Texas Cowboys came from Bavaria???

This week I took another step toward becoming Bavarian - purchasing Lederhosen and attending Oktoberfest! As I was strapping on my "leather-pants" and strapping is really the right word, and tieing my "scarf" around my neck, I realized this outfit was not so far from our texas cowboys...leather pants (chaps), and the bandana. Perhaps not such an American novelty after all.







Although I do think we might be abit smarter, certainly strapped on leather trousers are much better for riding horses than drinking lots of beer...especially as it took me an extra five minutes to "break loose" of my trousers when heading to the 'lou' and this is not a time when you wish to be having to wait!

As we say in Oktoberfest....PROST!!!

TA DA

I just wrote song number 50- The challenge ends Oct. 1st, which means I finished a little before the deadline. Big for me.
Yay for me!!!

Kerri

Dinner after circle can be very interesting...

Sarah wants to honk less at others and Michael is quitting smoking and Kerri's lesbian dog eats her panties.

Walking in this whirl

One of our meetings a long time ago. :-)

Single Gun Theory and Sam

Today I was thinking about Sam. In 1994, R.R. Donnelley contracted with Ernst & Young to produce print material. I was hired on the night shift, initially to type financial statements, with the promise of the proofreading gig after a few months. It seemed like three or four months of typing. I typed in a room with people who had been typing, some for decades, eight hours a day. Three out of four typed over a 100 words a minute, and Sam, a new-hire like me, typed over 110 words a minute. (I figured out that part of the key to it was 'spaghetti' fingers, not tense fingers. Anyway. I think I went from 60 to 70 words a minute.)

Sam was not only an excellent typist, but generally brilliant. I thought he could probably run Ernst & Young with his hands tied behind his back. I found out what he really wanted to do was to perform in drag and he did that part-time.

Sam listened to Single Gun Theory when he worked. I bought the CD, "Flow, River of My Soul." Now I know there was not just one album. The lyrics and sound were so unforgettable and hauntingly beautiful; the following link will play "Fall," a song from that album, but you have to wait a moment for it to start http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-AuKsiGbQ4.

The night shift is such an unexpected alternate reality. Everyone sleeps when you work and vice-versa. If you aren't big on noise or having to talk to anyone much, it's great. It was actually just what I needed in 1994.

We ordinarily worked from about 8 at night to about 4 in the morning. It was a strange life. On breaks, I would look out on the silent city from 12 stories high on the corner of Ross and San Jacinto, feeling like an astronaut. Always dark, twinkling lights, nothing doing. Me in a capsule. Sometimes my friend, who booked hotel conference rooms at another skyscraper downtown during the day, would drop by at midnight for a chat in the capsule.

Driving home around 4:15 a.m., you see the raccoons crossing the streets. That was cool. I would pop in Single Gun Theory on the drive home--down the tollway all by myself to Carrollton (except for the night that guy in the red Maserati ran into the car in front of me at the Mockingbird exit.)

Sam was great company, and some nights it was just us two--him typing and me proofing, eventually. I don't know where he is today, but I hope he is somewhere on the stage in high heels or running things at some big company.

Stefan Bucher's Daily Monster, as promised

I shared tonight about Stefan Bucher's fabulous Daily Monster blog. Carol's inkblot drawings reminded me of these a little bit. 

I'm glad I checked back in on this blog because a lot has changed. Stefan did 200 short videos of his wonderful, creative inkblot drawings (the series has closed out, but they are still up there for your enjoyment), published a book of them, and now has made inkblots available for us to try our own! See the little monsters here. 

"Almost Good" and "The Green Door"

I was thinking of this 45 I had when I was about six. It came from a garage sale, and on one side was "Almost Good" and on the other was "The Green Door." I love both of those songs. "Almost Good" was jazzy and mainly instrumental but at the end of a measure a guy who sounded like Ray Charles (to me) would say, in a speaking voice, "Hey, that's almost good!" and he would say it a different way each time he came to the end of a measure (or whatever that musical unit is called). Sometimes it would seem like encouragement, sometimes like a Beat Poet line, and sometimes like an exclamation. I enjoyed the fun the singer was having with the concept of 'the critic,' even though I couldn't think conceptually at that point. It might have been almost good but it was definitely enjoyable.

And "The Green Door" was such a mystery. "Who's that knockin' on the green door? Sure a lot of fun goin' on behind the Green Door! etc." I imagined the "green door" and knew that whatever it was, it was kind of a secret and a lot of fun. What a great question for a kid. Who is knocking on the green door?

So today I tried to trace these tunes because I don't have the 45 anymore and I came up with this! There WAS a real green door! Who knew?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/sep/08/popandrock1