Road to Somewhere

This morning I had a sneezing fit that lasted for almost fifteen minutes. I actually skipped shaving cause I was afraid I would sneeze and carve a nice chunk out of my face. Everyone wants chisled features, but that is just a figure of speech.

I have another show tonight at IO with Crash Davis. Tonight we do the later show, so we start at 10:30. The last few shows have been very bad for me personally, although the team has not been horrible. Tonight my personal goal is to not be a pussy by just standing and watching, and make myself get out on stage more. So, come tonight, and call me a pussy if I am not in much of the show. Yell, "Hey pussy boy! Why'd you come to Chicago? To stand on the side of the stage? Good job, Mr. No-balls!". Hopefully, though, I will be in more of the show so as to avoid your ruthless heckling you heartless scumbag.

Probably totally by chance, I began reading Killing Custer by James Welch this Thanksgiving weekend. The book discusses the signifigance of Custer's last stand in relation to the eventual and total anihilation of the western plains Indians by the United States.

I have read and studied Native American history before, but as I sat dranking my coffee and reading Welch's book, a new word came to mind. It was genocide. I had before realized that the United States was generally responsibe for the destruction of the Indian culture, but I had never before accepted its conscious determination to do so.

Much less than two hundred years ago, there were men who truly believed the right thing to do was kill every Indian they possibly could. They didn't see them as women or children, but merely as bugs. Still today, we hold many of these men up as our heros and icons of the greatest country on earth(USA, of course!).

I am not telling you this to give you a history lesson, so I will get to my point. How different do we view the world today? It was only 120 years ago when Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were the men who had the most respect and envy of the western populus , now its the Terminator and Bill Gates.

Today the USA fights for freedom, equal rights, and sovereignty. I often find that the things that really annoy me the most in other people, are things that I personally dislike about myself. Maybe in our youth we need to come to terms with the atrocities that we have commited. Then, we can focus on the splinter in the eye of the rest of the world. Until that time, I will continue to assail all those who are lazy and messy. Beware the wrath of him who is guilty!

On your mark! Get set! Shop!
Ugh....

Today millions of pounds of good food will be scraped off of plates into the garbage cans and trash disposals, while people complain about how uncomfortably full they are. Then the shoppers of the family will prepare to descend on the malls tommorrow to buy all kinds of things you don't need, so that together you can celebrate the birth of the savior of christians. If I hadn't grown up in this world, I might hate us too. Oh well, pass the mashed potatoes, and remember I like green and blue.

So, I just remembered right now that I have a show tonight with Crash Davis at the ImprovOlympic theatre. I have been putting off doing laundry until tonight, and now I remember that I have a show. I find it intresting that cleaning my clothes stuck in my mind more than performing improv. The very thing that I moved to this city for has been replaced in my priorities with domestic chores. What on earth could it all mean? It means that tommorow I will be driving to Indiana in some dirty clothes. If you are not busy tonight though, stop by IO around 8:30 and see the ever unpredictable Crash Davis perform the Harold. Just don't look too closely at my jeans.

I rented a new game for my gamecube last week. Its not the regular sports or shoot 'em up game. Its called Harvset Moon: A Wonderful Life. It basically lets you run a little farm for thirty years and try to make money and a happy family. I didn't think it could be that exciting, and I was right. Its not, but I still can't stop playing it. I just gotta plant enough crops to get a new cow. That was my goal for Saturday. Lofty, I know. I am supposed to be courting some of the ladies in town so that I can take a wife and start breeding little brats to help out around the farm, but I have been a little busy with the chickens and turnips. I guess I needed the break from murdering those prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto. You may be reading this thinking of how pitiful it is that a 25 year old still plays his nintendo, if you are indeed still reading at all, but please allow me this vice that has been mine since Duck Hunt and Tetris.

In other news, it is Thanksgiving this Thursday, for those of you living under a rock. This year I find myself dreading the holidays. It kinda makes me sad to not be filled with joy and the thoughts of food, family, and laughter. Life brings constant change though, and maybe one year soon Christmas will again be a happy and joyous season for me and mine. If not though, I will still cherish those years when it was a season filled with excitement and wonder. It truly is a season for the children and the children within us. Damn these adult dramas that keep us from being childish and innocent. This is exactly why I won't give up my nintendo.

I am in the giving mood these days. It seems being broke will make giving even more satisfactory.

Because of this, I want to share some of the great music I have collected with you, my friends. If we have ever had any correspondece, you qualify. Below is a listing of the most recent and best quality shows I have accumulated. Feel free to pick a show and send me an email with your address. Unless your initials are DW, you only get one show.

Drive-by Truckers
Live at the Metro
Chicago, IL
10/30/04
Details: This show is over three hours long. Hardcore.

Yonder Mountain String Band
Live at Bogarts
Cincinnatti, OH
10/31/04
Details: Best show in recent memory. Tim O'Brien and Red Knuckles as guests! Includes the covers: Come Together, Only Sleeping, The Lumberjack Song, I am the Slime. and more!

MOFRO
Live CD Release Party
Jacksonville, FL
08/06/04
Details: Dirty South front porch jammin.

