So, I've been in Nashville right at one year now and I finally started making contacts with the local music scene.

There was a backyard BBQ this past weekend with one of my meetup buddies, who apparently has quite a history.

Should you get the chance, check out the music of any of the following three acts with my blessing:
(and tell Blane to "eat his fruit".  There was a jungle juice incident.)

You can find some of their upcoming schedules on their sites.

Guy-Michael Grande

Erin Easterling

Shane & Blane   (click cancel through the lamespace pimp-my login to hear some samples)

I wound up behind the charcoal grill working on teriyaki chicken for the crowd and talking (read drinking) with the musicians and helped them break down their equipment back to their cars when they were done.

You know, the fun part of the party.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I take back my kudos for the Internal Revenue Service.

I thought they were actually going to be all nimble and smart by direct depositing the federal stimulus money to the folks that used direct deposit for their tax refunds.

Then, today, I get a letter from them, telling me that they direct deposited the money.

Thus, nullifying any savings of them not actually mailing me a paper check.

They sent a letter telling me to expect a payment, they paid me, then they told me that they'd paid me.

Good grief.  This is (one example) why I lean toward Libertarian.

84 cents of postage times however hundreds of millions of us there are...  just gone, but that we're all going to be paying interest on that number to China, Saudi Arabia, (and whomever else is buying our debt) for the next 30 years or more.

Actually, we're all (nationally) going to be paying interest on the amount of our collective and various stimulus checks as well.

Makes me want to go right out and spend to stimulate the economy... at the liquor store

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Feeling out of sorts that my memories are not staying put in their hermetically sealed mental compartments.

How dare people live, evolve, and generally move on with their lives.

Why aren't you all where I left you? 

I thought I finally had you organized, somewhat figured out, a semblance of order,
and here you are surprising me with all this growing up nonsense.

The nerve.

The gall; continuing to live after the time we knew each other.

Least you could do is not leave clues where I might stumble, unawares, upon your updated info.

Now I have to revisit/reorder how I feel about everything all over again.

I think it's going to be a good thing,
or rather it is already a good thing, and I will come to that realization eventually.

Going to need a bigger brain, and a bigger bottle of tequila.

Excuse me, I must intoxicate, inebriate, and otherwise imbibe.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

My yen and yang seem to swirl around food-stuffs.

This past week I, among other things, went grocery shopping and got taken out to dinner.

You know the stereotype of the slow moving grocery line caused by a coupon-clipper, paying with cash and exact-change, who doesn't begin to start rummaging for these items in her massive saddle-bag until she's verified a price-match for every item scanned and then made sure all the bags made it into the cart?

I fear that I might become that person.

Twice in the past week I've picked out items, checked them out, paid for them, and not gotten home with them.

I suspect it is because I always have the kids with me when I'm shopping and the clerk, bagperson, and myself are usually distracted with them being cute when it comes time to put the bags back into the cart.

The latest instance was milk.

I picked up six, paid for six, and only got four home into the fridge.
(half-gallons mind you, they were on sale and thus less expensive per volume than the full gallons.)

However, as cosmic balance, the Millionaire and his wife were in town and I got taken out to dinner.

Chicken Oscar at Merchant's upstairs dining room and 18 year old Macallan scotches.

I'm going to make the choice to be really happy about the meal out, the good booze, and the after show at Tootsie's.

After all, no point crying over milk you paid for but were too lame to remember to put in your cart, so your 2 year old could have spilled it when you got home anyway.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Inspired by the tornadoes sweeping around us last night, I put two shots of vodka into six shots pineapple juice and diced up a quarter of an Granny Smith apple that the daughters hadn't finished eating with their dinner. 

PineappleDapple

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

GrooveBDay

Birthday consumption.

Papa Murphy's take-n-bake stuffed pizza (creamy garlic chicken and bacon.)

