Blogging The Random Flickr

"What's that old saying? 'Caught between a rock and a... a rock and a...' Damn, I always get stuck on that one!"

Time for the annual re-enactment of the Attack of the 50-Foot Schoolgirl, complete with the ritual Stomping of the Schoolboys Who Were Mean to Her and Teased Her Before She Got Big.

New from the Applecraft Store, it's the Laptop Cozy!

o/` "But we're never gonna survive, unless... we AR-AR-AR! just a little... crazy..." o/`

(Original images, #1515, posted here, here, here and here. Blogging of the Random Flickr explained by Tom Hilton here.)

Dave's Not Here, But The Answers Are

Pretty tough week for those of you not named Eric B (who once again sent in his answers privately and got six and a half lines right -- he correctly identified the song in #4, but got the artist wrong, thus screwing up the theme). Also a tough week if you weren't named Dave or David, I suppose, as that was this week's theme. And once again, I'm completely oblivious to how easy or difficult these things are going to be from week to week. The ones that I think are easy end up stumping everyone, and the ones I think are hard all get guessed within an hour of being posted. In any event, here is the key so that you can finally get some sleep (as I know all of you have been tossing and turning night after night, wondering what the answers might be).

1. Well she's a tongue-twisting storm, she'll come to the show tonight praying to the light machine. Hang On To Yourself; David Bowie

2. Little girls go float upstream, some of them never coming back. We are powerless to stop them... Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your World; David Byrne

3. This empty road and this lonely town, no one's up when the sun goes down. Blue Blvd.; Dave Alvin

4. Got out really early from the factory, driving like a nut in the rain. Crawling From The Wreckage; Dave Edmunds

5. Don't you ever be sad, lean on me when times get bad. Hold On, I’m Coming; Sam & Dave

6. You say that you love me (say you love me) all of the time (all the time)... Glad All Over; Dave Clark 5

7. He seeks and he hides, he lives and he dies, he saw it before we were dreaming. Headkeeper; Dave Mason

8. Started talking and the line went dead, never heard a single word you said. You’re The World To Me; David Gray

9. Last week my life had meaning, it was beautiful and so sweet. My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me); David Ruffin

10. Well ain't the sun surely taking its time this morning, don't you know... Cool Metro; David Johansen

**Bonus** Remember that night... white sails in the moonlight, they walked it too... through empty playground, this ghost's town... On An Island; David Gilmour

Back next week with an easy one. ...Or not. Hell if I know.

McOutlaw

The engineer and flip-flopping chief fireman of the Straitjacket Express, St. McSleeps With Lobbyists, is currently breaking the law. When his campaign was in trouble, he opted in to public financing through the primary. Now that he's flush, he's already spent at least $4 million over the $54 million spending cap. Markos Moulitsas and Jane Hamsher have filed a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission, and they'd like to get a whole lot of people to sign on saying that we believe the matter should be more fully investigated. Torture the Angriest Man In The Senate, go and put your John Hancock on the petition.

Throwing Stones In Glass Churches

Over at Booman Tribune there's a timely post up reiterating a bit of what Barbara Ehrenreich recently reported about Hillary Clinton's link to the secretive Family religious organization in Washington (mentioned briefly here, with a link to nash's site and post about the subject) in the context of her publicly castigating Barack Obama for not leaving his church in the wake of what she calls Rev. Wright's "hate speech." In light of this ongoing flap, you have to wonder what the public will make of Hillary's religious connections when Jeff Sharlet's book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of America's Power is published in May.

Here's just a bit of what BooMan has to say:

But Barack Obama has not made Clinton's kooky right-wing church into an issue on the campaign trail because he understands that a person's faith is an intensely personal and (hopefully) non-political affair.

Clinton's decision to question Obama's choice of church is a bigger problem than her personal tastelessness. Her decision is an arrow aimed directly at the heart of the black community. It is one of the worst acts of public betrayal I have ever seen committed by a Democratic politician in my lifetime, and the most shortsighted and toxic decision I can recall.

