Your "Rain Is A Good Thing" has been a topic of conversation many times for me this summer. First, because it's rained a lot here. Secondly, because of the central idea: rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey, whiskey makes your woman allow you to have sex with her.
Now, there's obviously much to be said about that, but my friends have focused mostly on the part about corn making whiskey. Because by and large, my friends prefer rye or malted barley.
So if you could record an alternate version of the song using other grains instead of or in addition to corn, that would be great. That would really help me tap my toe along to you getting your lady friend drunk for the purpose of sex.
Oh, wait. Shoot. I forgot something. There's apparently a third choice. Elderly diabetic urine whiskey. Don't forget those whiskey fans. Rain makes something, something makes you pee, pee makes whiskey, whiskey makes your baby feel frisky? Obviously, I'm not the songwriter here. Get to it, professional.
Hey friends, happy Thursday. A groggy one for me. I was at the late Tributosaurus show at Martyr's last night, where they became Johnny Cash. For those keeping track at home, I was deliriously happy from 10pm to 1am, crawling towards bed at around 2:15 am, and cursing my alarm clock at 5:15am.
So worth it, though. I was absolutely blown away by the performances, how each singer took on their own little corner of Johnny. What an amazing group of musicians - the guitar work on "Girl from the North Country" made me want to weep. And of course, "Hurt". I mean, it's gutsy enough to play Johnny Cash. But Johnny's version of "Hurt". Impressive.
Tributosaurus is taking on the Moody Blues next month. Anybody in?
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Before Martyr's, Dano and I hit a Lou Malnati's for some deeeeeep dish pizza, sausage and garlic. Chicago-style pizza is growing on me, I have to admit it. Never thought I'd see the day.
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In other music news, I'm itching to see Nitty Gritty Dirt Band live. A few county fair type things in Wisconsin as options, as well as the Old Town School of Folk appearance on 8/21. Again, I ask, anybody in?
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Rosanne Cash's Composedwas reviewed in the Trib today. Okay, now, Rosanne. Come visit us on the book tour. I'll still come to Ann Arbor too, I promise.
Speaking of Rosanne . . . she thinks I'm cute. In her own words! Right there on the great big public internet! BFFs, people. WE ARE PRACTICALLY BFFs.
Hey friends! My 4th of July weekend was action-packed and awesome and let me tell you all about it! Maybe get yourself a snack first. And a soda. Or a pop. Your choice.
One of my most favorite friends and frequent commenters, Mare, flew in from the east with her husband for a couple of days so that we could catch up and hit a winged sprint car race on dirt. Rob took me to a road course race last October that was a new and very cool experience for me, so it was a lot of fun to show him "my" kind of racing.
But first, we had lunch. I picked them up at the train station and we met up with my brother, Wags, and headed for a pub that offered a lunchtime special on "Rum Barrels". Barrels o' rum. A great start to the day. Over lunch we chatted about various types of racing, ideas for revolutionizing the sport of sprint car racing, and Wags' current unemployment and/or potential future grad school. He graduated in May, but employment prospects for a school teacher are grim at the moment, so he is weighing a lot of options. And ending almost every sentence with ". . . but first I have to get a job." Sometimes it is funny, sometimes not so much, and I worry about his lagging spirits, so if you have some good mojo to put out into the job application world for him, please do so.
After lunch, we (Mare, Rob, Wags, Dano and I) drove to Wilmot, Wisconsin for Mare's first trip to Wisconsin and less importantly, the IRA sprint car race. We were met there by another invisible pal, Catwmn, and her husband. We watched Billy Balog win the A, feasted on brats and beers, and enjoyed some good ol' Americana, baby. It was fun to see sprint cars through the eyes of somebody completely unfamiliar with them, and I thoroughly enjoyed Rob's comparison of a stalled sprint car with no starter to a turtle on its back.
We started Sunday off right with omelettes and cakes at my favorite pancake place, with Mare being the only person on the planet who appreciates a quirky little Mom and Pop diner type place as much as I do. From there, it was off to the city for some hardcore tourist business.
