True Confessions

Q: What is the greatest human quality?
A: I've always believed it's passion. The first thing I look for in a friend, is are they passionate about something? It doesn't matter if I like it or not, passion defines people, gives us hope in the world and gives a glimpse into that person's soul.

Q: Any dream that you would like to come true that hasn't?
A: My one dream, since I was 20, has always been to write just one song that I feel proud of. If I can do that, I can die a happy man.

Q: Favorite memory with friends?
A: In all parts of my life, my most favorite memories are always around my friends trying to make each other laugh. In high school it was always riding around in cars. In college it was at our favorite boothe in our favorite bar. Now a days it's more going to a nice restaurant and having a good meal with a nice glass of wine.

Q: Thoughts on love?
A: It's different for everybody... but I do believe it exists. You can't help but love a new baby in your family or a long time friend. But actual platonic love between two people is something that's hard to come by and it's not in abundance like "Hollywood" would lead you to believe. I think only "true" love comes from an equal partnership, I believe my parents had that. They both relied so much on each other's wisdom and trust and although some days seemed strange, I could always tell between the both of them the need they had for each other in order to survive. I think that kind of love has disappeared in today's generations, too much emphasis on the "I" instead of the "we." I see it in many of my friends, one person will be the boss, in forms of money, activities and outside friendships, while the other is just barely hanging on, searching for some form of identity and recognition.

Q: What's the most curious record in your collection?
A: In the seventies a record company in LA issued a record called "The best of Marcel Marceau." It had forty minutes of silence followed by applause and it sold really well. I like to put it on for company. It really bothers me, though, when people talk through it.

Q: List some artists who have helped to change and shaped your life.
A: George Harrison, Hunter S. Thompson, David Crosby, Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Charles Bukowski, Walt Whitman, Stanley Kubrick, Ma Rainey, Big Mama Thorton, George Lucas, Lead Belly, Lord Buckley, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Tom Waits.

Q: List some songs that no matter how long you've known them, that still move you.
A: There are so many... and if you ask me tomorrow the list would change, of course. Gershwin's second prelude, "Pathetique Sonata" (Beethoven), "Here Comes The Sun" (The Beatles), "This Is A Man's World" (James Brown), "Lived In Bars" (Cat Power), "Come In My Kitchen" (Robert Johnson), "The Lee Shore (CSNY), "Sad Eyed Lady" (Bob Dylan), "Love Of My Life" (Queen), "Rite of Spring" (Stravinsky), "It Makes No Difference" (The Band), "Ode To Billy Joe" (Nancy Wilson), "San Diego Serenade" (Tom Waits) "Roy Rogers" (Elton John), "The Warmth of The Sun" (Beach Boys), "Deportee" (Woody Guthrie), I've Been Loving You Too Long" (Otis Redding), "Strange Fruit" (B.H. & N.S.) "Georgia On My Mind" (Ray Charles), "Buckets Of Rain" (Bob Dylan), "So Lonesome I Could Cry" (Hank Williams), "Here In The Real World" (Alan Jackson), "Who'll Stop The Rain?" (C.C.R.), "Christmas Time Is Here" (Vince Guaraldi), "Clair de Luna" (Alexis Weissenberg), "Moon River" (Henry Mancini), "Pocket Full Of Rainbows" (Elvis Presley), "Hey Jude" (The Beatles), "Angel" (Aretha Franklin), "Sunday Mornin' Coming Down" (Johnny Cash), "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" (B.J. Thomas), "Almost Blue" (Elvis Costello), "The Night They Drove Dixie Down" (The Band), "Walk Away Renee" (The Four Tops), "For What It's Worth" (Buffalo Springfield), What A Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong), "Surf's Up" (Beach Boys), "Here, There & Everywhere" (The Beatles), "Ain't No Sunshine" (Bill Withers), "Martha" (Tom Waits), "Three Little Birds" (Bob Marley), "Unplayed Piano" (Damien Rice), "Smile" (David Gilmour), "Great Gig In The Sky" (Pink Floyd), "Adagio" (Franz Schubert), "Kids & Dogs" (David Crosby), "I'll See You In My Dreams" (Joe Brown), "The Dawntreader" (Joni Mitchell), "Northern Sky" (Nick Drake), "Leavin' On Your Mind" (Patsy Cline), "Song For The Asking" (Simon & Garfunkel), "Empty" (Ray LaMontagne), "The Tracks of My Tears" (Smokey Robinson), "Please Call Me Baby" (Tom Waits), "Fair Play" (Van Morrison), "Are You Sure?" (Willie Nelson), "Get Together" (The Youngbloods), "Something Stupid", "One For The Road" (Frank Sinatra), "Star of Bethlehem" (Neil Young).