White Americans may be surprised by their introduction to the style of black sermonizing in the figure of Rev. Wright, but the black community sees nothing particularly out of place in his rhetoric. This may or may not be a political vulnerability in the general election, but a far greater vulnerability is opened up by telling the black church-going community that Rev. Wright is the equivalent of Don Imus and his 'nappy-headed hos'. The suggestion that Rev. Wright was engaged in 'hate speech' of a kind so loathsome as to require leaving his church is deeply offensive. The black community is feeling besieged by the national spotlight on Rev. Wright and the ensuing white backlash. They are looking around for allies, and find Hillary Clinton piling on and throwing them under the bus.

The more I see of Clinton's scorched-earth tactics and handing campaign issues to the Republicans, the more I want to support Obama.

Whose Opening Line Is It, Anyway: Taking On The Big Guy

Easy one this week (aren't they all?). I expect most of these will be guessed pretty quickly, and the theme will be fairly obvious. Heck, there's even a repeat in here for those of you clever enough to find it.

1. Well she's a tongue-twisting storm, she'll come to the show tonight praying to the light machine.
2. Little girls go float upstream, some of them never coming back. We are powerless to stop them...
3. This empty road and this lonely town, no one's up when the sun goes down.
4. Got out really early from the factory, driving like a nut in the rain.
5. Don't you ever be sad, lean on me when times get bad.
6. You say that you love me (say you love me) all of the time (all the time)...
7. He seeks and he hides, he lives and he dies, he saw it before we were dreaming.
8. Started talking and the line went dead, never heard a single word you said.
9. Last week my life had meaning, it was beautiful and so sweet.
10. Well ain't the sun surely taking its time this morning, don't you know...

**Bonus** Remember that night... white sails in the moonlight, they walked it too... through empty playground, this ghost's town...

Answers Friday!

Deja Random Flickr Blogging Vu

Not many people realize that CBS broadcasts in Canada as well as in the US. They probably just don't recognize the Canadian version of the old CBS logo.

"You farking icehole!! That's not the CBS logo, that's... oh, never mind, eh."

(Original image, #4070, posted here. Random Flickr Blogging explained by Tom Hilton here.)

Wing Ben Stein's Monkey

From today's Salon.com War Room:

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2008, 19:24 EDT

Expel, expelling, expelled!

A soon-to-be-released Ben Stein movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," which attacks evolutionary theory and its defenders in the culture war, has been screening to hand-picked audiences around the country for the past couple of weeks. Yesterday, PZ Meyers, an evolutionary biologist and blogger, says he was politely waiting to take a look at the film when he was hand picked by a policeman to leave the theater. The cop told Meyers that the producer had ordered him to leave.

Meyers, who is well know both for his defense of evolutionary biology and his attacks on creationism, had a special reason to see the film; last year he was interviewed by its producer, Mark Mathis, who'd told him it was going to be called "Crossroads" and that it was going to be about science and religion. Meyers agreed to the interview, only to find out that the film is actually a pro-creationist documentary accusing the academic community of unfairly "expelling" scientists who support intelligent design from their academic departments. Intelligent design is the hypothesis that there is evidence in the natural world for the existence of a supernatural designer. A federal court in 2006 deemed it a form of creationism.

Meyers, who calls the film's allegations nonsense, was not alone. Also interviewed for the film was the far more famous, and far more notorious in pro-intelligent design circles, Richard Dawkins. Dawkins, the face of modern atheism, is an Oxford evolutionary biologist and the author of "The God Delusion," a best-selling book lambasting religion.

Expulsion from a screening of a film purportedly defending the importance of freedom of thought and academic tolerance would seem ironic enough. But apparently the atheist detection system set up at the door was overwhelmed. While Meyers ended up out on his ear, the friend he'd gone to the film with was allowed to pass. That friend: Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous atheist, himself.

"I feel mighty," Meyers writes in Pharyngula, his blog. "When the creationists saw me and Dawkins in a lineup, I am the one that had them so frightened that they had to call for the guards."

― Gordy Slack

Family Ties

Our good friend nashtbrutusandshort has an extremely disturbing post up today about why Hillary Clinton may not be pounding the "Wright is wrong" drum over the Obama flap quite as hard as some others out there right now. *coughFox Newscough* It seems that Hillary herself is asssociated with a religious group that may not be as savory as she'd like the public to think it is... but I don't have the time to delineate the whole story right now. Follow the link to nash's site, then follow the links he's posted and tell me you're not just a little more worried than you were before you read that.

