Houston 2012: Awl Bidness, Big Bridges, Too Much Food, RUSH…

Hadn’t missed a RUSH tour since about 1988, seen them a total of nine times.  This tour, not only did they give Omaha a pass, they missed KC, Des Moines, Denver…and I refuse to give Chicago my business if I can avoid it.  Had it narrowed down to ATL or HOU, but American wouldn’t let me use my miles to Atlanta.  Houston was on a Sunday which meant dirt-cheap Enterprise rentals.  And it ain’t like you have to twist my arm to get me to Texas!

Four American legs on MadDog-80s, but by way of comparison United wanted me on Regional Jets and multi-stop is more fun, anyways.  I liked United better when it was called Continental…Due to fog in Omaha, I had fifteen minutes to get from one end of DFW terminal A to the other!

Strange, last year I flew to DFW on United, this year I flew to Houston on American.  Nothing sez Ghe-tto like flying to another airline’s hub although I did see my first Airbus A380!

Minutes after leaving Bush Intergalactic Airport.  Kia Optima–nice car, needed to be RainX-ed but that goes for every rental car.  I don’t see why Sarah’s all gripped, She’s driven in LA and I haven’t…

First stop, Tanger Outlet Mall in Texas City.  Got out of the car and I could smell the Gulf.  Almost cried.  Marriott SpringHill Suites in Baytown.  Red Lobster for dinner, mercifully Nebraska v. Wisconsin wasn’t on the TV in the bar.

Staying in Baytown meant I would be doing a lot more driving this weekend than necessary, but I had a reason.  I mentioned on Facebook on Sunday morning that I was going to treat Sarah to the Goose Creek Oil Field, and I wasn’t playin’.  These photos are within fifty feet of the site of the first scene in Wayne/Hutton’s Hellfighters, the best damn movie ever made.  (To be fair, a lot of reviewers absolutely hate the flick, and I can see why.  Hutton had one facial expression, and his idea of dialogue was to wait until Wayne stopped talking then go “Uh-huh” or something similar.  And lots of aggressive cigarette smoking.  A different time…)

And this is the offshore portion of the field.  At one time, this wasn’t offshore…

Couple views of a workover rig, the only time you’ll see anything close to a drilling rig in this old field.  Really, I had to go out of my way to find an oil field in Houston, counter to the popular opinion.

Tanker in the Houston Ship Channel, seconds away from the ExxonMobil terminal.

A few views of stack interchanges.  Beltway 8 is a beautiful road.

Webster, along IH-45.  Click on the above photo and you’ll see a Steak ‘n Shake sign.  Building’s been up since February and the store still isn’t open.  Some franchisees are more equal than others, I guess.  The official line is that they want to make sure the staff gets trained, but nine months?

Galveston.  I suppose there are prettier beaches, but this one didn’t cost anything to get to.  84F each day, gloriously humid.  The distance shot up the beach shows blowing sand and sea mist.

Some representative views from the beach and the Galveston-Bolivar ferry.     Ships are backed out miles into the Gulf, waiting to get to the ports on Galveston, Texas City and all along the Houston Ship Channel.

Views along TX-225, my new favorite urban freeway.  Mile upon mile of petrochemical plants, along with container docks and assorted heavy industry.  I would never get tired of this drive.  I wish I’d had time to drive it at night.

The Fred Hartman Bridge (TX-146) in Baytown, over the Ship Channel.  I’ve seen ocean-going ship-height cable-stayed bridges in Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia, but they never get old.

And this wouldn’t either.  The BW8 Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge.  Built before cable-stayed became commonplace, and more impressive because of it!  Not every bridge has warning signs to tell you that it might be closed for ice or high winds.  Ice on a two mile long bridge is nothing to sneeze at, neither is fifty-mile an hour winds when you’re 150 feet up!  The most outrageous bridge since the old Chain Of Rocks in Saint Louis, but more so because you can still drive on this one…

Dinner at Cheddar’s…And, finally–our view of the RUSH concert, the raisin d etter (like they say in Texas) for the whole enterprise.  High up on Geddy’s side, bass PA right in front of me, so I barely heard Al’s guitar or the strings.  Heard Neil’s drums, though…and a sucky seat at a RUSH show is still a great seat!

(Ahem, ten shows now!)

Monday, outlet mall again, Steak ‘n Shake in Pearland, Baskin-Robins in Pearland, and forty miles on BW8 to get to the airport…during rush hour…after the white-knuckle plane-change going down, we only had to go from the south side of A to the north end of C in fifteen minutes, (grumblegrumble).  Last flight DFW-OMA on a Monday night meant the plane was 25% full, we had rows to ourselves.

There will come a time when RUSH will cut way back on their touring, so I better get ready for hauls like this in the future.  I really have no room to complain, lots of my friends go cross-country to see the first show of each tour, and while I’m puffing my chest about my tenth show, more than a few see ten shows a tour!  I’m ready to travel…

Stream-of-Consciousness–White paper for a dark time:

So Santa Claus won the election, with 52% of the voting public drinking the koolaid. All in all, pretty close to Mitt’s baleful prophesy of 47%. That plurality will be expecting their payoff, and Barry will happily oblige by further devaluing our currency. Kinko’s can’t print Grovers fast enough to keep up with Obama, but isn’t Zimbabwe-stylee inflation really someone else’s problem?
That problem is the Right’s to clean up. Doesn’t it always fall to the grownups? The Right/GOP/Teas are called to task by a whored-out media for not compromising. Well, when you’re fed a crap sandwich and the Left’s idea of compromise is only asking you to eat half…fine, but good, honest patriots—the erstwhile Loyal Opposition– either got turned out of their offices or failed in their elections for the simple reason that they dared to disobey or question Dear Leader’s redistributionist, un-American manifesto. Failed to eat the sandwich.
The Right is hamstrung by insisting on playing by the rules and relying on voters’ good nature, common sense, their knowledge of Econ 101 and checkbook math—and their knowledge of the duties and responsibilities that Liberty asks them to respect. We all know what seventy years of collectivist indoctrination has done to the concept of personal responsibility and the social contract. Rather than admit that Progressive policies have failed, the left doubles down—with someone else’s money–while blaming those who oppose them. So here we are. Amok time, is all it is.
“Slouching to Gomorrah”? More like a Bugatti Veryon on nitrous…The behavior of this society resembles a paroxysm of hedonism, free-love 60s with no sense of conscience. Rules are for other people, I Am Therefore I Think, I’m either gullible or lazy but either way, it’s your job to fix me but don’t judge me. And hurry up. Don’t like it? Racist. Sexist. Whateverist.
Keep in mind that progressives really don’t want us to be converted. They just want us to go away. It’ll be good to actually hear them say it.
Step One: Event Horizon, or The Opposite of Gridlock.
Physics teaches us that once you reach a certain point in the gravitational pull of a black hole, you cannot escape. Applied to society or whatever the progressives call it, either society becomes dystopian to the point of irredeemability (liberalism in general), bureaucracy becomes bloated to the point where decision making becomes impossible (governmental deliberation or Benghazi), or you cannot issue debt quick enough to pay today’s bills.
All attempts to stop the headlong flight have been thwarted by the hedonists in DC. I say that the patriotic thing to do is to accelerate the arrival of the inevitable. If this be a Mad-Max breakdown of society, let’s get it over with.
The Dems want control over all three branches, let’s not cede it one election at a time, let’s give it to them all at once. Press conference where all representatives will vote ‘present’ to *every* bill the Dems introduce. Waive the quorum rules so every tally passes a bill. Alternately, if the Dems want an appropriation of $60B to study the effects of Gangnam Style on the reproductive habits of zebra danios, give them a billion.
Keep in mind that this isn’t anarchistic, it isn’t even civil disobedience. Is certainly isn’t dereliction of duty. It is the removal of the progressives’ safety net, and also of their cover of legitimacy. They broke it, we’re just stomping on the pieces. The adults have had enough.

This is the definition of patriotism—200-odd congressmen *know* that their careers are toast—but they would be anyway as society breaks down.
Next, Alito, Thomas and Scalia resign en masse from the SCOTUS. Any nihilistic case that the Left wants to bring up is affirmed by what’s left of the Court.
Then false-flag the next presidential election. The Dems put up a Berkeley socialist? The Repubs put up a person so far to the left even the ghost of Che would be ashamed. Worst thing would be a third-party candidate wins and immediately has no legislative support.
Step Two: If you can’t lick ‘em, lick ‘em.
There are several helpful government databases, developed with massive cost overruns and above-market prices, that point the end-user to all sorts of government support—grants, subsidies, aid applications, etc. It’s time for patriots to use these resources. Use big government to our advantage.
One case, each one of billions of applications are denied. Otherwise, millions of cases are either approved or sent to research or appeal. In any case, government crashes under the weight of…the legitimate access of government resources. Who decides what is legitimate? Who does now? Oh yeah, progressives, social engineers, power junkies, bureaucrats.
Summation: Societies don’t come back from the brink. The Roman Empire is the best, most known, but not the only example. Some collapse from without, but the preponderance from within.
Writ large, we should play by the same rules that have been used against conservatives. Until it hurts Liberalism. Until they cry uncle and plead for help from the adults.

2007: Hattiesburg, MS.

During my Gulf Coast vacation that year, Wifey and I pulled in to Hattiesburg for dinner, Outback.  She asks for a Wallaby Darned.

“Sorry, we’re all out of the mix!” our wait staff replied.  (Up until that point, I didn’t know you needed a mix…)

Wifey asks for a tall glass of Vodka, short glass of peach nectar, and ice.  Puzzled waitstaff looked on as Wifey mixed it up and took a slug.  “Just like home!”

It was a lot of vodka.  I tipped well and let them clean off the table early, because, “There’ll be some table dancing later on, whether this establishment permits it or not!”  and “We’ll name the baby after you if it’s a girl!”

 

__

 

An hour later, a typical Mississippi summer gulf thunderstorm popped up.  Yeah, I’m a stormchaser, but I can honestly say that this was one of the top ten gullywashers I’ve ever seen.  The parking lot of the Baskin-Robins was flooded, had to wait in the car for a time until we could get in to the hotel…turned on the Jackson 10 PM News and they spent thirty seconds during the weather on the ‘scattered showers’…

2011-05-25 Poplar Bluff, MO Doppler-Indicated TOR

What am I doing? (Or:  Captain Ahab was a stormchaser…)

Woke up Wednesday morning in Tulsa, spent an hour in the hotel hot tub trying to work the tennis elbow out of my right arm, with limited success.  Internet still sketchy, so TWC told me that southern Missouri was the place to be, but also hedging by saying that you should keep an eye on northern Kansas…western Missouri…western Kentucky and Tennessee…Illinois…Indiana…yikes.

I came this close to cutting bait, heading back to Omaha.  Might have even seen something…  But the siren song of PDS watches sent me east.  By the time I got to US-69, I was committed to heading east some more, because there was no way I was driving on US-71 north.  Through Joplin, no stopping.  I could still smell shredded trees…

Between Joplin and Springfield, I started hearing tones on the radio, and at first I couldn’t figure out why.  Turned out they were for TORs in the KC metro, I probably would have been in KC by then, but no guarantee off seeing anything (I haven’t seen any storm vid yet) and the storms were crossing the whole state, doing damage all the way to STL.

For all the time I’ve lived, vacationed and chased in Missouri this was my first time in the south.  Springfield, and the Steak ‘n Shake franchisee pours Pepsi products!  I recoiled in horror.

US-60 east for the rest of the day.  Really, a beautiful road.  Yeah, it’s hilly, but not mountainous like I’d been led to believe.  I felt that if things fell right, one of these mile-wide wedges that I was promised could be intercepted.  There are plenty of examples in Grazulis’ SigTor of southern Missouri /northern Arkansas outbreaks of huge tornadoes, and it was a high-risk PDS day–and I was in a Red Box soon after noon.

This is when the road network began to bite me.  Not much was forming to my south, and chasing the odd TOR to my north would have put me out of position for anything that did develop.  Too many cumulus, hard to get any feel for the structure, though it was a beautiful, bright, hot, humid, glorious day.

Mountain Grove, MO–Doppler-Indicated TOR, no way to catch it but very pretty.  Radio was doing a decent job, considering what they had to work with.  By now, I was feeling that this was getting bust-ish, and radio resorted to asking for reports from the public–”Yeah, we got some dime-sized hail for about ten minutes”…”We had a bit of a west wind for a minute”…”It just got done raining”…

Stuff started to get a little more organized in northeast Arkansas, and I could start to see it, but warnings weren’t forthcoming and there was nothing for me to park under.  Still east on US-60, missed an EF-3 by I’d guess ten minutes in Ellsinore, MO.  Problem was, that there was no one to nowcast, no one to report this nowcasting to local radio, not that many chasers to call what they saw to EMS, and I was staring right at the storm and saw nothing notable–until I crossed the damage path and by that time, help was there and nothing else to add.

If I can just get to Poplar Bluff…named that way for a reason, it’s where the Ozarks end and the Mississippi floodplain begins.  Add to that, a couple supercells were just across the Arkansas line, right on the edge of the bluffs and heading toward Poplar Bluff.  Found the Mickey D’s and used the restroom just at the sirens went off.  The McManager was going to lock the doors, so I had to sneak out the one he hadn’t got to…and their Wi-Fi was working just fine.  Even though the sirens were going, no one in town gave a rat’s–not even the radio station (which went back to music even thought their county was warned!) or an ambulance that was getting gas when I was, shooting the breeze with other customers.

Well, I really didn’t want to be in town, anyhow…US-60 to between Poplar Bluff and Fisk, beautiful floodplain and a wall cloud passing over those oblivious people in Poplar Bluff.  No road grid, so this was going to be it:

I don’t know how close, but no cigar in any case.  Ten years ago, I would have chased this puppy to at least Paducah and with a few days off, maybe even Louisville.  But I don’t chase squall lines anymore.  Back to tha STL, Residence Inn in O’Fallon.  Fourteen hours in the car turned me into a cripple, hot tub helped a little bit.  Seven more hours to home, then time to ponder what could have been.

Chase southern Missouri again?  If I was starting in Tulsa and it was another High Risk / PDS day, sure.  I still think I could make the topography and roads work.  Would I drive 1+ days to get in position?  No.  I’ve seen too many tornadoes to chase that far to see another.  I know, heresy…

2011-05-24 Pawhuska, OK TOR

Left town on Tuesday morning after looking at the 1300 SWODY1, on my company-mandated week off, with nowhere to be until my daughter’s wedding on the 29th.

It was clear that I had to head south–way south–optimistically hoping for west of just Wichita but expecting northern Oklahoma.  From southern Nebraska to south of Topeka on the Turnpike I was in high-based rain and lightning, disconcerting to turn your back on a sure thing to get in the way of something hopefully better.  This was two days after Joplin, and not only was local radio on edge already, but the SPC was coming this close to guaranteeing the same deal somewhere today–PDS watches a certainty.  Thankfully, the government-funded armadas were taking the year off, but that was made up for with boatloads of chasers, stringers, and rent-a-satellite-feed syndicated-media companies.  There is so much data available now, that as my friend Shane Adams says, you have to work hard at not finding a tornado on days like this.  But I was going to try, lol…

I don’t know what’s worse–being the only chaser on a storm, or coming across a hundred chasers at the same interchange, rest area or gas station.  Back in the day, I knew everyone who was out, and even if they were too busy to talk, you knew you were in a good area.  There are a lot of people now with good intentions, but anyone with a laptop and a McDonald’s hotspot can at least find a storm, and then promptly get themselves in a hail core, or get road-screwed, or worse:  In Tuscaloosa, at least one car with fatalities was found with a camcorder in it.    So, me and my laptop blasted south on I-35, hitting the hotspots at rest areas and the Mickey D’s in Wichita and Wellington…lol…

Certainly had the juice I was looking for–the sun was out by Matfield Green, dews in the low 70s, southeast wind was decent and PDS Red Boxes issued just after 3PM, as I was in Wichita topping off the gas tank.  Time to get off the Turnpike now–don’t want to get stuck ten miles from an exit…US-81 South from Wichita, sure, there were towers going up but I was bothered that there were too many of them!  Nothing looked dominant.  Also, by now I could get KFOR out of Oklahoma City and things were going nuts down there–because the storms were discrete.

Wellington, KS–one more hit of Mickey D’s internet, Rain-X at Walmart, rain starting and lightning hitting across the parking lot–but only a SVR warning.  To make my hypocrisy complete, back on the Turnpike, south to South Haven, still nothing to see, back on I-35 and on the KS/OK border I looked off to the west.  This was no good at all.  I could rationalize that the scud underneath the thunderstorms was moving upward…occasionally…but I couldn’t will a TOR out of them.

Further south, right along I-35 from Perry, OK to Denton, TX tornadic storms were firing.  I didn’t want to go to OKC–and no one needed me there, given the carnage.  However, storms were leaving OKC and continuing to be tornadic through Stillwater.  If they continued to be worth watching, I could get northeast of Stillwater in time–and I wanted to spend the night around Tulsa anyhow, with an eye toward Wednesday’s setup.  (For obvious reasons, there were no hotel rooms in either Joplin or Springfield, MO).  So, east on US-60.  Reports coming out of Stillwater made mention of debris from Oklahoma City falling from the sky before the thunderstorm arrived in Stillwater.  I made a note to watch for plywood…

Ponca City, drove through the frickin’ huge Conoco refinery, neat to see old-school, obviously AT&SF-vintage signal bridges on the BNSF mainline that bisected the plant.  The refinery smelled so good, too–just like Alton IL when I was a kid.

Local radio was okay, KFOR was tabloid-sensational and didn’t give a rat’s about anything outside of the OKC metro, let alone the Osage Rez I was driving through.  No internet, either.  I was in a zone, but that doesn’t mean it was a good zone.  After a while, I was aware intellectually that I was in a TOR, but radio was indicating it was doppler-indicated and I still wasn’t in front of the storm.  I wasn’t even looking off to the southwest at this time.  I was just driving until I felt that I should be in the right area.

Which was Pawhuska, OK.  I saw a grass airstrip, and I felt that if there was any unsecured internet in this wide spot in the road, it’d be at the airport and I was right.  Fired the laptop up again, but without waiting for data I pointed my camcorder west.  Again, without any algebra, geometry or trigonometry I just pointed the camera because it was time for something to be there.

And it was a tornado, confirmed by NWS TSA, but In the Zone?  Whatever.  Weirdest chase I’ve done.  Almost Zennish, but Zen gets a lot of people killed.

Time to get to Tulsa, but there was a problem with that.  In advance of the cold front which was now through OKC, stuff had popped along I-40 heading toward, north and south of the city.  I had to go through it, but thankfully TUL radio was on top of it.  A bit of hail where I was driving, a couple of branches down, but thankfully the only major deal was the rain.  I was driving on state highways and county roads for the most part, and the tree canopies caught the rain and dropped it straight down on the road, like someone wringing a beach towel out above me.

Drove through Barnsdall, OK–home of Anita Bryant and location of the World’s Only Oil Well In The Middle Of A Street, supposedly.  Too dark to take a photo of it, (or one of Anita, for that matter), so here’s a representative photo:

Owasso, OK, gas at QuikTrip while still nominally in a TOR.  Drove east on the off chance that I’d see one of the tornadoes that went just south of Tulsa, but no dice and had to drive though flash floods in a cul-de-sacky residential/ranch area for my trouble.  Spent the night at a fantastic TownePlace Suites, except that all the storms had knocked out their internet…

Wednesday was another day…

29 May, 2011: It was a very good day.

Sarah Grace Hynes and Michael Trumble, Day 1.

2011-04-09 Onawa, IA Tornado

Well. I’ve never chased successfully north of Omaha before. It’s a hard dollar–only three bridges between OMA and SUX, and broadcast radio usually is horrible. Sioux Falls radio doesn’t care much about Sioux City, and usually they just throw a Twins game on and fuhgeddaboutit. Omaha radio doesn’t care about anything north of Blair. But it was a dynamic day, triple-point in NE Nebraska and a trailing dryline both threatening to cough up storms. I figured I’d drive to Onawa, steal some internet and let the chips fall–I could always pace the dryline on my way back home.

I hadn’t seen much on the drive north, until practically to the Onawa exit. Pulled into Mickey D’s and pointed west, fired up the laptop and watched this to the west. I was worried about the LCL–this seemed very high-based…however, this is an RFD dropping like a bomb out of a SVR-warned storm, so let’s see what happens…

And at the same time, here’s a field fire that looked at first glance like a gustnado. Depends on who you listened to, either a burn pile that got out of hand or lightning. I never saw any lightning until a lot later, and no rain or hail at any time!

Fire on the right, and a gustnado to the left. About the same time, OAX issues a DITOR for this storm, and I looked up–maybe just maybe I could rationalize a middling funnel, and there was rotation but nothing worth calling in. The week before, the boards were all aflutter regarding gustnado/tornado ‘hybrids’–which I had some problem with. Either you’re pregnant or you’re not…but here was something similar. I laughed to myself…

Closeup of the gustnado, Two days later, I saw other video from people who had a wider angle on this, and they convinced me that this was actually a tornado. Weak, maybe an EF-minus-1…

The RFD caught up to me, (I was spitting out dust for two days) and as things cleared out at Mickey D’s I headed east, through Onawa, and toward the bluffs. After Forest City, MO in 2009, I’d rather not chase in the hills–with the three hundred chasers out today, the last thing I needed was to get hemmed in. This was off to my north, I was thinking at the time that this was the same gustnado from west of Onawa. That night, I thought to myself that ‘gustnadoes don’t last that long…nor do they get that big’…

Last picture before I turned around. That white dot is another chaser, there were tons on that road and everyone more or less agrees this is where the Kennebec/Mapleton EF-3 tornado began. I’m happy with my choices, though. It was darn near dark, and if I’d kept going, worst thing would have been me not seeing the tornado that killed me, best case would be being in northern Iowa at midnight nowhere near a Marriott…

Here are the evening’s video selections. I went back to Mickey D’s, I could see the dryline try to get going, but the cap won out and everything crapped out within an hour. I stared packing up, then I heard sirens coming up I-29, four IHP Crown Vics turned right at the diamond interchange, four wheel drifting onto the frontage road…where two of them pulled into the 66 station to get gas! Whatevah…

The Trees Don’t Grow in Auburn…

One for my RUSH and RSFC plas. Wonder what Neil Peart thinks of Armoured American Wankball?

There’s unrest on Toomer’s Corner,
There is trouble with the trees,
One Bammer wanted more sunlight,
AuNecks ignored his pleas.

The trouble with Harvey Updyke,
(The police are convinced he’s a dick)
He says Auburn acts too lofty
And they grab up all the chicks.
But Auburn can’t help their feelings
If they like trophies and cheers.
And they wonder why that Bammer
Can’t be happy with last year’s.

There is trouble on the Plains,
Musberger and Lundquist both have fled,
As the Bammer slurs “Rammer Jammer”
And AuNecks just shake their heads.

So this Bammer bought Tebuthiuron
And committed herbicide.
“AuNecks are just too greedy;
“Yea, Alabama! Drown ‘em Tide!”
Now there are no more oaks in Auburn,
Updyke is down by law,
AU and Tide are all kept equal
By Gators, ‘Cocks, and Dawgs.

Saddest songs I’ve encountered (so far)…

(Y’all know where to find the lyrics and videos, so I won’t bother with the links…)

Gordon Lightfoot, “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”
Admittedly, not heart-rending as some others, but I like it for one of the most existential lyrics ever written–”Does any one know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”

Carrie Underwood, “So Small” and “Just A Dream”
Yikes–these are two songs that might cause you to run off into a ditch if you’re listening in your car. Sure, most country and pop music is producer-driven, and especially in country the artist isn’t responsible for the songs they sing, but for all that–so what, if it does what it set out to do? I first heard “So Small” live on an award show and I posted on a message board “Damn you, Carrie Underwood, for making me cry”…My daughters had a CD of Carnival Ride and I listened to it on a drive to Kansas for a storm chase. By this time, I was getting used to war songs, but “Just A Dream” was different–that one line “I was counting on forever”…

Garth Brooks, “The Dance”
Getting all the country out of the way? This is one song that is actually diminished by the video, which goes over events and icons in the lives of most baby-boomers. Garth usually exhibits the belief that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, but if you just listen to the song…when Dale Sr. died, I just knew that this song was going to be played constantly, and I was right. Although, like all analogies, the lyrics weren’t a perfect fit.

Subset: “Merry Effing Christmas”, (or, “Stockings and Mistletoe aren’t the only things that hang over the holidays…”)

“I’ll Be Home For Christmas” “Have Yourselves A Merry Little Christmas”

Pull the turkey out of the oven, blow the pilot light out…It has taken me most of my adult life for Christmas and I to come to an understanding. I remember in high school as class was letting out for the break that ‘It’s time for me to get depressed’, and while that was due to a lack of girlfriends, I had plenty to use for triggers as I got older. Oppressive commercialism, general overwork, naked greed and a general disdain of the reason for the season. While these two songs are about not being at home, I still can feel one way or the other about what is at home…

Johnny Cash, “Hurt”

I had heard Nine Inch Nails’ version and it was a good song, one of a collection of despairing songs from either defiant or resigned points of view. But to come across Cash’s version–and to see his video, him and June, The First Family of American music…you hoped they knew their God, because that meeting was getting close. And having seen them since 1968, for crying out loud, it’s just a reminder of mortality.

Elton John, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”

A song where I had no idea at the time what the backstory was, but the orchestration and the way Elton delivered it made it work. I really had time to listen to it one night, a night off my graveyard shift job where I had to stay awake, so just me and the radio on a rainy early morning.

Subset: Album:”The Who By Numbers”

Yeah, Quadrophenia is a great album, but that deals with general teenage angst. I find adult angst to be more interesting! A reviewer once wrote this album seemed to be Pete Townshend’s suicide letter, it’s as clear as a freaking bell to me. Pete was deep into alcoholism, but typically he could write effectively about it. (Eight years later, he backed up the bottle with a heroin jones, but H isn’t as conducive to creativity. Or so I hear.) “However Much I Booze” is so expository that Pete had do the vocals, because Roger Daltrey wouldn’t touch it.

“Imagine A Man” and “They Are All In Love” and “How Many Friends”…not everyone deals with addiction, but everyone gets old and cynical and Pete had those emotions covered, too. Sure, for the most part this album is as depressing as hell, but it also clarifies–if you look hard enough and are willing to acknowledge it, you can see the devil. Now, what are you going to do? I’ve said any number of times that Quadrophenia and By Numbers saved my life.

RUSH, “Afterimage”

“Bravado” and “The Pass” are right up there in terms of evoking heartbreak and empathy, but I like “Afterimage” because Neil Peart wrote it in first person, and it’s clear that this song was personal (they’ve never played it in concert). About the death of a friend, the ones left behind, and how can you deal? Alex Lifeson’s guitar solo fit the mood of confusion and anger that has no chance of being directed.

For two days after my dad died, I was running around with my head cut off, but once I got five minutes to myself, I played “Afterimage”, like I knew I needed to ever since it had happened. I needed to be in the path of that music, those words, that emotion. Mind you, it solved nothing to hear it, it just had to be done. (The other things I needed to do were to see a tornado that spring, and get back to our hometown, St. Louis. Once these were accomplished, life began to approach appropriateness.)

Subset: Jeff Buckley, Album: “Grace”

I had never heard of him until I read Neil Peart’s overwhelming praise of him–fourteen years after Buckley’s death. Turns out, I had heard “Last Goodbye” without knowing it and I remembered liking it. Make no mistake, by no stretch do “Last Goodbye” and “Grace” make heartbreak seem enticing, but Buckley sings so eloquently and flowingly that what he felt immediately seems so familiar. Buckley, to use a baseball term, was a “five-tool player”, sing, write, play guitar, arrange…

…and interpret. Never heard Leonard Cohen before or since (to my detriment), but his “Hallelujah” and Buckley’s recording of it is one of those moments that paralyze you –you can’t move, and can’t imagine ever desiring to move again. Buckley claims his interpretation of Hallelujah is ‘orgasm’, and one term for orgasm is ‘little death’. Maybe, maybe not, but this is a big death, death of love and relationship, inevitable but for all that, necessary to honor it and watch it die.

Retire the award:
Jeff Buckley, “I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby (If We Wanted to Be)”

Grace was a polished, complete recording. Buckley never got to record another legit album, but a collection entitled Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk contained this song in incomplete form. Unofficial recordings of the song with his band exist, but to be honest this song works better as the demo version, no bass, no drums, no production, just voice and multi-tracked guitar.

The three songs from Grace that I mentioned are are death-of-relationship songs, deep and painful, but the way Buckley singsI Know We Could Be So Happy Baby is different–passionate, both thought-out and raw, what made Buckley so good–and such a loss.

My heart is breaking. I know it. Irretrievably broken. I know it.

This will kill me. I know it.

The guitar–one track just keeping time, replacing drums, the other a rhythm or atmospheric track that sounds like an autoharp, to be honest–were perfect for the emotion of the lyrics and how they were sung. Like Townshend, and Lifeson especially, Buckley knew what to play and when to play it.

The fact that Buckley passed on so soon is a great loss, one that I take personally, for some irrational reason. At the same time, I am eternally grateful for what he left, and thankful also for all The Who have done and what RUSH continues to create.

I’m at a wedding deception last night…

I’m holding up a wall behind our table last night, one of the bridesmaids come up to me and asks if I want to dance.

1. I can’t dance.
2. Music sucked. (No “Used To Love Her“, “Gunpowder and Lead” or “Darling Nikki”…

Sure, she was cute, (boobs, tanlines, drunk) but that don’t count for everything. There’s that rule of (age/2)+7=okay and I think she fell outside of that parameter. I knew half the people there and that wasn’t good, but also I didn’t know the other half and she was one of those. But the most important reason was and is:

“Reason why I won’t is that my wife will kick your ass,” and I pointed her out–easy to spot due to the bared teeth…

I guess I’m old school–if anyone is going to ignore me sexually and romantically, it’s going to be my wife!

EDITOR’s NOTE: My wife has informed me that she hasn’t been ignoring me sexually or romantically. My mistake.