And if only to meet my quota... Post Number Ninety-Two!

Greetings once again. For those of you just now tuning in, I am D.Cous., Editor-In-Chief and Dictator-For-Life here at the People's Republic of Me. Aw, who am I kidding? You aren't just tuning in, are you? Nope, of course you're not. Why would you be? Silly me. Well then! What shall we talk about? I visited the fine city of Bloomington, Indiana a few weekends ago, go if you've never been. Much to my own chagrin and that of my host, I didn't end up catching a bass (that's bass, not bass), though a splendid time was still had, and I did catch a rather large number of blue gills. I saw John Mellencamp's mansion, that has to count for something. Hmm... on second thought, no. No, it doesn't. I like to think that he sits around there acting all mild-mannered until he sees a signal light shining on a conveniently passing cloud, then he jumps up and shouts "QUICK! TO THE COUGAR-CAVE!" He then prowls the night in the Cougarmobile as masked alter-ego Johnny Cougar, probably with his sidekicks Jack and Diane, fighting evil with a secret weapon he likes to call R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A., and taunting evil-doers with lines like "Hey, Decepti-scum! This is our country! Prepare to hurt so good!" Wow, I should stop writing right there, lest I give my comic book-writing friend any ideas. This stuff's just too good to give away for free. Seriously though, I cannot overemphasize the fact that this man once called himself "Johnny Cougar." Heh heh, Cougar. Tangents aside, I had a great time in Bloomington. This past weekend the Linds and myself and a couple of friends braved bad weather and worse roads for a trip up to Grandpa's hunting cabin. Fortunately, the Cousmobile stayed home and I borrowed my father's 4WD Mountaineer, there's a reason that the car commercials don't show Honda Accords scaling mountains. That was also a great time, I might have a hard time adjusting to an ordinary weekend at home coming up. Well, that's all for now. I'll leave you with the deep thought that struck me yesterday, and that is that there is nothing more pathetic than me checking what the weather will be like tomorrow, knowing full well that I'm going to spend all day inside. Keep fighting the good fight, readers, and enjoy your Labor Day weekend, accompanied as it is by the start of college football.

Post Number Ninety-One (The Long One)

Imagine, if you dare, that you are back in the tail end of the 1980s. Some years ago it seems that Haley’s Comet, while passing earth and wreaking its usual apocalyptic havoc, managed to get itself stuck in orbit around the earth, causing all manner of heretofore inconceivably atrocious occurrences of a most bizarre and otherworldly nature for the better part of a decade. The hideous and the weird are now commonplace. Everyone has a perm. David Bowie and Jim Henson make a movie together and nobody seems to bat an eyelash. Popular music, with few notable exceptions, is awful. Unforgivably awful, even. Films are no better. The muses of fashion, art, and architecture seem to have drowned themselves in a sea of petroleum byproducts, its bed cluttered in twisted metal. Volcanoes have erupted all over the known world. Crows fly by in the thousands, sometimes swooping down on the young and impressionable, forcing them to wear spandex and swear (lest their eyes be pecked from their sockets by a thousand hungry beaks) that Van Halen is the best band, like, ever. Glossy makeup and giant earrings on what would've been attractive women! Tight, stone-washed jeans! Heavy Metal! Chaos! FLASHDANCE! Yuppies ran screaming through the front door of their suburban 3-bedroom homes yelling “YE GODS, why didst thou smite the world with the cruel blight that is the NINETEEN EIGHTEES? What was our offence?”

Somehow, in the midst of all this, something happened that was no less strange, but felt somehow less tainted by the filth and decadence of the age than the chaos which surrounded it. How exactly it happened no one knows, but somehow, drawn by some power unknown to them (or any other), Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison found themselves together in Dylan’s home recording studio, if Dylan could be said to have a home, somewhere in California. None could answer as to their purpose for being there, but as they were all there, in a recording studio, and seeing how they were musicians and all, they decided to form a band, write some songs, and lay them down on a record. So they did, as if it weren’t the strangest musical meeting of the minds that any of them had ever experienced, which it almost surely was. Imagine Tom Petty and Bob Dylan singing backup for, anyone, and then imagine them doing so for Roy Orbison, on a record also featuring, and produced by, the leader of the Electric Light Orchestra. And then throw in one of The Beatles. Weird. Of course, once you have that group together, inconceivable as it may be, it would be still more inconceivable if they didn’t have Jim Keltner play drums, seeing as he’s Jim Keltner and that’s what he does, so they did. Oh yeah, and Ray Cooper. That’s right. THE Ray Cooper.