All of this -- from the Obama/Wright kerfuffle to John McCain and his BFF John Hagee to Hillary and The Family -- simply points out to me that there needs to be a big, bright line separating church and state, and that religion and politics do not -- and should not -- mix. Good luck convincing millions of Americans of that, however.

A Public Service Message

If you're reading this right now, your computer screen needs to be cleaned. Here. Try this.

C Student Answers

No, Buffoon and Eric B, no C Is For Cookie. Sorry. Anyway, that wouldn't quite fit the theme this week -- that being that all the bands listed are C-words. Er... that is, all the band names begin with the letter C. (BTW, Eric B, in a generous act of selflessness, sent his answers directly to me about an hour after the quiz was posted. He missed #1, #3, #9 and the Bonus lines, but otherwise correctly identified the rest.) Below you'll find the key.

**CORRECTION** Thanks to Tom Hilton for spotting a mistake in last week's quiz. The song in slot #1 by the band Televison is actually See No Evil, which is the first song on the album Marquee Moon. I meant to use the song Marquee Moon, but somehow got confused. The Generik Brand apologizes for the error.

1. So I thought that you knew the question you were asking me to answer. Chain Of Circumstance; Camper Van Beethoven

2. What are we gonna do now? Taking off his turban, they said is this man a Jew? Clampdown; The Clash

3. We are building a religion. We are building it bigger. We are widening the corridors and adding more lanes. Comfort Eagle; Cake

4. You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever, but you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun... Tales Of Brave Ulysses; Cream

5. I don't know what the world may need, but I'm sure as hell that it starts with me. Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now); Cracker

6. All the faces, all the voices blur. Change to one face, change to one voice. Charlotte Sometimes; The Cure

7. I feel depressed, I feel so bad, 'cause you're the best girl that I ever had. Psychotic Reaction; Count Five

8. I saw her standin' on the corner, a yellow ribbon in her hair... Young Blood; The Coasters

9. Why do I kid myself? Why do I scream for pleasure? It's four in the morning, should know better. Can’t Carry On; Crowded House

10. If you, if you could return, don't let it burn, don't let it fade. Linger; Cranberries

**Bonus** The weekend is the weekend and it's sunny in the park, I'll stay here with my beer and fish and chips till it gets dark... The Car Song; Cat Empire

Once again into the breach next Tuesday, and if my schedule ever permits it, I'll try to post something else in the next week as well. Don't hold your breath.

Whose Opening Line Is It, Anyway: Fair To Middling

Let's just dive right into this, shall we? Your venial host has a busy day and needs to get on the stick.

1. So I thought that you knew the question you were asking me to answer.
2. What are we gonna do now? Taking off his turban, they said is this man a Jew?
3. We are building a religion. We are building it bigger. We are widening the corridors and adding more lanes.
4. You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever, but you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun...
5. I don't know what the world may need, but I'm sure as hell that it starts with me.
6. All the faces, all the voices blur. Change to one face, change to one voice.
7. I feel depressed, I feel so bad, 'cause you're the best girl that I ever had.
8. I saw her standin' on the corner, a yellow ribbon in her hair...
9. Why do I kid myself? Why do I scream for pleasure? It's four in the morning, should know better.
10. If you, if you could return, don't let it burn, don't let it fade.

**Bonus** The weekend is the weekend and it's sunny in the park, I'll stay here with my beer and fish and chips till it gets dark...

All yours, kids. Let's see what you can do. Answers Friday!

These Answers Will Not Be Televised

Not so easy getting over on you lot, especially when you have Encyclopedia Eric B in your ranks. Still, somehow two lines escaped identification this week, though the theme, Songs Fred Has Never Heard Of Television, was sussed out pretty quickly. Funny thing, though, one of the songs left unguessed was by... Television.