Keller Williams
Live at Revolution Hall
Troy, NY
11/06/04
Details: Great quality sound. Includes the covers:One More Saturday Night, Trenchtown Rock, Young and Beautiful, King of Birds, Scarlet Begonias, and Fire on the Mountain.

Let me know soon, and I will mail out the discs right after Thanksgiving.

I realize now, that I have been very negative and bitchy in my last two posts. I apologize.
Life is not all bad. In fact, it is mostly good.
I talked to my good friend Rich Sater in Denver last night. I think I am going out to Denver for NYE to see Yonder and Keller at the Fillmore. I am almost as excited to see Rich as I am to see the shows. Rich has a friend who works publicity at the Fillmore who got me a show poster already. Rich thinks he can get tix to the shows for free, but I just hope we get them before they sell out.
I am probably gonna try and rent a car instead of flying. It may be fun. I have never driven through Iowa or Nebraska before. From what I hear though, I may not be missing much.
Maybe I can get a half a day of boarding in while I am out there. That would start my year off in the best way possible. Friends, music, and some mountain air.
Today it may be a bit dreary here, but there are sunny days to come.
This is how I quiet my mind most of the time. Thinking of the future, posibilities, and planning. During the most recent argument with my mother, she told me again of a quote I hadn't heard in years. An old firend of Phil's, Rick Monday, used to say,"If you're not where you're at when you're there, then you're nowhere".
So, here is a list of things here that make me happy: Charlie Don't Surf, Mary Beth, Jamba Juice, kissing on the sidewalk, wet pavement, crowded coffee houses, the Hideout, Sarah B. and Rich, working downtown, reading on the train, long showers, Crash Davis, seeing Heather in love, Potbelly's, bloody marys at Heaven on 7, Tower Records, Strange Cargo, Gingerbread lattes, and not knowing what will hapen next.

It seems I have fallen victim to a bit of ealry winter depression. Things with MB are still going great, so the fact that I haven't been able to shake these downtrodden feelings kinda upsets me.

The two main struggles, my mother and my debt, are not new things to me. So, why they would overcome me now doesn't make much sense to me. Although, they were sort of combined when my mother offered to help me get out of debt.

Near the end of the discusions of how she could help, she suddenly decided that we can't seem to communicate. At which point she employed her second ex-husband, Phil(God bless him, cause he still loves her.), to call me and try to mediate. I still can't seem to figure out how it started with me calling her for help, and ended with her being the victim again. Maybe our relationship is truly doomed.

Everytime I talk to her she mentions how bad of a father my dad has been by allowing me to get in debt and not forcing me to visit my mother more in Florida. She may or may not be right, probably not, but regardless our relationship should be about us, and not about how she hates my dad. I understand that he hurt her very very bad, but that was over ten years ago. Maybe she will never get over the pain, but allowing it to destroy our relatioship is what really hurts. She also knows that I love my father very much, and her speaking ill of him gets her absolutely friggin' nowhere with me.

So, all of this wieghs heavily on my mind every minute I have been awake recently. I guess having serious debt problems, and pondering the future of my relationship with my mom are pretty serious things. I don't want to be sad right now though. I really don't.

I want to be happy about dating someone new and excitiing. I want to be happy about going to see my dad's sister for Thanksgiving. I want to be happy about having awesome friends like Drew, KtK, Sarah, BnG, Leslie, and Andrew. I want to be happy about seeing good music. I want to be happy about performing on the ImprovOlympic stage. I want to be happy to have at least one parent who loves me unconditionally. So, I will be starting now. No? Okay... now? Damnit.

Not much to talk about from yesterday. I had a pretty boring day at work, during which I downloaded and printed out the 135 page strategy guide for the new Grand Theft Auto game. After work I went home, played the game for awhile, spent some time with Mary Beth before her show, watched Smackdown, and went to bed. Not the most productive day in history.

So, I thought I might rant a little about my recent frustrations at work.
When I began at Altrusa, I was immeadiately shocked by how mean and evil the little secratery lady is. Okay, so she technically is the assistant to the executive director, but really she is the secretary. She's over sixty probably and was always looking for something to gripe or complain about, and that something is usually your work, or lack thereof.
If any of you were reading back in September, you remember how bad I felt when her then fiancee was diagnosed with cancer.
Well, he has been pretty sick since then. It is in his lungs, and his condition seems to continually degrade.
So during the last three months, Janice, the secratery, has missed more work than she has seen while taking care of her new husband, Tom. She has been docked no pay, and no temp has been brought in to do her work. Most of her work is shared by the office, although the grunt work tends to be divided between Heather and I. I hate to complain about loved ones of cancer victims and all, but this situation really sucks. The executive director is very good friends with Janice, so she allows her to take all the time off she needs.Ugh. Laziness, denial, and special treatment are being disguised as care and understanding with a thick coating of empathy.
Yesterday, Janice explains that now Tom has to go in for radiation treatment every morning; so even on the few days when she does come in, she won't be in until after eleven.
The situation is wearing hard on the entire office morale. Everyone seems to be taking more days off and arriving late or leaving early more often without anything being said or done. I understand that this situation is horrible for her, but as we say in theatre, the show must go on.
I am sure that this post makes me seem like a heartless bastard, and maybe I am, but if I am anywhere near the top of the list of responsible people around here, we have major troubles. Major.