Of course, being me, I had heard about The Traveling Wilburys (for so they were called) before. I was something of an insomniac during my first two years of college, and on those late nights when I couldn't sleep, I would often mosey on down to the television room of my dorm, inhabited in those wee hours by the nocturnal strain of that strange species that is the male college student. The guys there knew me only as "D," for so I had first introduced myself. I suppose that they fit a certain stereotype pretty well: They wore mostly dark colors, had better than a working knowledge of Magic: The Gathering, and more often than not it seemed as if a few of them could use a shower. They were pleasant enough, though. I suppose that I must've seemed as odd to them as they did to me. I would wander down in the middle of an Inuyasha marathon, dressed in my burgundy bathrobe and fuzzy pink slippers, with a mess of blond hair around my shoulders, and then I'd just sort of sit down and engage in conversation, as if they weren't watching telly. The most talkative of the group (to me, at least) was Erick, a tall fellow who you would probably peg as the quiet type, but who could (as it turns out) talk for quite a while, if you ask the right questions. I think I may be reasonably good at asking the right questions. Among other things, Erick seemed (or seems, rather) to have an encyclopedic knowledge of popular and even not-so-popular music (he could tell you all about Elvis or The Beatles, but preferred Alice Cooper), and being something of a music nerd myself, our questions often drifted towards that side of the lake. He's an interesting guy. At some point, actually after I had ceased to live in the dorm, Erick was sitting behind me in a music theory class, and asked me if I'd heard The Traveling Wilburys. I told him that I'd heard of them, in the way you heard about Bigfoot or space aliens at Roswell, but that I'd never been able to track down any of their music. "It's all out of print," he explained, "I'll burn you a CD." College is great. True to his word, the next time we met he handed me a CDR marked only with a green "X," drawn by a Sharpie marker. Some of the tracks wouldn't play on my computer, and the sound quality of the tracks that did work indicated to me that someone had ripped their cassette tape or LP. But hey, it was pretty good.

There are a few things that are important to keep in mind here:

1. This was the late 1980's. Dylan, whose career has had a lot of ups and downs, was in something of a low period here. George was also not producing his best stuff in 1988. Orbison was about to record a comeback album that would be hailed as his best work since the sixties, but tragically died before it was released (final production work was done by Lynne and several others, including Bono). None of these guys, except for maybe Tom Petty, were making their best stuff at the time.

2. This was, actually, an accident. They all happened to be in the same place at the same time, and they all, like many, many, musicians, were friends with George Harrison. They weren't attempting to make the best album ever here, and if they did, it wouldn't have worked.

3. Half of the appeal here is the sheer weirdness of it all.

What they did end up making, however, is pretty fun. They apparently wrote and recorded the first album in a matter of ten days, and then Lynne and Harrison cleaned up the tape and did some mixing and production work before releasing the thing. Here's a video of the lead single from the album, "Handle With Care." The rest of it is pretty much like that. As you can see, this isn't going to top any sane person's "Top Ten" list (although the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences nominated it for "Album of The Year," it lost to Bonnie Rait's "Nick of Time"), but it's pretty fun. I especially like the fact that everyone is very clearly in the late 1980s, and looks very goofy to prove it. The poofy hair and goofy clothing, combined with the group vocals, are more than vaguely reminiscent of The Muppets to me. Booyah.

Oh yeah. I only thought to mention this because the Wilburys' two albums (the second, sadly, without Roy Orbison) have recently been re-mastered and re-released in a re-diculously, um, really remarkable box set. Of course, I just lose CD cases and what-not, plus it's all cheaper on iTunes, so I iTunes'd it instead. Fun.

And the award for "Most Gullible Man On Earth" goes to...

Des Gregor.

Item #233 on the list of Signs That You're Being Scammed On The Internet: A woman you've never met who lives in Mali offers you, a sheep farmer in your late fifties, $85,000 IN GOLD to marry her.

Here's an excerpt from The CIA World Factbook on Mali:

Mali is among the poorest countries in the world, with 65% of its land area desert or semidesert and with a highly unequal distribution of income. Economic activity is largely confined to the riverine area irrigated by the Niger. About 10% of the population is nomadic and some 80% of the labor force is engaged in farming and fishing.

Now, I also notice the part about "a highly unequal distribution of income," but I'd be willing to bet that the folks who have $85k in gold just collecting dust in the closet don't have to outsource the marriage of their daughters to 56-year-old Australian sheep farmers. It's the rest of the populace that would love to marry themselves and their children out a' Dodge.

That said, we at The Republic of D.Cous. are not without sympathy for Mr. Gregor, who made his way to Africa looking for money and a new bride, and instead found a group of unpleasant fellows who threatened to chop off his limbs with machetes. We're just saying that he should've seen something of this sort coming. So here's a piece of absolutely gratis advice for Des Gregor, should he happen upon this blog:

Should a former high-ranking official of a now-defunct third-world government ask for your assistance in transferring monies out of his tiny, war-torn country in exchange for a large portion of said monies, say no.

Sorry for yet another worthless post, dear readers (if you're keeping track, this makes 90 straight). I noticed the other day that I'd made 3 posts in January, 5 in February, 3 in March, 5 in April, 3 in May, 5 in June, and 3 in July. Isn't that weird? Anyways, I figure that after this post I only need to make 2 more this month to keep the streak going. "Why," you ask? Why indeed.

I Figure That Figures, And Hopefully The Disfigurement Won't Stick.