The Chicago History Museum was featuring an exhibit on the history of weddings, and this was the inspiration for the weekend tweet about looking at wedding dresses. You guys are so easy to rile up! The exhibit was really interesting, and I look forward to exploring some things I missed in the rest of the museum soon.
No visit to Chicago is complete without some deep dish, so our next stop was Lou Malnati's (not Iluminati's, Rob, we wanted cheesey goodness, not shadow governments). Lou did not disappoint, and the air conditioning was very very very VERY welcome.
A photo I took of Rob and Mare on our walk, right before we got rained on:
The rest of the story: train back to suburbs, some ice cream, early bedtime to prepare for the 5 am trip to O'Hare the next morning, and teary sad goodbyes until September.
Monday, post-ORD, was spent mostly sleeping and watching Friends on DVD, until I took off for the city yet again to attend the Rush Time Machine tour stop at Charter One Pavilion at Northerly Island with Dano.
Hmmm. That was supposed to be the name of the tour + the venue + the name of the person I attended it with but it all kind of runs together and sounds like Dano was the opening act. Given that he sang out loud at least three and as many as four times last night, it's kind of true.
We are out of practice with this whole self-portrait thing. This was the 3rd take. In the first two, his eyerolling was visible through the glasses. Also, it's not as easy as it used to be - I gave away my old baby Canon that was dying, and chose to go sans-purse for this concert, so all photos and video were shot with Lloyd the Droid, who does not make self-portraits very easy on me.
I love this venue. Chicago skyline off to the right, the lake behind us, and Soldier Field behind the stage. Very very fun. I can only assume that Rush plays outdoor shows like this so that their pasty white nerd boy fans can get some occasional sun. What? Oh my god, tell me I'm wrong. Just try.
I cracked a lot of jokes before/during the show about being the only woman there, and I wasn't quite alone, but there weren't many of us. After the show, a video played where the members of Rush themselves joked about how there were seven females in the audience and that might have been a new record.
We bought our tickets on Craigslist from a guy who drove up from Indianapolis with his son. The son spent part of the night texting on the oldest working Blackberry I've ever seen. I asked him about it, and he let me play with it a little. He said that it was from 1998 though it looks more like the 2000ish model shown in upper right of this pic. Whatever year it was, it was hilariously cool and would have been a fun prop to have in another cell phone related gag that I'm planning.
I am not a Rush hater, but I haven't ever really considered myself a Rush fan before last night either. I'm a Neil Peart as Author fan. I've read all of his books, recommended all of his books, forced his books on every person who will listen to me talk for more than 30 seconds. I watched my favorite author play with his band last night, basically. A band that I have read about but haven't devoted a lot of airtime to, and I think that will change. Live music tends to do that to me. Especially live music from a lead guitarist that looks like William Shatner. Dano thinks that Neil is starting to develop a passing resemblance to Sammy Swindell. And really, who WOULDN'T pay to see a band featuring William Shatner, Sammy Swindell, and Geddy Lee? (Geddy Lee looks like nobody but Geddy Lee. Nobody else looks like Geddy Lee. Well, except a lot of Geddy Lee fans. But I digress.)
Here is a brief video I shot, scanning the crowd last night. The very very white male geek crowd.
And this is the first minute of Tom Sawyer.
Listen closely, somebody with a big mop of curly hair is singing! Okay, a lot of guys with big mops of curly hair were singing. As we were walking towards the venue from the car, the first intersection we waited at was also occupied by four other guys with Dano's exact hairstyle. It was a little unnerving, having so many fluffy-haired BMW-riding Rush lovers in one place. Like a Dano Convention.
The amount of music performed last night was just overwhelming. They played the entire Moving Pictures album, many other old works, and quite a few new songs. And given that each of their songs is about 12 minutes long, I fully expect that I'll leave the Pavilion sometime just before their Wednesday show starts. They might be done playing by then. No really, it was 3 hours, and there was no chit-chatting, just solid music. Neil's 47-minute drum solos gave me a deep rich understanding of why it takes me months to get through each of his books. The level of detail is comparable.
My head did not hit the pillow until 2 o'clock this morning, and my alarm went off at 5. So this Tuesday is a rough one, but totally worth it. Big thanks to Mare, Rob, Dano, Wags, and Neil Peart for the extra special memories and for helping me to declare my independence from a normal sleep schedule.