Here, then, is the key:

1. What I was, I want now, and it's a whole lot more anyhow, I wanna fly, fly a fountain, I wanna jump jump jump, jump a mountain. Marquee Moon; Television

2. I'm looking and I'm dreaming for the first time, I'm inside and I'm outside at the same time. Television Man; Talking Heads

3. Satellite's gone up to the skies. Things like that drive me out of my mind. Satellite Of Love; Lou Reed

4. Hot milk, hmmm, tweak my nipple. Champagne and Ripple... Hollywood Freaks; Beck

5. I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills with a trunkload of hundred thousand dollar bills. 57 Channels (And Nothing On); Bruce Springsteen

6. You, in your Lark, you're a mark, you're a screamer... I Got The News; Steely Dan

7. Don't want to work in a building downtown, no I don't want to work in a building downtown... (Antichrist Television Blues); Arcade Fire

8. Girlfriend, what are you doing, you're driving me to ruin, that love that you've been stealing has given me a feeling... Feel; Big Star

9. Oh oh oh oh oh... up every evening 'bout half eight or nine, I give my complete attention to a very good friend of mine... TVC 15; David Bowie

10. Lord, see that cat, yeah, I do mean you, see that cat, yeah, I do mean you. TV Eye; Iggy & the Stooges

**Bonus** When I'm at the Pearly Gates, this'll be on my... Videotape; Radiohead

I’ll see if I can’t stump a few more of you next Tuesday.

A Meditation On Music And Such

My brother Otis can sure put a good rant on when he sets his mind to it. Here's a little something he sent me yesterday that I thought was worth sharing. (He said it was okay.)

I'd disavow his comments, except that I pretty much agree with most everything he says here.

*****

BLOW IT UP BEFORE STEVE PERRY MAKES A SPEECH

I had to get up at 4:00 AM today and drive across the desert to Needles, and since I lacked the foresight to burn a few good road CDs the night before, I found myself desperately flipping through the meager selection of radio stations available on I-40. THREE TIMES on THREE DIFFERENT STATIONS I heard the news item about Justin Timberlake inducting Madonna into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and each time the announcer heaped scorn and derision on the event. Fair enough, but each time, the announcer also crowed and gloated about John "Don't Call Me Cougar" Mellencamp finally getting in, as if that was some kind of long-overdue correction of a terrible oversight.

Worse yet, on one station they blathered and blithered about the whole thing for over ten minutes, expressing pissy disdain over Madonna getting in (which I can understand), but also (to my puzzlement) lambasting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the decision to bestow the same honor on the Ventures and the Dave Clark Five, both of whom they compared unfavorably with Mellencamp. The egg-fart miasma of their high dudgeon at the thought of the Mighty Coug being forced to share the limelight with the Ventures seemed to almost seep out of my radio. I couldn't figure it out... even if you were the kind of brain-damaged fuck-eyed swamp ape who might own a reverently cherished complete collection of Mellencamp recordings stored in protective plastic sleeves in a humidity-controlled vault, you'd have to realize that the Ventures were great, right? I mean, even if you were too stunted and blind to see that the Ventures were cooler than Mr. Jesus Christ Mellencamp by several orders of magnitude, you'd still have to recognize that they were cool enough for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Right? Right?!?

Just then I had a bit of an epiphany.

The first thing that struck me was the fact that, as time goes on, the so-called Classic Rock stations are playing less and less listenable music, and more and more mullet rock, sausage rock, and phony-little-bantam-weight-tough-guy-in-parachute-pants-with-a-high-raspy-voice rock. If I was 12 years old and habitually listened to the 2008 version of Classic Rock on the radio, I'd be convinced that the fucking Eagles (fuck the fucking Eagles!) were about a million times bigger than the Beatles back in the day, and that Eddie Money, Thin Lizzy, and Golden Earring were serious rock heavyweights instead of what they really were: the '70s equivalent of the Insane Clown Posse.

I realized that the main reason for this long slow drift into a horror dimension of alternative history in which lametastic bogan-rock ruled the '70s was due to the fact that pretty much everyone who was able to tell the difference between suck-rock and the good stuff back in 1975 had been endowed with enough taste and discernment to eventually move on into new territory as rock mutated into New Wave, Punk, and post-Punk modalities. This has left virtually no one to carry the Classic Rock torch (which has fizzled out and been turned upside down to be worn as a dunce cap), aside from witless former Camaro enthusiasts who proudly sported moustaches in the '80s, and guys who spent what should have been the best years of their lives sullenly, doggedly wearing the grooves off albums like Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and Rush's '2112' while darkly muttering about the purple-haired mohawked freaks who had infected them with herpes via secret and anonymous back-alley trysts with their girlfriends. The people running the great sputtering engine that is Classic Rock today are the grown-up versions of those guys who threw a cup of hot coffee at me as they drove by in a pickup truck when I was a punk rock teenager nearly three decades ago. As I recall, they cleverly shouted something inane and irrelevant about the B-52s as they sped off, inducing a "what the fuck?" cognitive dissonance that imprinted the memory on me forever.

When I got home this evening, I looked online to see who else had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, and was mildly surprised to see Leonard Cohen's name on the list as well, since they hadn't said anything about him on the radio. Disagree if you like, but I personally regard Cohen's work as a poet and musician to be a huge mockery of all that is real, right, and good. As an artist, the man is a clunky little dumptruck, a fakety-fake-o cardboard cut-out. He's a sheltered, coddled trust-fund baby who pulled the wool over countless eyes with his pointless insincere wankings by virtue of being obtuse and obscure enough to generate some interest in the minds of those who are automatically impressed by anyone working in the relatively rarified idiom of vaguely glum pseudo-intellectual minimalism. I guess it's pretty easy to seem deep when your only real problem in life is how to keep a woman around for more than a week. Aside from being featured on the soundtrack to Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", Cohen's only real contribution to any culture worth preserving has been as the inspiration for the Austin Lounge Lizards' excellent song "Leonard Cohen's Day Job". Still, he's practically Keith Richards and God rolled into one in comparison with John Chewturd Mellencamp. Presumably because the species of organ grinder's assistant who regularly masturbated to the musical stylings of Journey and Foreigner when they were young never even heard of Leonard Cohen, the boss jocks on the radio this morning didn't bother to mention him.

As I was reading about all this online, I noticed the spelling used by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The clowns who run the place actually spell it "Rock and Roll", not "Rock 'n' Roll". Suddenly, somehow, it all made sense.

Please kill me.

Whose Opening Line Is It, Anyway: Just Watch

Back at it with a theme that just might take you more than a minute to figure out. Or not. Some tough ones this week (I think). Go on, prove me wrong. You know you want to.

1. What I was, I want now, and it's a whole lot more anyhow, I wanna fly, fly a fountain, I wanna jump jump jump, jump a mountain.
2. I'm looking and I'm dreaming for the first time, I'm inside and I'm outside at the same time.
3. Satellite's gone up to the skies. Things like that drive me out of my mind.
4. Hot milk, hmmm, tweak my nipple. Champagne and Ripple...
5. I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills with a trunkload of hundred thousand dollar bills.
6. You, in your Lark, you're a mark, you're a screamer...
7. Don't want to work in a building downtown, no I don't want to work in a building downtown...
8. Girlfriend, what are you doing, you're driving me to ruin, that love that you've been stealing has given me a feeling...
9. Oh oh oh oh oh... up every evening 'bout half eight or nine, I give my complete attention to a very good friend of mine...
10. Lord, see that cat, yeah, I do mean you, see that cat, yeah, I do mean you.

**Bonus** When I'm at the Pearly Gates, this'll be on my...

Answers Friday!

The Day Before Monday Random Flickr Blogging

Outtakes from The Wizard Of Oz revealed that there were certain parts of the Emerald City that even the Tin Man and Scarecrow didn't want to wander in alone.

o/` We're gonna River-iver-iverdance 'til we just can't Riverdance no more... o/`

Because. Damn it.

Touch Me Inappropriately Elmo did not test well with most parent audiences... and the few who did approve were later targeted for increased surveillance by Social Services.

"Arrrr... the head's the best!" (Only fans of S. Clay Wilson's work in Zap Comix will get that, and count yourself lucky if you don't.)

Outtakes from the televised Katie Couric colonoscopy left out some of the larger, more problematic polyps... not to mention the lost National Geographic Channel narrator they found wandering in her alimentary canal.

(Original images, #2095, posted here, here, here, here, here and here. Everything you ever wanted to know about Random Flickr Blogging but were afraid to ask Tom Hilton posted here.)

As I Was Saying...

Laid low by domesticity.

I'm baaaaaack. Thanks to all for your good wishes in my blogging absence. As you can see from the pictures above, typing was not the easiest thing for me to do these past two weeks.

What happened? Simple. I was doing dishes, and about to dry the last thing I washed, a Pyrex baking dish, when it slipped and shattered and a big piece caught my hand just under the index finger. Three hours later, I walked out of emergency all hopped up on goofballs, with stitches, a bandage and a splint. I've learned to do a lot of things with my left hand in the past two weeks that I'd rarely or never done before... but now I'm fine (and perhaps a little more ambidextrous than I was before). No lasting damage, just a small scar as a reminder. Which I plan on showing to Mrs. Generik the next time she asks me to do dishes.

Seems like a whole hell of a lot of hell busted loose while I was on the disabled list. Let me try to catch up on just a very few items...

The BARBARian gathering at Zeitgeist was a lot of fun, with a few new faces and a good, lively crowd. Fortunately, my injury did not affect my ability to lift a beer glass or talk politics. By popular demand, we'll be putting together another one of those fairly soon.

There were some rather prominent primary elections and caucuses a while back, weren't there? Former Governor Do The Hucklebuck dropped out of the presidential race (and Rep. Ron Paul Dance Dance Revolution seems about to), ceding the Republican field to The Angriest Man In the Senate, St. John W. McSleeps With Lobbyists. Meanwhile, on the Dem side, Hillary broke Obama's string of 98 wins in a row with victories in Ohio and Rhode Island. She claimed Texas as well, but after the caucus votes have been counted, it turns out that Obama actually took more delegates from that state than she did. Nothing was revealed, and the pie fight* goes on.

Speaking of McAngry, how about that Reverend John Hagee endorsement he actively sought and very easily received? While Tim Russert and the rest of the corporate media try to sniff out some tenuous connection between Barack Obama and Louis Farrakhan, McFlip Flop is ecstatic to have the endorsement of one of the biggest Christian haters this side of Fred Phelps. Obama, rolling his eyes at the semantic nit-picking of Russert and others (including Hillary), made plain that he "denounces AND rejects" Farrkhan; meanwhile, Hagee "supports what I stand for and believe in," says McDubya Revisited. You'd think the media might just give this story a few inches or soundbites; you would, of course, be wrong.

Oh yeah, William F'Buckley died, and good goddamn riddance. A mannered, erudite supporter of bigotry and fascism is still just a bigot and a fascist, no matter how appealing his veneer of civility may seem to some. Here at The Generik Brand, we fervently hope that he, like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, remains dead.

Local hate-spewer Melanie Morgan lost her job at KSFO, and good goddamn riddance to her as well. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, Mel. In somewhat related news (inasmuch as both of these items have to do with radio hatemongers), it appears that whiny-ass titty-baby** Michael Savage/Weiner is about to get his ridiculous lawsuit against CAIR thrown out of court. Poor Savage/Weiner; the folks at CAIR had the temerity to call him on his hate speech by actually replaying his own words in a public forum! For shame.

In more recent news, Preznit Torquemada has just vetoed the bill banning waterboarding, and who saw that coming? Besides everyfuckingbody with a brain in the United States and the rest of the world and Milky Way galaxy, I mean. Jesus. What a small, sad, sick little man he is. If by "man" I mean "fucking war criminal who should be hanged for treason."

Completely unrelated to politics, I was unfortunately too late to post this link to any fans of Jill Sobule out there who might have wanted to contribute to (and be listed as a producer on) her next album. It seems she has made her goal already (with a small bit of assistance from me), but will happily accept further donations for important stuff like post-concert champagne and big, beefy bodyguards. Go on, you know you want to.

Also on the musical front, a performer by the name of Kien Lim will be here in SF this Tuesday, 3/11, playing at Coffee Adventures, 1331 Columbus Ave., from 11am to 1pm. I was lucky enough to catch Kien, who lives in London but visits the States fairly regularly, at last year's Rogue Festival in Fresno, and was very impressed by his singing/songwriting/guitar playing ability. I've since listened to the CD I purchased then many times, and enjoy it very much. Were this not a mid-day, mid-week engagement, I would surely be there. If any of you readers have the wherewithal to make it to this gig, I would highly encourage you to go.

I'm sure there a lot of things I missed, but then again, that happens every week. It sure feels good to be back, and good to be able to type with all my fingers again.

*h/t to paperwight for that very descriptive phrase.
**h/t to Tom Hilton for that extremely accurate portrayal.