It is nice. Holding someone. Smiling back at someone. Talking to someone about nothing. It makes everything else in my day seem easier.
It is never long after it starts that I start to become a little nervous. The only good thing about being poor is that you have nothing to loose. Now I do.
It is wonderful, it is scary, it is everything it should be.

I was gonna show you all a higlight reel of my day yesterday set to some old Rage Against the Machine insturmentals, but then I read the following post over at Ted's page, and thought maybe this would be more intriguing for those of you not intrested in my boring Tuesday.

Dandelion whine

Mulla Nasrudin, the Sufi wise man and fool, decided to start a flower garden.

He prepared the soil and planted the seeds of many beautiful flowers. But when they came up, his garden was filled not just with his chosen flowers but also overrun by dandelions.

He sought out advice from gardeners all over and tried every method known to get rid of them but to no avail.

Finally he walked all the way to the capital to speak to the royal gardener at the sheik’s palace. The wise old man had counseled many gardeners before and suggested a variety of remedies to expel the dandelions but Mulla had tried them all.

They sat together in silence for some time and finally the gardener looked at Nasrudin and said "Well, then I suggest you learn to love them."

from The gr8ful grind

It has been a little longer than usual since I last posted. I guess I wasn't sure what was going on, so it made it even harder to put it into words.
As previously noted here, things between my roomate, Mary Beth, and I have been kinda strange for awhile now. Well, we made it to the Yonder Halloween show in Cincinnatti and back with only a few moments of awkward silence. By mid-week I just had to say something about it, though. I had been thinking way too much about her, and I was beginning to realize that I was very attracted to her. When I finally admitted it to her, I was glad to find out that I wasn't the only one holding back thier true feelings.
We have both discussed the inherent dangers of seeing someone you are living with, and we agree that its probably not the brightest thing either one of us has ever done. At this point though, there is little hope of turning back, because it would just make things even more awkward.
The weekend was great. We spent hours in each others' arms and enjoyed the recording of the Halloween Yonder show that I have burned to two discs.
I also had a great rehearsal with Crash Davis yesterday, before I was brutally attacked by an evil headache. See, there is always something to complain about, no matter what.

It's a cold, cold moon out tonight
and it's a cold, cold point on your knife
could i call myself a man if i left by the morning light

and i'd be 40 miles from denver
when you woke up all alone
i'd be 40 miles from denver
and three days from my home

in that cool mountain air
on an appalachian trail
oh, life is better there

it's a lonely road to travel on
but i've stood waiting much too long
and i'd rather leave this minute than try to carry on

and i'd be 40 miles from denver
headed eastbound on the track
i'd 40 miles from denver
and trying to get back

to that cool mountain air
on an appalachian trail
oh, life is better there

-YMSB


This song took a personal meaning the very first time that I heard it. It was my first YMSB show ever, and it was even the song they opened with. I immeadiately knew this was a song that I deeply related too. Now it seems every day that I feel more lonely and tired of waiting. Waiting for what? To not be lonely? For something to happen? What? I have no idea. I feel the appeal of the mountain air, the trail, the peace, the silence, and simplicity. The question still remains. Could I call myself a man if I left? Not yet.

Today we get to show the rest of the world how well democracy works. Maybe by Thanksgiving, the court will decide who won tonight.
On a different note, I had quite an exceptional Halloween weekend.
Saturday night I went to the Metro with Sarah and Rich to see the Drive-by Truckers. That show rocked pretty hard. There was plenty of Jack and loud electric guitars. Quite a contrast to the shows that I normally see, but the truckers stay true to their southern rock roots and throw in some nasty southern jams that made me feel like I was back at Kemosabe's in Boone's Creek, Tennesee.
Mary Beth ended up going with me to Cincinnatti to see the Yonder Boo-grass show on Sunday. Tim O'Brien opened for Yonder, after Mountain Heart. We missed most of Mountain Heart, but the rest of the show was excellent. Yonder did everything from Beatles to Monty Python. It was also excellent to see Drew, and get to spend some time with him, even if it was just for a few hours.
Spending nearly ten hours in the car this time with MB, made for some intresting conversation. I don't think I am the only one who feels the increasing levels of tension and attraction in our relationship. Approaching it, however, seems to be the increasingly difficult part. The conversation may have headed that way a couple times, but never was the topic discussed. I should be able to start a mature conversation about how I feel about someone, but this seems impossible.
I missed a show with Crash Davis on Sunday night. We have another this Wednesday, and I am looking forward to seeing how it feels being back with them. I am really excited to be on that team, but I can't help but feel recently that certain members are less than thrilled with my involvement. At least that is a feeling that I don't get with Charlie Don't Surf. Come check out my show Wednesday night at the Improv Olympic, and watch this story unfold for yourself. This week it is free, also stick around for Tusk and Mammal '79.