Wikipedia tells me that you're half of the former Evan & Jaron, which I sort of remember from like high school or something. You're now recording under the name "Jaron and the Long Road to Love". Wikipedia doesn't mention any other bandmates, so I can only assume you're going for a pretentious douchenozzle sort of thing with that. Good for you.
So last night, I heard your debut on the country charts. "Pray for You". I heard it from about the middle of the first verse on, and I kept waiting for the thing that would make it okay, that would make me understand what you were going for with this song, the line that would take it from serious to parody, and it never quite hit.
For the first time ever, I'm going to post the entirety of the lyrics in one of my letters.
I haven't been to church since I don't remember when Things were goin' great 'til they fell apart again So I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do He said you can't go hatin' others who have done wrong to you Sometimes we get angry, but we must not condemn Let the good Lord do His job and you just pray for them
I pray your brakes go out runnin' down a hill I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I'd like to I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls I pray you're flyin' high when your engine stalls I pray all your dreams never come true Just know wherever you are honey, I pray for you
I'm really glad I found my way to church 'Cause I'm already feelin' better and I thank God for the words Yeah I'm goin' take the high road And do what the preacher told me to do You keep messin' up and I'll keep prayin' for you
I pray your tire blows out at 110 I pray you pass out drunk with your best friend and wake up with his and her tattoos I pray your brakes go out runnin' down a hill I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I'd like to I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls I pray you're flyin' high when your engine stalls I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, near or far, in your house or in your car, wherever you are honey, I pray for you.
I pray for you
So I shouldn't say that I didn't know what you were going for, I guess I expected something more. Some verse or bridge that redeemed this and it never happened. You were going for the same thing the person who came up with this "joke" was going for:
DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN.
Do some of you recognize that? From when you posted it as your Facebook status? If so, do you recognize that you and I are no longer Facebook friends? Okay then.
It's yet another example of what is so very wrong with our society: that "jokes" about wishing for (praying for, wev) the death of someone--anyone--is seen as funny and normal and people who take issue with the inherent violence of it are seen as the ones with a problem. That people who are concerned about violence being entertainment and funny (which jokes are supposed to be, are they not?) are the ones who should be shamed into silence for being "not fun" or "killjoys".
That's something I would like the Christians and Conservatives in my life to stew on for a little bit. I'm not even going to clarify it to mean "some" Christians and "some" Conservatives, because fuck it. Let's face it. Those of you that this doesn't apply to already know it, because you are as appalled as I am. And to those of you who giggled at the death wish for our President, or nodded your head along to the snappy tune about praying for violence against women, you have no idea who you are or that this applies to you. You're clueless. I've been taking the heat from you for every move that Nancy Pelosi makes. I've been listening to your party and your religion's batshit crazy ranting about my lack of morals for so long. I would just like you to look at this shit. Is this really what you want to represent you? Your deity? Your beliefs? Because as much as my loose morals and godless socialism seem to encapsulate the entire Democratic party to you - this is what you look like to me most days.
I'm sorry, pals. I'm sorry, Jaron. It's not my desire to kiss women that is ruining this country. It's not my friends who are having children outside the bounds of marriage, monogamy, or ownership of a uterus. It's not my desire to see the poor and marginalized have access to healthcare. It's not even my belief that a woman's body is hers to do with what she pleases - even if it means she's having an abortion or not getting raped by Ben Roethlisberger. These aren't the things that are destroying our society.
It's you. It's your deluded idea of what your god is. It's your self-righteous belief that your bigotry, your racism, your homophobia, and your BIG UGLY HATE are okay because of your Jesus, your folded hands, and your condescending offers to pray for the rest of us sinners, because you know so much better than the rest of us. Because you have that direct line to the spirit in the sky that has an itchy finger, just waiting to zap the people you ask him to destroy.
You want to know why I left the church? The hate. Pure and simple. You want to know why the road to love is so long, Jaron? YOU'RE ON THE WRONG ROAD.
I refuse to believe in any god that you think would listen to your hate-filled prayers.
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