Booker's small-batch bourbon. 
126.4 proof, 6.7 years
Straight from the barrel, uncut, unfiltered. 
Recipe from Booker Noe, grandson of Jim Beam.
Nose of raisins and cinnamon (and fire).

Ahhhhhhh.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The wife and I open the door with the little jingly bell on it, hop over the raised doorway lip (truely wicked) and stroll into the local boozeria.

She is quickly dazzled by naughty labeled wines and lost to the brightly neon corner of the shop to giggle.

I press on, to the furthest darkest back corner.

Man-country, where they keep the whiskeys and bourbon.

Old Charter is a new addition for this shop.  (I've read it's part of the Buffalo Trace Distillery, Lexington, KY.)

They have a puzzling variety of  vintage; 1 year, 3 year, 5 year, 8 year, 10 year and 12 year.

Not to be overcome with indecision, I grasp the 12 year (90 proof) and emerge back to the fluorescent light of the cash register.

On the way, I do the wife a favor and grab a big ol' tear-drop bottle of Rain vodka.  Lovely container, organic contents.

The kind of vodka that doesn't need to hide behind flavorings, mixers, or additives.

The wife won't buy it for herself, because it makes her feel guilty to buy anything but Popov.

On the other hand, I have every incentive to buy her good vodka because well...

The old man behind the counter is restocking the hip/boot size bottles and doesn't notice my arrival.

I clear my throat.

Nothing.

I set the bottles down again, jingling them together a bit.  Clink, clink, nothing.

Right about here, lizard-brain is telling me to just side-step back on out through the door to the car with my prizes.

The wife walks up.

Just then, old man turns around and jumps with a start, "Will that be all then?"

Yeah, she was wearing one of her boobie shirts.

Old man's still got the radar.

Wife looks at the receipt in the car, "Did you really need the 12 year?"

"Well yeah.  I've never had Old Charter before."

"So?" she says

"Here's the thing, if I started off by trying the younger stuff, each bottle would have been cheaper, true, but might have been more expensive overall."

"Huh?" she says.

"Look, if I try the one year, and it sucks, I would think, well, maybe the three year would be better, so then I buy that, and if it sucks, I might think, well maybe the five year is better and so on, until I end up buying the twelve year old anyway.  So, this way, I start off with the twelve year old.  If it sucks, I don't need to try any of the others because this is as good as it's going to get.  If I do like it, I can always downgrade until I find the one that's too young, then go back up just one notch from then on."

"You way over-analyze your booze, but thanks for the vodka."

"Anytime.  Anytime."

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

While at the Mexican Sushi Meetup, one of the diners ordrered a "Brazil Wax".

No, not the naughty hair removal procedure of the "bikini area", but rather the drink.

Featuring Cachaça, apparently the national liquor of Brazil, the Caipirinha and Brazilian Wax, are fast replacing the Mojito as the trendy libation of choice.

When asked what I thought of it, I replied, "Smooth.  It sure won't leave hair on your tongue."

Drum roll and crash.

Duke of the Double Entendre I am.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Had a flash...

Intense and brief, just a pop really...

Upon hearing that a longtime, faraway friend might visit...

That they (used in the sci-fi paranoid sense) might finally be staging an intervention on me.

That the possible visit would all be a ruse to set me up, unsuspecting.

Now why would I have that reaction?

And why did I have to sort through a logic puzzle in my own head to disprove the feasibility of that outcome?

Good mixer, but bad reaction.

Ditching the Coke, keeping the rum.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Led Zeppelin will finally offer their music online starting next month.   Of the music you buy, about how much of it do you download and how much do you buy on physical formats (CDs, vinyl, etc.)?

100% physical graffiti.

I'm not opposed to digi, I just haven't done it, ever, for purchased music.

With a physical album, you can put it on, turn down the lights for the evening, fill a tumbler with your choice of spirit, recline in a comfortable chair with a blanket over your legs, and lazily flip through the liner notes and melt away.

I've just never found an elegant way to do that with digi music.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend