Art's Bar & Grill

Have You Listened to My Podcast?

2012-01-25T01:32:00.012-05:00

Hello, blog readers!

No, I haven't forgotten the ol' blog. I've been busying myself with the podcasting world of late.

How did I get sucked into the realm of Internet audio, when I had been a man of the written word for so long? Well, it's an uninteresting story, as my readers have become accustomed to (am I self-deprecating enough?).

Back in September I was at Barnes & Noble and happened to leaf through Adam Carolla's book. He had a couple of pages in there I found to be blazing with insight. I went home and reported on Facebook that the book was hysterical. A Facebook friend and former local DJ suggested I check out Carolla's podcast. Though they've been around for years and I love morning shows and talk shows, I had never listened to a podcast.

The Carolla show I dialed up was an interview with Andrew "Dice" Clay. It had been suggested to me as far back as `97 or `98 that I could record a radio-style show and put it on the Internet for downloading, years before Adam Curry came up with the term "podcast." I had many misgivings about the idea, but they began melting away upon listening to this Dice interview.

When the initial recommendation to do a show on the Internet was made back in the late 1990's, I thought it was a silly idea. I was trying to get to a 100,000 watt station in a glamor capital like Los Angeles or Chicago, with the attached six-figure paycheck, not make fuzzy-sounding audio files (these were the Real Audio days, pre-MP3) for free. After the podcasting format was solidified and named, I still believed you needed a morning zoo crew of five "laughers," a stunt guy to take poops in public parks, and a green room filled with A-list celebrities to interest anyone. Who would listen to me sitting in a room talking to myself?

The Carolla/Diceman interview reset my perceptions. This was just two guys talking for an hour: no sidekicks, no forced laughs, no station IDs or traffic, no sound effects, and apparently it was extremely successful. From there I investigated the other big names: Marc Maron's WTF, Chris Hardwick's Nerdist, and Uhh Yeah Dude (yes, that's the name of a very successful show).

I've also discovered that outside of those few, the Internet is teeming with half-baked, unlistenable dreck, and it's not even coming from amateurs, it's big-time showbiz names you know producing this shit. It's worth noting that the hosts of the top three shows, Carolla, Maron, and Hardwick, have substantial radio experience, and many other podcasters don't, so maybe that's why their shows are more listenable and subscribed to.

Comedian Marc Maron of WTF was in Atlanta this past week, and was on the cover of the local alt-newsweekly, Creative Loafing. The article frightened me. It explicitly details that Maron is pulling big numbers in terms of listeners and ad dollars. Until now, in my world, anyway, podcasting has been an underground phenomena; none of my friends listens to even the biggest shows, or seems familiar with the hosts. But when the news of the dollars the top shows are drawing gets out there, every butt face in the world who isn't already doing a crappy podcast will want to join in. A gold rush will ensue. Soon it will be like the L.A. hair metal scene, with a thousand worthless bands all vying to be the next Van Halen, while something new sprouts elsewhere, off the radar.

But my real point here is my podcast truly sounds better than a lot of what's out there, and you should go listen to it.

New Podcast

2011-11-10T21:49:00.007-05:00

As well as the blog here (which has regretfully gone neglected of late), I've started a audio podcast. If you're so inclined, check out Art Howard at Night.com. Thanks!

What Does Religion Believe?

2011-08-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

We close this week of video blogs by asking, what does religion believe?

Atheism is a Welcome Mat for Radicals

2011-08-17T09:00:00.003-04:00

A purely scientific, rationalized, faithless worldview may be fertile soil for radical Islam.

(EDIT: I made the video "public!" I had it set to "private!" Corrected! Sorry about that, loyal reader.)

Religion is Necessary for the Survival of Us All

2011-08-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

Discussing religion is a good way to win friends and keep them for life. We'll do it three times this week with these video blogs. Your comments are welcome, as always!

When Girls Were Girls and Men Were Men

2011-07-29T09:00:00.001-04:00

On Headline News they had a feel-good human interest story about a teenage girl who had been accepted onto her school's baseball team. There she was, breaking down those boundaries, because boundaries are only ever erected by old fuddy-duddies who are interested in keeping one group or another down because they secretly fear them, not because they exist in nature. Right?

As I watched this girl playing in the dirt with the boys, it occurred to me that I've yet to see the story about the boy who proudly wins the county bake-off. There the boy stands in his apron, holding his spatula high in victory as he shows off the tallest, non-floppingest cake around. His parents beam and cheer to news crews about how he's breaking down the barriers, showing boys can cook and sew as good as any girl, and finally men's time has come.

You only see women trying to compete in a man's world, very rarely the other way around. This even extends to names. I've actually stood before someone with obvious breasts and high cheek bones who told me their name was "Pete." Working in a call center where we talk to the customers over chat, I'll see the names Billy or Johnnie and presume I'm talking to a guy, only to be corrected that it's Miss, not Mister, as though I'm an idiot to presume those names would belong to a guy.

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that women have an inability to take an interest in anything for it's own sake, they only take an interest in it as a way of attracting a man. Maybe in Schopenhauer's time that was so, but these days a different approach is taken: women want to assume the masculine characteristics outright, from clothing to names to trying to throw the ball harder than Tom Glavine.

It's really about power. Man are perceived to have power. No one wants to be powerless. Everyone wants to "wear the pants," but they size them different for men and women, and not because they're trying to oppress anyone. Men and women are different, and much to my joy, some aspects of life are strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.

A Ballsy Move

2011-07-13T20:10:00.002-04:00

You know the economy is down. You're lucky to have a job at all these days. Houses aren't selling. The dollar is weakening. Costs are skyrocketing. The United States is on the verge of being overtaken by China. This is the time to hang onto what you have, certainly not to throw it away and try to grab something new.

Well I know a guy who has said "fuck that" and is reaching way, way out for something new!

Brian, known here and elsewhere on the Internets as BClark71, has spontaneously moved to Jacksonville, Florida.

Brian has been a manager for a couple of pretty big corporations lately, and his wife had a job in sales with a golf equipment company that had helped keep a roof over their heads and those of their two children for about eight or nine years. But they both found themselves without jobs and rather than saying, "Oh, Lordy Jesus! We better apply at Target and hope for the best!," they just put their house up for sale in a down market, took a weekend trip to Jacksonville and decided they liked it, and the rest is to be history. The house is sold, an apartment in Jacksonville is rented, and nightly walks on the beach are a fact.

I wrote to Brian to ask for details on how he did this, and he had a great line, as befits a fellow Lewis Grizzard fan: "In Atlanta, I feel pressure to get another corporate management job. In Jacksonville I don't care what I wind up doing, as long as I can get poolside after I do it."

I've often described Atlanta as trying to strike a book of wet matches for years and years, and I think I'm about down to the last match (no implication of General Sherman intended). When my current job goes belly-up, which I expect any ol' day, what's next? Apply at any one of the many Publix/Target/Best Buy/Longhorn Steaks installments throughout the metro area? Maybe I should've been in Los Angeles long ago. Or maybe I would just be working at the Santa Monica Target...if they would have me.

How will it pan out in a year's time? Who knows. They say time loves a hero.

"Spends his days in the sun
and his nights in the casino
He left the States many years ago
Took a fishin' boat to Puerto Rico
Now my aunt, she is sad and lonely
She'll never know that she drove him away
As a coward I admire his courageous ways

They say time loves a hero
But only time will tell
If he's real, he's a legend from heaven
If he ain't, he was sent here from Hell"

The Legacy of José Baez and the Casey Anthony Verdict

2011-07-11T09:00:00.001-04:00

Does Casey Anthony defense attorney José Baez have the right stuff to be a hero to the Latino community? Does the verdict make sense after all? I explore, you comment (if you're so inclined).

Hooters of Georgia 2011 Bikini Finals

2011-07-08T09:00:00.007-04:00

A few weeks ago I went to the Hooters of Georgia Bikini Finals (I think that's what it was called. Is it really important? No, there were ladies there with fit bodies in skimpy outfits, that's what's important).

I've gone to this event twice before, but this is the first time I threw caution to the wind and went into full perv mode and brought out my camera.

As well as enjoying the sights, something I always like about this is that the MC, Rock 105's Southside Steve, always tells you about the girl's backgrounds, and they usually have some sort of lofty dream they're going towards. It's always nice to encounter people with lofty dreams, especially when they have perfect legs.

The theme this year wasn't Village People outfits, but the military. I haven't been to the Army-Navy shop in a year or so, but I doubt I'll find these outfits on the rack.

Click for larger images.

Arachnids I've Known

2011-07-06T09:00:00.001-04:00

As many metallions are aware, Jeff Hanneman, guitarist of Slayer, has been undergoing skin grafts and physical therapy after contracting necrotizing fascitis. This means his flesh began eroding away. This is usually caused by a spider bite, most notably by the infamous Brown Recluse, a breed native to the Georgia here where I'm at, but also the Black Widow (another Georgia spider) and Hobo Spiders (Rocky Mountain states).

This news disturbed me, as I see all sorts of alien creepy-crawly things around here all the time, being in Georgia and surrounded by a lot of trees. I'm still not sure that I've seen a Brown Recluse, although I do know from some Googling that I'm supposed to look for a "fiddle back." (Who's going to have a magnifying glass handy and what spider is going to sit still long enough for you to examine it's tiny back for that kind of detail, I don't know.) I usually adapt a live-and-let-live attitude towards bugs, even spiders, just letting them go on their way, or putting them in a paper towel and taking them outside when I can.

However, if a arachnid looks like it might bare a fiddle, or even a mandolin or charango, I've gotta throw `em in the toilet. Here are a few I've had to execute lately. Click for larger images. What do you think? See any violin students?

The Casey Anthony Verdict

2011-07-05T21:44:00.009-04:00

Here's a milestone in Bar & Grill history: a first-ever video commentary! I may have been away a year, but I'm sure coming back with great stuff, huh? HUH?

These are a few thoughts I had about the Casey Anthony verdict. It seemed like such a clear case, and even the TV legal experts seemed to think it was pretty open-and-shut. But did the experts have ulterior motives? We discuss.

Now that I've posted that, I hate to say it, but...I guess Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell were just as surprised and P.O'd as the rest of us:

Nancy was even saying, "Well we know two of these jurors never made it past 11th grade!"

This is just basically disturbing. I can see the logic, but...not really.

I Live in a Paradise

2011-07-03T23:23:00.007-04:00

The author's kick-ass drum set. Don't be jealous.
I think a year is long enough to go without any updates, don't you?

You have to appreciate what you have right in front of you. The things that pass by in your peripheral vision, you have to really focus in on and appreciate. You might pass by a dusty old lamp and a bar of gold and pay neither any mind, just because you shuffle past them all the time.

I've kept thinking I should be somewhere else. Something is not right where I am. I'm a square peg in a round hole.

Then I stepped back and looked at my hole. I live in the house I grew up in, that was passed on to me. I have an acre of trees behind me. It looks like a J.R.R. Tolkien forest back there. No neighbors to gripe if I want to turn up my guitar. The den has new hardwood floors, with a custom couch and a 1080p TV. Weekend nights, when I celebrate being away from work, I can sit on the porch with my self-mixed Lynchburg Lemonade and smell the evening air and listen to the crickets; I can only barely hear the highway sounds from here. In the basement, I've got a great P.A., a bass amp, a Ludwig drum kit, my Marshall, and a plethora of guitars (this is not an invitation to burglarize me...firearms are soon to join the scene. Don't be on the wrong end of them). The basement was expertly finished by my parents when I was only five, and there's a pool table and a second fireplace down there, as well as my kick-ass rock n' roll posters and bar mirrors.

Right here from the very chair I address you from, I can produce slick video productions (some of those to come), and mix music with a fidelity even Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin didn't have in the `70's.

In short, this is what people work all their lives for, and I'm sitting in it. I live better than some rock stars!

Tonight, the third of July, I only had to drive to the end of my street and park to see two different fireworks shows here in my little town, in a car I paid off a few years ago.

I say all of this not to brag, but to say, it's probably human nature and a good thing to strive and always wonder and wish for what else might be, but...don't let that distract you from the greatness that already is.

The Big Four

2010-06-30T08:30:00.001-04:00

It's overdue, but I have to tell you that about a week ago I went to the theater and saw the Big Four: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax in concert. It was the most fun I've had in a long time, maybe a couple of years.

Back in high school, I thought I was too cool for "speed metal," as we called it then. It wasn't very melodic and didn't have a lot of dynamics; there was barely an acoustic guitar anywhere, and there sure weren't any keyboards or exotic folk instruments. It was just Marshalls and Mesa-Boogies turned up to 11 and coming at you as fast as the guitarists could strum. I only owned Metallica's Master of Puppets, which I had bought out of pure curiosity. Later on in my mid-20's, though, I bought most of the Metallica and Anthrax discographies and learned that if you took them for what they were, they were pretty good. Don't expect to hear "Since I've Been Loving You" out of these guys, but enjoy it as the sort of fun goof it was intended to be. (Later on I bought Megadeth's three recognized classics, as well.)

So last week I had three days off and read on my friend Don's blog that there was to be a satellite broadcast of the Big Four bands of thrash metal in theaters. I contacted my friend Darren, a thrash metal enthusiast, and off we went to Perimeter Pointe theater.

Darren was a little irritated with me because first I drove off without our tickets and had to make a U-turn, then I realized I was nearly out of gas and had to stop. Despite this we got to the theater 25 minutes early and despite our nightmares, there were plenty of seats. Maybe too many. There were only about 25 people there, 40 tops! I thought maybe it was because we went to a theater in a hoity-toity part of town, but I've heard it was the same scene all over the U.S. and Europe. A lot of people are wanting this Big Four tour to come to the U.S. but if this theater release is being used to gauge public interest, don't bet on it. It was only $18 + $1 service charge to sit in the air conditioning and see this on a big screen in theater sound, and barely anyone took them up on it. Jack the ticket price up to $200 and have everyone sit outdoors for eight hours and what do you expect?

The tickets said the show started at 7:30 p.m., but at 7:05 they were showing an interview with Lars Ulrich, Scott Ian and Dave Mustaine. If I had known they were going to be showing this I would've shown up sooner! Scott Ian said, "I knew these two guys when they were in a band together." I thought, wow, Scott! Rub that sore spot!

Anthrax was first on stage. They're my friend Darren's favorite and I'm like `em second best out of all the thrash bands. Despite being nearly 40, Darren and I were air drumming and singing along like 17-year-olds. I was afraid we might've been annoying people around us, but it was too much! Out of all the bands I would say Anthrax had the most energy and were the most fun to watch. There was zero enthusiasm out of the theater crowd when they took the stage, and the arena in Bulgaria where the concert happened was barely half full when they started, but I hope Anthrax's set reminds everyone how good they were before they had 14 lineup changes.

Megadeth was next. Megadeth was the first thrash metal band I ever heard in depth, but after all these years I still can't get into them. They mostly sound like a lot of solos around minimal songs, like a Mike Varney shredder band. Live, Mustaine just stood there like a wooden indian and barely moved. Impressive guitar playing all around, but I'm not a GIT student looking for a tutorial, I'm a guy looking to be entertained. Some have said Mustaine seemed detached and spaced out even in the interview, theorizing he may have had a drug relapse, and as I think about it they may be right, but I hope not, because I have been impressed with the charity work I've read that he does.

Third was Slayer. There had been zero noise for Anthrax, more for Megadeth, and Slayer got the biggest reception so far. I've never been into Slayer not only because their music sounds like cartoon bullshit, but I think these guys are really into Satanism and Nazism, no matter what they say. Being a big Jimmy Page fan I've of course done some occult reading, and read about how Satanism ties in with Friedrich Nietzsche, Nazism and white supremacy, and if you read Slayer's lyrics and the graphics they use it's all in there. I can appreciate "Angel of Death," a song about Joseph Mengele and the torture methods at Auschwitz, as an exciting song, but the stuff they're talking about with glee in their lyrics really happened to people!

Despite all of this, I put that out of my mind and enjoyed their set for what it was. I'll give them one thing, they were far tighter than any of the other three bands, mostly due to Dave Lombardo, who was ridiculously good on the drums. That guy's not just a good musician, he's a physical specimen. There's no way he's living a rock n' roll lifestyle and playing like that, he has to train like Lance Armstrong, I'm certain.

Last was the undisputed kings, Metallica. On the Internet everyone trashes Metallica and calls them sell-outs, says they've lost it, they can't play or sing anymore, etcetera, but the audience reaction when they appeared says no one believes their own B.S. Even in the theater there was a huge outpouring of excitement for Metallica. Of all the bands they did sound the most ramshackle -- Lars Ulrich must've felt the pressure of following Lombardo, because he was floundering behind the drums -- but they can get away with it because the quality of their songs is far beyond any other band in the genre. Songs like "One" and "Nothing Else Matters" show a sophistication in their arrangement that the other bands don't touch with a 20-foot pole. I'm kind of surprised the thrash audience can appreciate the difference since they just seem to want to hear something they can run around in circles and beat on each other to. James Hetfield is also a fantastic front man. On all the DVD's I've seen of them live he's a funny and engaging guy ("You're scratching like a maniac -- dick rash!"). On this night he said, "This will be out on DVD soon, so you can watch it at home and hear all the fuck ups."

The peak, though, was when he said, "We have some extra instruments out here," and the rest of the bands joined them on stage, and everyone went wild when they saw Dave Mustaine standing right there next to his old nemesis and singing "Am I Evil?" Only Lombardo from Slayer joined in, though; apparently Kerry King has a beef with Metallica and Megadeth still and so Slayer stayed off stage until they took a group photo at the end. It was always the Big Three to me, anyhow.

Some kid who must've been 17 or 20 kept leaning over and talking to my friend Darren. I thought back to when a friend got our Jimmy Page tickets in 1988 and talked about these old hippy guys recalling seeing Zeppelin in the early `70's. I guess to a kid today my friend and I are those guys. "Man, they're so old I bet they saw Metallica with Cliff Burton!"