Q: What's heaven for you?
A: Me and my love (wherever she maybe) under a tree with a cheap guitar and pawnshop tape recorder; and a car that runs good sitting a few yards away.

Q: What's hard for you?
A: Anytime I want to be creative because I mostly straddle reality and the imagination; it's hard for me to leave that place in my mind and actually commit something to paper or tape because it requires you to leave that world. Talking to and understanding women. Math is really hard. Following orders. Patience with people who can't understand simple things. Politically correct people with no sense of humor. Getting up in the morning.

Q: What's wrong with the world?
A: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. Leona Helmsley's dog made $12 million last year... and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. We are monkeys with money and guns.

Q: Favorite scenes in movies?
A: R. De Niro in the ring in Raging Bull. Scout being told to "Stand Up! Your father's passing" in To Kill A Mockingbird. Nic Cage falling apart in the drug store in Matchstick Men. The "Bicycle Scene" in Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. The "Shoplifting Scene" in Breakfast at Tiffany's. When Gen. Pickett says "General Lee, I have no division" in Gettysburg. Han being froze into carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back.

Q: Can you tell me an odd thing that happened in an odd place? Any thoughts?
A: A Japanese freighter had been torpedoed during WWII and it's at the bottom of Tokyo Harbor with a large hole in her hull. A team of engineers was called together to solve the problem of raising the wounded vessel to the surface. One of the engineers tackling this puzzle said he remembered seeing a Donald Duck cartoon when he was a boy where there was a boat at the bottom of the ocean with a hole in its hull, and they injected it with ping-pong balls and it floated up. The skeptical group laughed, but one of the experts was willing to give it a try. Of course, where in the world would you find twenty million ping-pong balls but in Tokyo? It turned out to be the perfect solution. The balls were injected into the hull and it floated to the surface; the engineer was altered. Moral: Solutions to problems are always found at an entirely different level; also, believe in yourself in the face of impossible odds.

Q: You are fascinated with irony. What is irony?
A: Chevrolet was puzzled when they discovered that their sales for the Chevy Nova were off the charts everywhere but in Latin America. They finally realized that "Nova" in Spanish translates to "no go." Not the best name for a car... anywhere "no va."

Q: Do you have words to live by?
A: A friend told me..."Fast, Cheap, and Good... pick two. If it's fast and cheap, it won't be good. If it's cheap and good, it won't be fast. If it's fast and good, it won't be cheap." Fast, cheap and good... pick (2) words to live by.

Q: What will be on your gravestone?
A: If I was going to have one: "Pardon me for not getting up."

Q: What have you learned from childhood?
A: That at every age we are at, we always look back thinking how naive we were at those past ages, but yet somehow think we are at our most intelligent at the current moment. It's some kind of sick joke that wisdom comes with age, like someone said: "Youth is wasted on the young."

Q: Who said, "Half the people in America are just faking it"?
A: Robert Mitchum (who actually died in his sleep). I think he was being generous and kind when he said that.

Q: What remarkable things have you found in unexpected places?
A: 1. Real beauty: oil stains left by cars in a parking lot.