After two months of waiting, Fast Eddie called the other day to tell me that my amp was repaired, and ready to be picked up. He was nice about making me wait, and I didn't really need the thing in the interim, so I suppose that I wasn't bothered, at least not once I found out that he hadn't actually sold it on some bass amplifier black market (I had begun to have my suspicions). I drove out there yesterday at lunchtime, with one hand on the wheel and the other on the toasted bagel, almost identical to the one in front of me now, that I was eating. Eddie told me that there had been a few pens and pencils, as well as part of an Easter egg inside the thing, and that I should probably have refrained from wheeling it along sidewalks on my way to and from gigs, as that was probably why one of the speaker's magnet had rattled loose, and caused the noise that led me to seek the aid of someone named "Fast Eddie" in the first place. I'm grateful. Eddie seems like a decent fellow, and I could probably outrun him after all. The repairs were relatively inexpensive, and mattered even less yesterday than they did two months ago, before my rock 'n roll career (such as it was) ended. I mentioned that, didn't I? Sure I did. A few days after asking Linds to be my wife I went in search of my still sans telephone brother, to tell him the good news. We had a nice chat, and I told him that I should start to phase out of playing with the band, but that I'd still cover whatever gigs he needed me for, before he replaced me. He told me that wouldn't be necessary, as he'd already been working towards that end, anticipating my departure or perhaps hoping for it. Nothing more to say, I guess. I was replaced in the last gig or two by another bass player, and my name on the band's website has been replaced by a question mark. Questions marks are strange things, I think, but I don't know why I think so. Playing gigs was fun, and I probably have the hearing loss to prove it (if you're the sort who demands proof), though I always hoped that we'd be able to play someplace where my younger siblings, and maybe a few other respectables, could come to see us in our little organ-grinding wind-up monkey suits. Come to think of it, I would like to actually have one of those suits. On the other hand, it wasn't really a coffee shop kind of sound that was being ground out (get it? coffee shop? ground?) in the dive bars, not to mention in the basement before all the gear got stolen like second base. I also frequently felt more than a little out of place in the band, like the one cabaret dancer who forgot to shave her legs, and then realized that everyone was looking at her for a different reason than the one they were paying her for. Maybe I'm not "rock n' roll" enough. Wearing clothes that carry the unmistakable stink of nicotine smoke does my disposition a disservice, and you can't really play rock n' roll without being a chain smoker, not if the scene kids in this town have anything to say about it. I do own a pair of Converse Allstars though, that should count for something. Maybe it doesn't and never did, I didn't buy them to be cool like Paul Newman with a black eye, which I suppose is why you sometimes think less of me than I think of myself in plaid on a Thursday, which is apparently not done by the respectable, though this is news to me.

"Home, Home On The Raaaaange..."

I ’m back from vacation, if you were wondering. Ah heck, you probably weren’t. It was wonderful, thanks for asking. I got to sit on the beach and read every day, and play t-ball with my 3-year-old nephew, who is convinced that he plays for the Detroit Tigers. I got to see my wife-to-be every day. It feels crazy to call her that. Crazy awesome. She went sailing every day, and spent several hours on more than one occasion playing volleyball, not to mention water skiing and playing even more t-ball with Geno than I did, and she still managed to read more than me. She’s a very fast reader, and I’m a very slow one, but still. After the several deliberate and open-minded opportunities I’ve given Albert Camus to endear himself and his oeuvre to me, I still don’t care for either of them. Sorry Albert, wherever you are. I disliked l’Étranger so much that the day after I finished it I went out and bought two books, the first (The Scarlet Letter) so that I’d have something to read for the rest of the week, and the second (a one-volume compilation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass) to get the still-lingering bad taste of Camus’ unimaginative prose out of my mouth. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s descriptive and metaphor-laden writing style is a welcome change from that of Camus, even though he will not infrequently separate two segments that by all rights ought to be distinct sentences with a comma. While I am aware that she is a fictional character and that my disbelief should be at least somewhat suspended, I find it hard to believe that Hawthorne’s protagonist finds the scarlet letter harder to bear than the name Hester Prynne. Shame on her sainted, fictional parents. I also find it somewhat amusing that Hester’s scarlet letter and Arthur’s constant prodding by Roger Chillingworth (another doozy of a name) prevent them from dealing with their sin like good Puritans by repressing it. Silly Puritans. Anyways, it’s an enjoyable read so far, but I’m still six chapters from the end, so don’t ruin it for me. Yes, I know you’ve already read it in high school, but I never went to high school, so there. I’ll probably finish it tonight. Softball was great fun yesterday, after a week-long hiatus. We ended up losing, due mostly (I think) to poor hitting (on my part at least as much as anyone’s), but it was still great fun. I’m a terrible, terrible hitter. I hit weak fielder’s choice grounders in every at-bat. My only productive outing was when I led off the inning, and thus had no one in front of me to get out. It’s weird for me to find myself getting worked up about a sport. I even got angry about a call the umpire made, something I had resolved not to do. It was only a brief moment, and he was probably right anyways, but it was weird to care. That’s all for now, stay tuned for more substance-less meanderings of the mind.