So that was fun.

Bands, Not Brands

2010-06-28T12:51:00.002-04:00

I've started occasionally stopping by Smith's Olde Bar on my way home from work on Sunday nights. It's three bands for $5 night, and you get to see new bands who hope to move up the ladder at Smith's and maybe one day play on a real night to a real crowd. This is a great setup for me because I love to watch and analyze bands on stage, and I also like to get a lot for my $5. I've been twice, and both visits provided much material for my stagecraft theories.

A couple of weeks ago the standout of the three bands was a very Drive-by Truckers-ish band from Little Five Points. These guys' songs were well-written and the audience seemed to like them (although I think most of them were personal friends and relatives of the band), but there were a lot of things that needed nailing down. With this band, I developed the theory that three out of four members shouldn't look like they follow diets high in corn syrup and enriched flour. I think I heard the boards creak as they waddled up. More importantly, I learned that if you're going to sing Bruce Springsteen-ish songs about blue collar people on hard times, playing them on a $2,300 Gibson acoustic that's so shiny it looks like you just picked it up at Guitar Center on your way to the show really undermines your message. Their drummer also looked like he combed his hair too much and tucked his shirt in, and that just didn't work with their hardscrabble shtick.

Something that bugged me about all three bands the first night I went was that none of them had a distinctive visual image. They could've all switched places and you wouldn't have known because everybody looked like they had just walked in from the food court at the mall. The first band last night got around that obstacle. The singer had a little Alice Cooper-ish cane that he held the whole time, and they all wore sort of dressy black clothes. They gave me a Tom Waits-ish vibe, which may be why they failed to turn me on, because I can't stand Tom Waits. Also, one of their guitar players plugged and unplugged things and tuned up at stage volume, which is ludicrous. Someone needed to tell him, "You got a live wire in yo' hand, cat!" But anyhow, at least in a photo I would know them from the 9 million other bands on the planet.

Now to the reason for the headline of this piece. After the second band last night sent me back to the worst aspects of 1998 -- a jam band doing 7th and 9th chords with lots of wah -- I went to check out the lame band downstairs, then back upstairs, desperately hoping something would appear to lift me from the musical morass I had sunk into.

Sitting center stage was a silver Casio keyboard. Uh-oh! Stage left was a Crate amplifier. Uh-oh! Stage right was a Line 6 Floorboard. Uh-oh! There was a Dean electric-acoustic. Uh-oh! The guys at the Les Paul Forum sure wouldn't have approved of this setup! The would've been complaining about the "cold, sterile" transistor sounds and the lack of $3,000 old wood guitars before the first note was struck.

Some guys who looked like they must've just graduated from high school started strapping on their guitars, looking a little nervous, and then...FANTASTIC! It was the elusive thing I can never put my finger on, but somehow even though they had the same sound man as the other two bands, their sound was sooo much cleaner and clearer. It was like the other bands had been in mono and somehow these kids were Quadraphonic. It also wasn't so easy to say, "This is Tom Waits," "this is Drive-by Truckers." I did detect a U2 influence and some Coldplay, but it wasn't so blatant. It was funny, after the first song or two the singer said they were from Alabama and this was his first time to Atlanta and he was really excited to be here, which was refreshing from the "Hellloooo, Atlanta!" stadium rock yell the previous Chattanooga band had tried.

The discipline they had was astounding for teenagers. There were two guitar players, and they played parts that complimented each other and never stepped on each other. Their style also required them to change combinations of effects a lot, and they had everything dialed in to perfection. The songs had multiple parts, like Yes, yet flowed logically, and I don't know how they had time to do their homework and mow their lawns and come up with these songs, too. The singer looked like he spent 50% of his time with the band and the other 50% at the gym; he was blond haired and blue-eyed and cut up like Roger Daltrey in 1968, which is important. It's just a fact that if you can get a big stud as singer you're going to go a lot further. Roger Daltrey, David Lee Roth, Bono, none of these guys are ugly.

I told the sound guy and the door guy that if they had any hand in the booking they needed to have those guys back. I told the singer I had been coming down there 15 years and they were definitely one of the better bands I had seen, and he gave me their home-burned EP. The EP is all right but they sound light years better in person.

All of that from Casio, Crate, Dean and Line 6 stuff. Wow.

What I've Been Up To

2010-06-21T23:57:00.005-04:00

It's time to blow the dust off and get back into blogging!

Guitar Crazy

I think I've gone a bit nuts on the guitar front lately. First, I bought a Gibson SG Classic off of E-Bay. This is a reissue of the SG Special like Pete Townshend used at Woodstock and Live at Leeds. This particular one has been upgraded with Grover tuners and a nice hardshell case. The P-90 single coil pickups are surprisingly louder than the humbuckers in some of my other guitars, and give an aggressive sound like a humbucker but maintain a clear and highly-articulated sound like a single coil. I can't figure out why these pickups never caught on more because I think they have the best of humbucker and single coil worlds and the drawbacks of neither. Whoever set this guitar up at its home back in Oregon did a really extraordinary job, too. This is definitely one of my two or three best-playing and sounding guitars out of about 10 that I have.

Somehow I just couldn't leave well enough alone, though. I had been surprised by my attraction to a natural finish Explorer at Guitar Center. Used to I laughed at pointy guitars, but this Explorer with a natural wood grain finish looked cool as hell. When I saw one of a non-Gibson brand for a low, low price in the used section at the Guitar Center across town I broke loose and bought it. Unfortunately...I've found the damn thing won't stay tuned! I even dropped $58 for some locking Grover tuners for it, and it still won't stay tuned. I also checked the intonation, and it's right on, but...I think this thing is headed to E-Bay. I think I'll get a Epiphone one later, even though they're not as pretty. (A Gibson Explorer in natural finish is $3,000 from the Custom Shop, the only other option is one of their Epiphone branded ones for $275 or so used).

The guitar lunacy didn't stop there, though. Awhile back I had visited the acoustic guitar room at Guitar Center (maybe I should stay away from Guitar Center?) and tried out a Yamaha FG730S acoustic. The look and sound of it really impressed me. Then I went across the room and strummed a Martin acoustic that cost over $2,000, about 8 times the price of the Yamaha, and...the nuts on guitar forums would say if I thought a $300 Yamaha sounded better than $2,300 Martin I must be out of my tree, but I think they're out of their tree! In my experience a $100 guitar has every bit as much of a chance of sounding good as a $1,000 guitar, and this Yamaha sure sounded better than that Martin. To make a short story long, I found one of these Yamaha FG730S guitars on Craig's List and bought it from some teen-ish girl with "Meant to Live" tattooed on her tits. I put some Ernie Ball Earthwoods on it and it sounds fantastic! I've loved it so much I'd kinda like to get another, maybe one to keep nice and one to knock around.

Finally, I've always been thrilled with the Music Man HD-130 amp that a neighbor sold me back in 1993 for $75. So...I got another one off of E-Bay as a "backup." Unfortunately this one isn't quite as tip-top as it seemed on E-Bay, but I think some new tubes and a replacement grill cloth and it will be great. I've got that being worked on by a pro now.

The last thing I want to do is a get a 2x12 speaker cabinet for places where my 4x12 wouldn't be appropriate (you know, with this huge music career I have going on). I A/B'd the Fender Bandmaster and Egnater Tourmaster cabinets today, and I think I might follow the advice of someone on the Telecaster forum and get one from a company called Avatar. They make custom cabinets for just slightly more than the Fender and slightly less than the Egnater, with your choice of speakers and tolex and everything.

So that's some of what I've been doing while I've been not writing.

I'm Still Around

2010-05-31T13:22:00.005-04:00

Test test...is anyone out there?

Yes, folks, I'm still around. There have been some life-changing events here in the past year, not necessarily happy ones, and my off days have been spent taking care of paper work, mowing a yard, and cleaning about 40 years worth of stuff out of a house (most of it mine).

In the meantime I was having my domain registry e-mails forwarded into a subfolder I rarely check and my registration for artsbarandgrill.net lapsed, so I see my domain name has been grabbed by a Japanese Internet company. I've sent them an e-mail to try to get it back, but I'm betting they're going to want to charge me out the ass, which means I'll just get a new one! (Just in case, I already did: artsbargrill.net, just take out the "and.")

Thanks for stopping by, please continue to do so, and I'll have some fresh opinions to annoy you with shortly.

This is All By Design

2010-03-15T11:06:00.005-04:00

I've let my three readers down lately (down from five readers at my peak). I haven't been writing. I need to get back on the stick, perhaps not just with writing, but with life in general.

Anyhow, I've been stunned recently to hear that Kansas City was planning on closing half of its schools down and laying off possibly 600 employees, and now Atlanta is looking at doing the same thing! The reported reason is budget shortfalls. But is that the real reason? Well...again, I think George Carlin called this one a couple of years ago.

He was talking about how educational standards were being lowered, concluding one day the only requirement would be, "Got your pencil? Then get the fuck in there. It's physics." If anything, shouldn't we expect the powers that be to constantly prod us on to some almost unattainably high standard? No, Carlin says, and explains the logic:

"There’s a reason that education sucks, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the big, wealthy, business interests that control all things and make the big decisions...

"They want obedient workers. Obedient workers: people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

"And now they’re coming for your Social Security money! They want your fucking retirement money! They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it! They’ll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place!"

Now that I reflect on that...I almost have to wonder what the point is in writing a blog at all, when George pretty much summed everything up right there?!

Shake That Ass, Shamu!

2010-02-28T11:20:00.005-05:00

We're back after yet another pause for family situations.

Of all the news that's been out there lately -- health care summits, 3-foot tall tsunamis -- the story that's fascinated me the most is the story of the killer whale killing the trainer at Sea World. I don't know if that's because I'm simple-minded and this is a sensationalistic, easy story to understand, or if it's because I've been to Sea World in Orlando and saw the killer whale show, and therefore I feel "close" to this story.

I'm not sure this whale was trying to kill the trainer. They said it grabbed her by the ponytail and bounced her around a little before yanking her in the pool and then circling the pool with her in it's mouth. It sounds to me like the whale might have thought it was just playing with the trainer, especially since she was rewarding it with a rubdown for successfully doing a trick. Maybe it was celebrating? However I've also read (in a You Tube comment, if you can consider that an authority) that killer whales can kill Great Whites in the ocean by holding them, because they realize Great Whites can't breathe if they're held still (sharks rely on their motion to stream air over their gills), so maybe it knew it was drowning her?

Although it's sad this happened, anyone who gets in the water with these things 40 hours a week for years may as well accept that they may die in that pool with an audience looking on as "Twist and Shout" plays over a P.A. My granddad worked on construction sites hundreds of feet in the air, sometimes seven days a week, for decades. Over 40 years he lost part of a finger, had a saw blow up in his eye, and fell 50 feet. He lived to be just a month shy of 90, though, but the point is he knew those things were bound to happen, and this trainer probably realized she might get crushed by one of these things, but like my granddad, she did it anyway.

Now over to Jean Velez-Mitchell and all these pundits saying whale shows are cruel and exploitative. Thanks for shitting on my happy childhood memories! I loved Sea World! I came away with the impression these animals were living in a five-star hotel compared to their brethren in the wild. They get fed without having to hunt, are in a temperature-controlled climate, and sharks and whale hunters are far, far away. Would it be better if this whale was out there desperately searching for food and dodging sharks all day? It may have already been dead! I think this whale proved it can defend itself and doesn't have to do anything it really doesn't want to. Just like with McDonald's fast food and American Idol, suddenly everybody is far too hip to go to Sea World, yet the place has been open 30 or 40 years and has entertained billions!

I'm also sick of the media calling these animals "orcas." I guess people think this is a more politically-correct term, but back when Jaws was a hit movie, they made a TV movie called Orca that was about a killer whale attacking a ship. Stop the pretension and call `em killer whales. (Factoid: I thought killer whales were only called that because they attacked bigger whales in schools. Now I read that they also eat dolphins, seals and walruses. And a 125 lb. woman was in the pool with this thing? And they're actually considered large dolphins, not real whales.)

This either makes me want to go back to Orlando and see Sea World again before some bunch of shitheads gets them closed down, or I'll just get out our old fuzzy 1986 video of the whale show. I guess the latter is cheaper.

Shake that ass, Shamu, or we'll put you in a tuna can!

My Taste and Everybody Else's

2010-02-10T13:03:00.008-05:00

Over the years I've come to terms with the fact that my taste in pop culture and everyone else's is on a different wavelength. This divide first became obvious in 1983 when I saw a Cyndi Lauper video, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," back-to-back with a Madonna video, "Lucky Star." Madonna and her video looked bland, the song was routine, and I was sure she wouldn't last long. Everything about Cyndi Lauper had eye-catching style, and the song was such an anthem I was sure we would be talking about her to this day. We are, but only about how much Madonna's career has overshadowed hers.

So it is with the recent big TV shows. As previously reported, I thought Pink's performance on the Grammy's was stunning, not only because she performed professional acrobatics without a net while singing upside down, but also because her goodies were on display on network television.

Well on at least one forum I go to, the guys weren't impressed. In fact, they say Pink looks like a man and must have a penis. I didn't even see Lady Gaga's performance but I do know showing off her hot little body is part of her routine, and guess what? They also think Lady Gaga is a "man." But who do they think is hot? Bony, shapeless, tuneless Taylor Swift. Yes, Pink's ultra-feminine, perfectly-rounded ass is man-like, in their book, but Swift's board-flat chest and twig-like physique are sooo hot. All I can figure is Pink and Gaga are avant garde and artsy, and most of these guys are from the Midwest, so they must prefer country girls who look like they attend Sarah Palin teabagger rallys and fear more colorful women.

People may have different tastes in women, but we can all agree on great classic rock, right? So certainly everyone must have loved The Who at the Super Bowl. Well, even more than appreciating Pink's body, I'm on my own with liking The Who at the Super Bowl. Of course it wasn't Live at Leeds, and these guys are 65 and 67 now, but I'll take what Pete and Roger did over another Blackeyed Peas performance any day, wouldn't you? Apparently not. As soon as the last power chord faded I started hearing people say, "Thanks to Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake we have to watch crap like this!" Okay, what crap would you rather see? Jackson and Timberlake? Some rapper who was on the Grammys, and you complained they ought to get a great band like The Who on there instead?

"My taste is better than yours" is just one of the tired games of one-upmanship that mankind plays with itself. No one would eat that trash at McDonald's, but McDonald's has sold over 2 billion burgers. No one watches crap like American Idol, but American Idol is a Top 10 TV show. I think everybody is eating McDonald's, watching American Idol, lusting after Pink and enjoying The Who just like me, they're just too phony to admit it. Blow it out your ass, haters!

Pink!

2010-02-03T17:13:00.007-05:00

As a non-sports guy you could anticipate that I don't watch the Super Bowl, but you may be surprised to hear that as a music fan, I don't watch the Grammys, either. I think that may be for the very fact that I like music. Used to when they had performers like Metallica and Aerosmith it was interesting, but now that I'm guaranteed multiple appearances by Fergie and some rapper like Lil' Wayne or Fifty Cent, I have no reason to go near the Grammys.

However a clip of Pink's performance shown on CNN's Campbell Brown Show had me scrambling to my computer and a box of Kleenex. I've always thought Pink looked nice but something about her look just didn't do it for me. But on the Grammys Sunday night...GOD! She started off in a sheer robe, then about two minutes in dropped it and appeared to be totally naked, covered only by ribbons. She then got in a diaper and ascended to the ceiling, where she sang a song while taking a chance on dropping right on her noggin, all practically nude.

In still pictures you can see she had on a body suit, but it's see-through, and on TV it looked like she was two inches of fabric from showing it all.

I don't get it: Janet Jackson's nipple -- covered by a pastie -- is a wardrobe malfunction that gets half the morning DJs in America fired, but Pink's full ass slipping out is okay? Well...I'll accept that. Gladly!

It was impressive that she executed professional acrobatics as well as sang and yes, I've watched the clip and studied the stills, and I don't think that was a lip sync or a Pink look-alike up high, that was all her. But I'd really like to get a slow-mo, high-definition clip of this because most impressive of all, I think she was winking at that whole auditorium and the TV audience. I guess you could say Pink was showing pink, although it was rotating so fast you couldn't fully see it.

Pink sure just went up in my hotness rating. Take a look and see what you think.

Let me further marvel that Pink is 31 (and that's her Hollywood age, so she could be as old as 35), and her shit is still totally up tight and where it belongs. How come even some of the best-looking girls from my high school looked like wrecks by the time they were 20? I again find it funny, though, that Pink makes videos about how girls shouldn't feel bad if they're a little fat and don't look like the women in magazines, then steps out in front of a national TV audience to show her body is perfect, with not one cottage cheese pock or stray zit anywhere.

Maybe the Grammys are worth watching after all.

Maybe

2010-02-01T13:10:00.002-05:00

I was certain Barack Obama was just a slim guy in a nice suit with a good marketing campaign. Then he somehow got me on board. Then his actual presidency began, and he slowly lost me again. Now he's accepted the Republican's invitation to a Q&A, spanked them on TV, and won me over again (tentatively).

After reading about this session and figuring any backbone he showed was purely a pose to make up for drooping poll numbers, I didn't expect much out of this meeting. Yesterday I finally saw it on MSNBC, though, and I have to give him credit: he actually came back at them with facts and force.

There were several great lines, but my favorite was, "Some of you have gone to ribbon cuttings for projects you voted against!" Another was, "If you think we can erase this deficit while issuing a tax cut, I'd like to see your math." He also welcomed anyone who thought they could disprove the advice of a team of economists to rise and be counted. No one even blinked. A final great line, "Have you ever noticed the wasteful spending is always in someone else's district, not your own?"

On that last point, even Rudy Giuliani has conceded that the rants against "pork barrel spending" are just ridiculous political theater. Giuliani said that was the name of the game, to go to Washington and bring as much of the cash as you could back to your district for for your people. Kinda makes you wonder what we're griping about so much.

It's great that Obama stood up against the lies of the right wing propaganda machine. Now let's see him give us some actual progress truths to crow about.

State of the Union, January 2010

2010-01-29T21:51:00.005-05:00

Here's my impression of Wednesday night's State of the Union speech:

CNN Panel: The president must deliver a very bipartisan speech here tonight. Ah, here he comes now.

Barack Obama: My fellow Americans, when George Washington crossed the Potomac in a canoe during the Revolutionary War, it was very cold and uncomfortable. I'm sure you've all seen the painting. But thanks to his effort, we can now look forward to the kind of America I envision.

I see an America where there are doughnuts that we can eat, and eat, and eat, without ever gaining a pound. I believe Americans deserve rocket cars that can lift them above traffic and deliver them to work in just five minutes. And finally, I will not rest until America is the Number One country for giving free rock concerts headlined by national, big-name bands.

The Gallery: Explodes in bipartisan applause.

CNN Panel: The president has certainly just delivered his most bipartisan speech to date. We especially liked the part about the doughnuts.

The State of the Union speech probably hasn't been substantive in 100 years, or certainly not since it's been covered by newspapers, radio and TV. If this speech was really about taking the nation's temperature and plotting the future, it would be as dry as a Jaycees meeting. They would read the minutes, discuss the budget, ask for volunteers for the blood drive and set the time to meet again. Instead it's just a infommercial designed to make people feel like they're government is okay after all.

Obama's speech felt like he knew his poll numbers were sagging, so he reheated one of his campaign speeches from December of 2008, back when he was really hot. Notice there wasn't much on the actual state of the Union, just daydreaming on how he thought the nation ought to be.

One thing that caught my attention was when he said, "We should rebuild our nation's infrastructure, which will create new, green jobs." Yes, I remember him saying that about a year-and-a-half ago. He's been president for a year now, so where is this infrastructure building? Where are the green jobs? Bill Clinton spoke at the local college about how if you put grass on the roof of a building it kept it cool in summer and warm in winter, and someone could have a job mowing it. Why don't I see any grassy roofs that need mowing? Where are the armies of laborers installing solar panels in cow pastures?

The president also talked about the bullet train system being built in Florida. That's great, but apparently today's engineers are already too busy texting to drive the sluggish, outmoded trains we have, so I don't know if I want to see what kind of wrecks they can produce with a bullet train.

I've got to think Obama means well and maybe he's just getting warmed up, but we're already through with the first quarter. Let's hear some pads popping out there.

The Trajectory

2010-01-27T17:08:00.006-05:00

There are many blogs on the Internet where you can learn something, but how many are there that say, "Please tell me what the hell is going on?"

Like a lot of people, I'm trying to figure out what I should be thinking about Barack Obama now. I hadn't planned on thinking anything about him until six months before election day 2012, when I would look around and evaluate what he had done for me lately. But with the first quarter of his presidency in the rearview mirror, maybe it's time to take stock.

You may recall that initially I was a Hillary Clinton supporter (I still have my Hillary `08 posters from the rally I attended featuring Bill Clinton). Obama was a nice-looking guy in a suit with a thin resume and an incredible marketing campaign, I thought. Then the whole scandal hit where Hillary said she had gotten off a plane somewhere like Guam and ducked gunfire, and CNN had the video of her instead taking a flower from a little girl. Barack surged into the lead and I got onboard.

By the time he gave his victory speech in Hyde Park, I was convinced we had the right guy. If his election was enough to cause people in Sydney, Australia to cry tears of joy, his term could be nothing but a positive thing. Even if his results were lackluster, he had at least brought the world's mood up, and that had to count for something.

The choice of Joe Biden as VP had been a bit disappointing -- I didn't know Biden's track record, he just didn't seem like the face of a new day dawning -- but the appearance of Rahm Emmanuel was really a wet towel. I knew he was an aggressive behind-the-scenes player, but the guy just gave me the creeps on sight. However at least he was a relatively new face who embodied some of the "change" Obama had been talking about. I was appalled when he was picking his cabinet positions and it was just the same old faces I've seen on TV for 20 years, and the same old white faces. How did the black people who were so excited about our half-black president feel when he surrounded himself with old white people? I was really thinking the cabinet would fill up with some young 30-something experts from Harvard, Princeton and Yale, and at least a few of them might match Barry's hue. "I was the change, see?," Barry said. Oh...okay...yeah...I guess.

Well, this isn't quite what I envisioned, but I'm gonna trust that this guy knows what he's doing. I'm sure it'll take the full four years and then some to fix this mess, so I'll give him time. Hey, he repealed the ban on stem cell research his first day! Isn't that great?

And now Al Franken gets a seat in the Senate! Hey, with Stewart Smalley on board, we're gonna see some REAL change!

Except now they're discussing the health care bill, and, "Gee, we just can't get enough votes to pass it." Even with a majority? A majority isn't enough? Why is everyone talking about the need to court the Republicans more when WE'VE GOT A MAJORITY? Can't win for winning?

Hey, and weren't we supposed to be bringing the troops home from Iraq in 120 days or something like that? It's been over 365 now. Whatever happened to the draw down?

And the closing of Gitmo, which I was on the fence about: what happened to that? "We've had to re-evaluate and then keep the Bush policy going." Hmm.

Well, maybe I'm skimming the news too much and just don't get it. But now here's Joe Klein of Time magazine, who was an enormous Obama booster, saying Barry needs to stop trying to get everyone to join hands and sing "Kumbaya" and start actually leading. Wow, so Klein is off the bandwagon. Then I read Jesse Jackson has publicly said he's a bit disappointed after crying with elation in Hyde Park, and Danny Glover goes as far as to call this "Bush's third term." Even black guys are getting off the wagon?

I can't tell if everyone's rushing to judgment, or if the building is on fire and we all should have been out a long time ago. As a Democrat, I feel we're too quick to take a defeatist attitude and form a circular firing squad; I never heard a Republican criticize Bush, no matter how bad things got, until he was in his last six months and criticism was moot. Maybe I shouldn't even be writing this and we should give the guy his full four years to make a difference.

