triage; you win some, you lose some

It's a busy ER these early days of aught-six. Blustery overnights outside and hung storms in the Sierra making the staff wonder just what's coming next. Before you know it you're stuck sorting out what goes and what stays. Look around and pull any available body to serve as triager (yes, I made it up) to make those hard decisions. I'm looking both ways, eyeing the new stuff of '06, and can easily move from chair-to-chair and delineate what's 'in' and what's 'out'...so to speak. Isn't it like the much ignored rule saying that if you bring something into the house then something must go? (Children are generally excluded.) I've made my in/out, thumbs up/thumbs down, love/hate decision; I've been in the trenches making the hard choices. You don't know what it's like...

One word for the keeper: podcast. I'm embarassed at how often 'pod' and 'tunes' appear in my postings but I can't help it. Since my computer / music / iPod / life are finally realigned I've taken on podcasting. Let me say this: podcast. I can download all my favorite stuff from my favorite stuff: NPR's 50 memorable moments of 2005, Seattle's own KEXP's 'music that matters', The Current's 'musicheads', and Paste Magazine's Culture Club. It's TiVO for the ears and it's fantastic. It won't be long before sitting by the radio on Sunday mornings turns to listening whenever I want. Podcast. Genius.

The loser? My local coffeeshop has changed hands as Corie got some crazy idea to sell and travel the World for a year. What does a 25-year old know? Nothing. Well, she does know something but I can still stamp my feet. She sold to a local couple that don't have nearly the vibe of the old days. They still have music on Friday's, the staff is adequate, the coffee seems okay, but it's not the same. You can't take Patton away and expect the Army to be the same, right? No idea where that came from. Maybe it's better in the end since I'd been seeing Bibo Coffee in Reno and feeling a little guilty. Maybe I knew it was coming. The end of the road for Jive n' Java and me. There's a picture of the Jive Thru up there.

Great live music strolling through the Reno/Lake area over the next six weeks. It'll center on a night with Todd Snider and the Nervous Wrecks down in Reno on my bday eve. I'm sure silly reports will be posted.

Tomorrow is Thursday and I don't even know what the cafeteria is serving.

T

nuts and bolts of anger

It was only 8am when the phone rang and fifteen minutes later a 'truth' was laid upon the world. Actually, that phrase will seem much funnier when you're done reading this blurb. I'm not how it all started but it seems a little bird commented on how we've lost so many of the most basic abilities that were common early in the 20th century. As examples you can look at anything falling under the banner of "do-it-yourself" these days: woodworking, automobile/carriage repair, basic home improvement, welding, herding, harvesting, roofing and any other thing I know I can't do. At some point we, we'll call us the industrial people, we've acheived a point of financial saturation where it became easier to just pay someone for the task; we didn't have a need to learn the basics. (Beware of the segue, it's a-comin' up the track.) These days, In order to learn how to do something, we're forced to buy a book and attempt to sort this from that; twist here and release the thinga-ma-gig before devoluting the bit you can't find. One of the problems one faces is there seems to be endless ways of getting the thinga-ma-gig twisted and released and everyone has an opinion on what's what. Ah, the loss of generational know how. This started out with woodworking and power tools and my contribution (much less D.I.Y. than suburban desire...) involved just how to get a perfect cup of coffee from a french press. I know, life altering stuff going on in my little house. If you must know, I yanked hard on the Google-lever, and much to my surprise, there's plenty of folk that have an opinion on the french press. I don't think details are required. Now we had woodworking and coffee in the thrasher and the realization that the number of ingredients involved (x.y,z), and the more options or desires for the finished product, the more intense someone will argue for his or her case. I mean, if nothing's known for certain, if opinion is the only 'final' outcome than people can babble on incessantly...and angrily. Into the mash came facial wash, the turning of nuts and screws, and religion; we've suddenly brought in the entire spectrum of human endeavor. Let's see if it makes sense. The more inputs and the more open-ended the result, the more intense and passionate the debate. I guess if these activities were put in some kind of order, from least debateable to most hostile, it would go something like: nuts and screws, french press coffee, woodworking, facial wash and religion. I'll leave the french press and woodworking position open since I can sense some debate. You never know, do you?

t

but it's not

I'm fighting the urge to stop typing. I'm listening to some Lyle Lovett and wondering how it is that we find ourselves avalanched by bad music. I guess it's media, it's Clear Channel, it's what we're forced to listen to during the commute from our point As to our point Bs. That's forgivable...but supporting such an idea isn't. How much do sounds affect my life? I listened to the Rose Bowl on the radio earlier this month and loved every minute, I listen to music every night, I've got some strange gene that makes me support 'sounds'. I can be cooking, cleaning the house, driving a car, dancing (badly) around on a Friday night...sounds are so much a part of my life; the music and rhythm of my days are so important. Throw in live performances that I chase like stardust and it adds up to a significant part of my livelihood; I listen to songs on my iPod before I take exams, I rolled-and-clicked to those same songs as I was walking to a plane and a mission that seemed too much to handle. I give music to people because it's usually the best I have to give. So much out there isn't worth our efforts.

What do I want for the New Year? I want to finish the perfect CD of music, I want all of us to walk down the street holding hands, I want the pressure of TiVo and TV to end, I want us to talk about the sounds of family and friends that move us. I want the end of the week to be a time when we laugh about how funny it was that 'you said that'; about the dinner that was so good; I want it to be about sitting around and talking of our lives and how difficult they can be..every single day. I want to know that everyone important in my life knows how much they've been an influence in what I AM. Sometimes it's hard, my music helps make it easier. I defy anyone to tell me that there aren't songs that are so ingrained, so much a part of us, that we remember them beyond anything in our lives. I want to hear those songs, I want to just listen, I want to know...

A belated Happy New Year to all.

Sorry, can't hear you over the music.

tx

hidden gems

The Holidays are over, girls back home, work to be done, school around the corner. For those not up-to-speed on my iTunes/music disastrophe I'll review. Early last summer I finally ran out of space on my harddrive, broke down and bought an sexy external number, and promptly made a complete mess of everything. To add misery to the pain, I was in the middle of selling all my CDs since they were no longer needed and were simply filling valuable space. The transfer to the new drive didn't work and I've since erased about 40GB of music (accidently) and been without any iTunes for six months. My computer wouldn't recognize my iPod and I couldn't transfer those 40GB of happy, happy music back to my computer. Horror! I'd resigned myself to keeping this iPod as is (a museum piece of music) and buying a new iPod to use in my daily life. (No comments.) My woes came up at work today and a co-worker suggested using some freeware that allows one to access any iPod and move everything onto any other computer. (Editor's comment: ALL my music has been legally purchased.) Hmm, interesting. My hopes were low, wrongly so, and I'm now happily moving my groovy tunes onto the new external...oh, joy. It'll take a bit but it seems as if all has been saved. My life is so very tragic. More soon.

tx