2. Charity from a homeless man.

3. False teeth in pawnshop windows in Reno, Nevada.

4. Great acoustics in Alcatraz Prison, ironic they couldn't talk there when it was a prison.

5. Best steak in a small steakhouse under a bridge in Sausalito, California.

6. Most random crap you would never buy and could never use: Seiverville, TN

7. Teeny Boppers at a Cat Power concert.

8. Poverty in Washington, D.C. ..ironic

9. A homeless man with a beautiful operatic voice singing the word "Bacteria" in an empty dumpster in Chinatown.

10. A Chinese man, in China, who talk southern and his life long dream was to go to Tennessee.

11. Best nights sleep: in a dry riverbed in Arizona.

12. Most people who wear red pants: St. Louis.

13. Most beautiful horses: New York City.

14. A judge in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1890 presided over a trial where a man who was accused of murder and was guilty -- convicted by a jury of his peers -- was let go, when the judge said to him at the end of the trial, "You are guilty, sir... but I cannot put in jail an innocent man." You see, the murderer was a Siamese twin.

Q: Most thrilling musical experience?
A: My most thrilling musical experience is usually when I get a vinyl record that I have not listen to, but I know is good. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I pull it out of the sleeve and begin to put the needle on. I lean back in a chair and if the right notes are hit that make a person's heart ache and soul soar, that is music!! Nothing can truly explain the first time someone hears an album of greatness, like Dark Side of the Moon or Pet Sounds for the first time. The orgasm of music in those 20 bars of "A Day In The Life" or little moans in Marvin Gaye's voice when he's really into the music, it just turns you on.

Q: What would you have liked to see but were born too late for?
A: To be 15 in 1963 and experience that culture until 1973, it was the new cultural revolution for America and the World. Definitely The Roman Republic era. The antebellum and Civil War period of America.

Q: What is a gentleman?
A: A man who can play the accordion, but doesn't.

Q: Favorite George Harrison quote?
A: All of the lyrics from the song "Within You Without You," nothing could be more true.

Q: Do you have an alternate life you wish you could lead, but know you probably never will?
A: I've always had a fascination with the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" and to this day, I always want to just pack it in and go off and live it the wilderness. The idea of being on your own, no boss, nothing to answer to, but sadly, after a few weeks out there, I'd probably want to come back because Lost would be on or something.

Q: What do you wonder about?
A: 1. Do bullets know whom they are intended for?

2. Is there a plug in the bottom of the ocean?

3. What do jockeys say to their horses?

4. How does a newspaper feel about winding up paper-mache?

5. How does it feel to be a tree by a freeway?

6. Does anybody worry that Charlie Brown is a 10 year old manic-depressive?

7. When is the world going to rear up and scrape us off its back?

8. Will we humans eventually intermarry with robots?

9. Is a diamond just a piece of coal with patience?

10. Did Ella Fitzgerald really break that wine glass with her voice?

Q: What are some sounds you like?
A:1. An asymmetrical airline carousel creating a high-pitched haunted voice brought on by the friction of rubbing; it sounds like a big wet finger circling the rim of a gigantic wine glass.

2. Street corner evangelists

3. Pile drivers in Manhattan

4. Leaves blown in the wind

5. Horses and trains passing in the distance

6. Children when school's out

7. Hungry crows

8. Orchestra tuning up

9. Saloon pianos in old westerns

10. Rollercoasters

11. Spring peepers

12. Ice melting

13. Printing presses

14. Ball game on a transistor radio

15. Piano lessons coming from an apartment window

16. Old cash registers/Ca Ching

17. Muscle cars

18. Harmonies

19. Babies trying to talk

20. A busy restaurant kitchen

21. Newsrooms in old movies

22. Elephants stampeding

23. Bacon frying

24. A fight bell

25. Japanese arguments

26. Pinball machines

27. Children's orchestras

28. Trolley bell

29. Firecrackers

30. A Zippo lighter

31. Calliopes

32. Bass steel drums

33. Tractors

34. Stroh Violin

35. Muted trumpet

36. Tobacco auctioneers

37. Musical saw

38. Theremin

39. Pigeons

40. Seagulls

41. Owls

42. Mockingbirds

43. Doves
The world's making music all the time.

Q: What's scary to you?
A:1. A dead man in the backseat of a car with a fly crawling on his eyeball.