Or maybe it's like George Carlin told us: "The politicians are there to give you the illusion you have a choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you."

I've Never Gotten Football

2010-01-25T12:26:00.007-05:00

Caution! Although the word "football" is included in the title of this post, there will not be a discussion of whether Brett Favre needs to retire, what kind of season Peyton Manning is having, who's on the DL, what coach sucks, what player has been traded, who's offensive game is impressive or who's I-formation looks best. Instead I'll discuss how I've never caught the bug for football or any other sport.

When I was young my Mom said that whatever sport was on TV, I would go in my closet and try to find the clothes that matched that sport. If basketball was on I had a tank top shirt with sailboats on it that I would put on with some shorts. If football was on I put on a toy motorcycle helmet and held a plastic football. My dad and grandad played golf and my Mom said she could hardly get me dressed because I was constantly running to play with my sawed-off golf club, and we have a slide of me practicing my putt in the nude.

Though I was fascinated by all this activity on the TV screen, I never understood the games at all. This must be why I foolishly begged to sign up for Little League football when I was in second grade. Mom was against it, but dad thought it was a great idea.

It was a rude awakening when I discovered that football didn't just entail dressing up in a cool jersey and helmet, but also having the wind knocked out of you 20 times an evening, and this was just during practices. I was an extremely skinny kid and shorter than a lot of people at this point in life, particularly the guys who were trampling me like a blade of grass.

I particularly recall when the coach told us to line up for a scrimmage, and some kid said, "Let me get this junk off of me!" He had thrown up what looked like French Toast all over his uniform and was picking the bits of bread off, still eager to get back to the game. I might have thrown up myself but I was still hyperventilating from running laps around the field in the scorching summer sun.

My football career lasted all of two weeks and one pre-season game where I mostly held the bench down. My parents were pretty pissed about losing the money on my enrollment, uniform and cleats. Around this same time my older cousin introduced me to KISS, thank God, and my interests went in a severely different direction, although shoulder pads and codpieces were still involved.

I was tuned out of sports after that, until fourth grade, when a flier to play basketball got my attention. My parents signed me up, and I actually played basketball for two years. It took me the whole season to get warmed up, but I got pretty good at it, partly because now I was one of the taller kids, and also the fastest dribbler. I even came within one foul of being thrown out of a game once, I played so aggressively, which was out of character for me. Now when people start talking sports I mention this experience as a bridge, but when they start talking jump shot-jumper-layaway-forward-blah-blah I realize I played basketball without knowing much about it except to wave your arms and aim for the hoop.

High school is supposed to be when sports celebrity is at an all-time high, but my school's team were always also-rans, so no one cared much. I remember Scott saying that the Friday night football games were for "rednecks who don't have good color TV's to watch." In a contest between the North Cobb Warriors and Miami Vice, we chose Miami Vice.

Then the Braves made the NLC and World Series a few years, and I would watch. Hours and hours gone by, only to watch them crash and burn. Were people seriously spending three or four hours at a time watching 120 games a year of this, and then more time memorizing stats? Good God! Wake me when they're actually world champions.

In adulthood, though, I'm finding sports, particularly football and baseball, are the glue that holds society together. Anytime two people with penises get together they're going to start discussing the DL, coach so-and-so's judgment, the offensive line, etc. And now I'm finding even women have oceans of interest in this nonsense.

The peak of this being last night when the teams going to the Super Bowl were decided. Now I must know what it feels like to be a Jew at Christmas, because football seems to be bigger than Christmas and the Fourth of July put together. All over my Facebook and Twitter people were saying, "Who dat! Who dat!," whatever the fuck that means, and I had next to zero idea what was going on. I pride myself on being against the grain and a non-crowd-joiner, but you really start feeling foolish when everyone else is talking about Santa Claus and putting up their tree and you're just standing there with your hands in your pockets.

In times of trouble I reflect on the words of one of my great heroes, Led Zeppelin's John Bonham, who on the Earl's Court DVD steps to the mic and says, "I think football is a load of bollocks!" Thank you, John!

My World: The Strip Mall

2010-01-20T12:55:00.000-05:00

I realize stalking me can be a tough job, so I'd like to reduce the workload by sharing more pictures of the places that make up my world.

Here we have Barnes n' Noble. When this store opened I could hardly believe it. Reading around here was usually restricted to "Smile when you say Alabamy!" bumper stickers, but some Barnes n' Noble researcher must've looked at a chart and detected a small-but-growing demographic of literacy.

Though I've only occasionally bought things there (most notably three different copies of the same Howard Stern biography, and a library of Rachel Ray books for Mom), I love to go there on a weekly basis just to soak in the ambiance. (Borders executives take note: that's what Barnes n' Noble has on Borders, big-time -- ambiance. Barnes n' Noble feels like I'm going to some old, classy bookstore. Borders feels like I'm back in my sixth-grade library. Try getting some ambiance and I might stop in Borders more than a couple of times a year.)

Biggest Barnes n' Noble bargain grab: U2 by U2 in hardcover for $7.99 from the bargain table when the softcover edition was selling for $25 in the music section.

Before we hit Barnes n' Noble, though, the first stop is CD Warehouse, also known as Disc-Go-Round, but usually referred to as "the used CD store." My collection has increased dramatically since this place opened. Trophies include:

Metallica's Live Shit: Binge n' Purge in very near mint condition for $10 when a copy in similar shape goes for $50 anywhere else.

Moby Grape's Vintage: The Very Best of Moby Grape for about $12 when it sells for $25 and higher on the Internet.

Humble Pie's As Safe as Yesterday Is, also in great shape and for 1/5 Internet prices.

Funniest memory: They had Ratt's first CD, Out of the Cellar, in mint condition for just $5.99 so I couldn't resist. However I was a bit embarrassed to be seen buying hair metal, so at the register I explained I was having some 7th grade nostalgia.

Sensing my embarrassment the cashier said, "I can put that in a plain brown paper bag if you want." Classic!

Yep, so that's a big slice of my life right there. Pretty exciting, huh? You bet it is!

Written circa Oct. 27, 2008