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Thursday, September 25, 2008

If Tom Petty Was Dead …

He’d be rolling over in his grave.

Some years ago when the Utah Jazz were good enough to make it to the finals, but not good enough to beat the officiating there were a number of people who were able to parlay the event into something larger. One of these was a guy who started making fan-boy Jazz rah rah songs fashioned after popular hits. He’d take a popular song and change the words into some tune about Karl Malone or John Stockton.  It was entertaining I suppose, but one couldn’t help but notice the fact that his singing and musicianship were verrrry marginal.

After the Jazz did what was expected and lost to the Bulls, this guy picked up a few gigs doing jingles for advertisers using the same formula.  To this day, while listening to the radio, I will hear this guy’s annoying voice butcher some tune pimping some local company’s wares. I’ve yet to remember the name of a single paying customer of his though.

Anyway, on the way home this evening I heard this guy’s verrry marginal singing and musicianship skills being put to use by anally raping Tom Petty’s Free Falling. It was way too much.

And we got freeeeeee, free toppings. Freeeee, free toppings …

Oy, obviously it was a jingle for a pizza place. I don’t remember who it was, but when I hear this abomination on the radio again I will make sure to catch who it is for the sole reason of making sure I never go to this place.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Disposable Moments

Autumn, often times, seems to bring about this mood that I can only describe as deeply poignant. For some reason I tend to recollect various moments from the many lives it seems I have lived. I feel almost overcome with a certain kind of nostalgia that drapes over me and puts me somewhere between melancholy and regret, with a small pinch of dread thrown in. Where the hell dread comes from, I don’t know.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the kind of nostalgia in which one longs for the past and wishes to somehow recapture it. No, there’s nothing about my past that I wish to recapture, not even the best moments. I love my life too much now.

This morning I woke up to weather that can only be described as typical early Fall in Utah. As a result I’ve found myself thinking of various people I’ve known over the last twenty five years or so. I remember some faces from my early twenties when I was deep in my “rock and roll band” life. These are people that I haven’t necessarily forgotten, but rather that I just haven’t thought about. Suddenly, someone will come to mind and it serves to remind me just how many substantial relationships I’ve let slip away over the years.

During that particular life I felt perhaps the most camaraderie among peers, friends, and acquaintances as I’ve ever felt. We were idealistic vagabonds living a tenuous existence. Though not aware of it at the time, we depended on each other far more deeply than we could have ever known.  I can’t tell you how many times one of us was literally saved by the others. Sometimes it was a losing cause, but all in all we took care of each other pretty well. As precarious as life was at that time, it was a simple, less complicated existence. 

I don’t long for the past, but I am curious about what some of these people are doing now. I know Danny Jo no longer on this earth. Neither are Gordy, Stevo, and a few others. Some I have no idea if they are alive are gone, but I have a good idea.

Some of the people I’m most curious about I don’t even remember their names. I remember their faces, though, and I remember their personalities.  Only a very small handful managed to keep a real presence in my current life from all those years ago.  I suppose the only regret that I have looking back is that I wish that I would not have lived life so quickly. I wish that I’d known that moments—no matter how small—are not disposable. I wish that I would have taken the time to stop, consider, take a breath, and take stock of what life was around me. 

But trust me, it’s never too late to start.

Friday, September 05, 2008

OK, Time To Come Back

Well, it's time to get my lazy ass to blogging again. Really, I'm going to do this. But, in the mean time, I'm just going to post a pic of me and my Spawn during our last vacation.

This was on the Snake River in the Hells Canyon.