round..... I still can't watch that scene in 'Apocalypse Now' where Martin Sheen's camo'd face peeps up from the steaming water without remembering Harry and how we stole all those golf balls...... and how much unabashed joy he seemed to get from selling those balls back to the clubhouse for fifty cents a piece......

.... later in life I lived twenty minutes from the course at Carnoustie.... and about thirty minutes from The Old Course at St. Andrews.... both of which hosted The British Open while I lived there...... and now, when I occasionally talk to the Upper Crust of County Society, that are both shocked, appalled, and just a bit saddened - as golfing enthusiasts themselves - to hear that I had so gleefully squandered such golfing opportunities that living 10 years in Scotland had offered me.....

... for instance, the last time that I played a round of golf was at the cliff-side course at Stonehaven in Scotland..... and as I recall, three of the party turned their clubs around and had an impromptu swordfight on the 15th green....

.... and it is forever thus, folks...... I've always enjoyed golf courses, I guess..... but certainly for all the wrong reasons.....