2. Turbulence on any airline.

3. Sirens and search lights combined.

4. Gunfire at night in bad neighborhoods.

5. Car motor turning over but not starting; it's getting dark and starting to rain.

6. Jail door closing.

7. Going around a sharp curve on the Pacific Coast Highway and the driver of your car has had a heart attack and died, and you're in the back seat.

8. You are delivering mail and you are confronted with a Doberman with rabies growling low and showing teeth -- you have no dog bones and he wants to bite your ass off.

9. In a movie, which wire do you cut to stop the time bomb, the green or the blue?

10. That any politican regardless, McCain/Obama will win and use their new power for personal gain.

11. Anyone who will not listen to someone else's opinion.

12. Officers, in offices, being official.

13. You fell through the ice in the creek and it carried you downstream, and now as you surface you realize there's a roof of ice.

George W. Bush Hates White People!

Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected by the floods?

Where is all the media asking the tough questions about why the federal government hasn't solved the problem? Asking where the FEMA trucks (and trailers) are?

Why isn't the Federal Government relocating Iowa people to free hotels in Chicago?

When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines?

Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks?

Where are all the looters stealing high-end tennis shoes and big screen television sets?

When will we hear Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to rebuild a 'vanilla' Iowa, because that's the way God wants it?

Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of cannibalism?

Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates white, rural people?

How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the Iowa flooding ever again?

A Humble Lesson At Work

Today was supposed to be a great day, LOST is on! I'm up and ready to go, lunch packed, ready for some work. I walk into work, say hello to the girls and begin to get my desk ready for the day's work. When out of the corner of my eye, I see a battery pack on the floor, so me being my OCD self I had to pick it up. I squat down to get it and I feel a slight tear in the rear of my jeans. As the initial reaction of fear begins to overwhelm me, my eyes widen, breath has seize to exist, and a rush of panic ridden ideas roam the mind. Did anyone hear the tear? Is my entire ass hanging out? What the hell is going on? I slowly begin to rise, making small talk with the girls in my office, trying to play it cool. I wonder if they even noticed that I walked out of the room backwards? I quickly power walk it to the men's restroom where I begin to assess the damage. My worst fears are realized, my blue boxers are completely exposed, I practically am wearing a onesie, all I need are the buttons on my backside and I'm good to go! So, what do I do now? Suck it up and continue the day or miss a whole day's work?
So, the moral of the lesson is...If you see a battery pack on the floor, just let it go...

Death of a Hot Water Heater...

It's the simple things in life that make you love it, however when a thing like your hot water heater finally departs this world, oh you know it!
Like any other day, I got up and prepared for my morning shower, set the knobs right where they should be, and turned on the shower head. After a few minutes I began to get in and "Holy Shit!!, that's cold!!" and immediately jumped back out. I knew immediately what was the problem, I had been noticing over the past few days that my showers had been getting shorter because of the water getting colder much faster, but I just dismissed it as being wintertime, was I wrong. I went to investigate the circuit breaker, hoping that maybe it had just been thrown, nope. I then went to the water heater to discover that it was slightly leaking and a circle of dampness around the base, "Shit!" Now, I don't know what to do. Let's hope for an easy fix in the future!

Now, I get the lovely privilage of going to work feeling like a used condom, yay! Nothing like sitting around your fellow coworkers smelling like a foot. Luckly, for me, I'm a guy so I can just throw on a hat and wash my face with cold water and it hides most of the damage. Also, I'm an archaeologist, so we generally smell anyway.

Oh, how I will miss my hot water heater, it gave me two months of happiness and now it's back to being poor and bathing in the sink. Makes you think how spoiled our society is, eh?

Hot Water Heater Nov 30, 2007-Feb 21, 2008 R.I.P.

Ah...Moving, Sweet Tears of Pain

Originally Posted On December 3, 2007
Ah the great joys in moving to a new home! First, there's the headache of finding a place worth moving to. Second, arguing over the price. And thirdly, the great pleasure of moving everything you've manage to hoard together your entire life, fun eh?But don't get me wrong, I'm SO glad to be moving out of the virtual shit hole I've been living in for the past year and a half, but damn! I've forgotten how much shit I have.
Well, for a few months now I'd been looking for a new place to call my home and I thought I'd found one in the old historic district of 4th & Gill in North Knoxville. However, my dad thought differently, and insisted on me moving to West Knoxville to be closer to my sister, who's pregnant with her first child. Knowing I couldn't afford any kind of apartment/house in that neighborhood my dad assured me he would help me out if I needed it, sweet!
To my amazement I found a house near my sister in just two weeks of looking that was perfect for me. A 3 bedroom house with a 50x30 yard backyard, which I absolutely love. I had to negotiate a bit about the rent and the lawn duties, but I'm actually happy for once in my life about where I'll be.
Now just comes the headache of moving all of my stuff! Isn't it amazing how when you move all of your things at one time, what you find? I found magazines and notes from friends dated 8 years ago! Not mention things that I had actually been looking for and just chalked up as being stolen or lost. You can't help at laugh at yourself though when you find something like that and you kick yourself for not looking there when you were so actively looking for it when you couldn't find it. And then of course you laugh when you find missing things from your past, like notes from friends, and how it takes you to the exact moment of when that event occured in your life.
So, in a way Moving can be a blessing. It's a way of taking a step forward in life and a way of refecting back on your life in what you've just left behind. Sweet Tears of pain of moving......

SEC Football - A Year of Turmoil

Originally Posted November 12, 2007
Like all good sports fans, I was excitedly awaiting the beginning of the 2007 College football season, a time of college and state pride and a never ending excuse to get blacked-out drunk and yell at the person next to you. But like most fans of SEC football this year, it's been a mixed feeling of excitement followed by a array of "WTF" moments.
Some people just don't get college football, mainly people from the North, they just don't understand all the traditions of pride that follow teams around from state to state. Yes, yes, northerners do have their baseball, but to me, baseball just doesn't have a true feeling of state pride that college football does. I guess because college football, like all college sports, is a time just before the athletes get greedy (look at AROD!). You look today at professional sports and you just see the decay of all what was once good and holy to a whole country. I think that's why sports fans in the South and West prefer to cheer for the younger more eager athletes of college sports.
But there have been some very weird football games on Saturday--amazing comebacks, stunning failures, and one crazy display of unsportsman like conduct in Jacksonville that left the whole college community in awe. This year, more than most, has probably been a gamblers nightmare. Who could blame them if the snapped and started shooting up the town? The craziness of this year though is enough to drive any loyal fan nuts and send them looking for something else.
But the days of the dynasty are over! No longer will you see a team go undefeated or has domination year after year in college football, especially in the SEC. For years now, the SEC has been getting stronger and stronger. Even what was once considered the "gimme" games are now turning into upsets, aka LSU losing to Kentucky 43-37 in overtime or Tennessee coming so close in games like Vanderbilt and Kentucky. Then, there is the issue of with so many great games a year, how can players stay healthy? The number of games lost this year due to top players injured are countless, while teams in other conferences manage to stay healthy due to only playing two to three are games a year in much easier conferences. SEC games are quickly becoming the reality T.V. of the college football league, the train wreck that you just can't look away from.
How can a team go undefeated now? Too much talent comes the southern region of the United States. Of the top 5 states in the U.S. for college recruitment (Florida, California, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana) 4 of the 5 are located in the South. This just makes it too easy for so many teams with strong state pride to recuit in state year after year.
And don't even get me started with the bias northern writers and the way they are always eagerly awaiting to boost their old alumni to the top of the rankings like Ohio State and Michigan, teams that only play two to three hard games a year. But it's not only teams from the Big 10 now, teams from the PAC 10 and ACC are somehow creeping into the top 10 every year without playing hardly any ranked teams, just because they are undefeated! Mark my words! Somehow, Ohio State will creep into the National Championship this year!