Friday Part III and Saturday Part I

5:30

I was late to the sound check because my interview on the Terry Meiners show went a bit long. I was expecting to be on the air for about ten minutes but stuck around for 45. I actually got up to leave twice and Terry told me to stick around. I think that's my new goal in life — professional radio interviewee. Now, if could just figure out a way to get paid for it. (I'll figure that out after I figure out how to get paid for being in a band.)

And guess who followed me on the air? Democratic senate nominee Bruce Lunsford. So I hung out with the governor this morning and a senatorial candidate in the afternoon. I wonder if our old friend Congressman Yarmuth will show up tonight. It's not like there's anything going on in DC these days.

Which got me thinking — how appropriate is it that we release a record right in the middle of the worst economic crisis in eighty years? Sometimes I feel snakebit.

Sound check was fine. 4th Street Live is an acoustics nightmare. One, you're playing a huge outside show between very tall buildings and are covered by a big glass ceiling. Sound just bounces all over the place. So it's impossible to get a comfortable monitor mix. (The only way to get a good mix is to use in-ear monitors but I prefer to spend my money on silly things like food and a mortgage.) So, you just get a mix as bearable as you can and hope for the best.

6:30

Greetings from the green room. Technically it's a green floor — the 5th floor of one of the big downtown office buildings. A big insurance company used to have their offices here but they left a year ago so 4th Street Live uses it for a green room. The whole floor. Joel asked if we could have some paintball gear — but we were told that there was no roughhousing allowed. Kyle suggested roller skates and a disco ball. (Pointing out that the one thing that Louisville lacks is an awesome roller skating rink w/ really bad '80s music. Who wouldn't go to that?)

Instead, it's just a huge empty floor with some couches in the middle. Usually I'm a little leery of green rooms because they're seedy, dimly lit, back-of-the-basement rooms that smell unholy. If you sit on one of their chairs (which are always suspiciously damp) there's a 75% chance you'll contract an STD. But I'm in favor of an entire floor.

6:45

Remember that canker sore I was complaining about earlier in the week? The one as big as Texas? Well...it's still around — except now it has tripled in size. And there's another one on the hinge of my lips. My God has forsaken me.

7:15

Everyone else has gone down to get a bite to eat and socialize before the show but I decided to hang out in the green floor. After an entire week of rehearsals, shows, interviews, and countless Grover impressions for Rilla — the last thing I need to do is a lot of talking/yelling before the show.

So I'm working on the setlist because...well someone has to. And that someone is always me. Brian suggested last month that we open up with "Working My Way" and I immediately dismissed it. WMW has been our go-to closer for years. But the more I thought about — the more I thought it was a genius idea. A symbolic opening song.

I'm one of those people that puts waaaaaaaaaaay too much thought into setlists. But right now, it's a way to kill time and stop me from getting too antsy.

7:30

I'm not doing too well on the not being antsy. I tried to read a book but after reading the same paragraph six times I finally gave up.

In the last 36 hours I've eaten two bagels. That's it. I really should eat something but the thought of ingesting anything makes me want to throw up.

7:55

Solitary confinement is killing me so I'm heading down to watch Brooks Ritter's set.

8:30

Great set by Brooks. Here's the problem with 4th Street Live. It's an entire city block. So...there's not one particular place that people can watch the show. They can sit or stand in numerous different locations. There are a ton of people here, but everyone is spread out. My hope is that once we start people will move down to the street in front of the stage — but I have my doubts. Heck, I wouldn't. Whenever I've come to 4th Street to see a show I usually hang out in the back. The sound is better. Oh well.

11:55

Meh.

The Next Day

I repeat...meh.

People did come to the street — but the vast majority stayed in their chairs or on the concourse. For a performer, that makes for a very difficult show. Especially for someone like me who really feeds off of the crowd.

I think the best word to describe the evening is anticlimactic. Or disappointing. Or underwhelming. Or punch-in-the-gut. Kyle, who is the most optimistic person I know (without his optimism this record wouldn't have been finished), tried to put a positive spin on it — but it is what it is.

I've been using that expression a lot recently. It is what it is. Yes, we learned some valuable lessons, but I'm tired of learning lessons. It is what it is.

Here's the set list:

Working My Way
Gravity
Beautiful Goodbye
Slip Away
Paris to New York
7th Sign
Elizabeth
When the Morning Comes
Slow It Down
Happy Inn
Sylvia
Through My Door
Kerouac
The Stripper Song
Lights of Louisville
Fool

In hindsight, we shouldn't have played for as long as we did. I think it took a lot out of us — especially me. After the 1-2 punch of Elizabeth and WTMC I started getting really light-headed. (A few people asked if I was intoxicated.) For a second, I honestly thought I was going to pass out — which might have been an appropriate ending to the night. But I made it through and immediately consumed a Cliff Bar and felt better. Let that be a lesson to you — man can not consume on bagels alone. (Naturally I had a bagel this morning for breakfast.)

There's another show tonight. A nice club show. (I've been told that it's expected to sell out — so if you are planning on coming you might want to get there early.)

R
robcarpenter11@gmail.com

6:28 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Friday Part II

10:15

Greetings from the WFPK studios. The governor is here. No joke. Bodyguards and everything. Evidently he's a huge fan.

10:20

Ok, he's not a huge fan. He's just here by coincidence. I desperately want to find him and ask him to introduce us for the show. And then figure out if he and Joe Lieberman really are the same person. (Have you ever seen them in the same place?! I didn't think so!)

11:15

Just finished sound check. In theater there's the old belief that a bad dress rehearsal means you'll have a good opening night. In music, a bad sound check means you will have a bad show. Period. Fortunately, we had a good sound check. We're doing two new songs tonight — and I was pretty nervous about both of them but feel much better about them after sound check. Gravity also felt very good — so good we're moving it to the opener and moving Kerouac to later in the set.

11:30

My sister, mom, and brother-in-law all have arrived. While it's great to see them...I actually prefer that none of my family ever comes to shows. Isn't that terrible? It's incredibly selfish of me. For some reason looking out into an audience and seeing my family completely throws me off. I must remember not to look to my right.

11:45

I'm actually pretty nervous. Any time you do a live recording of a show I tend to get a little antsy. The fact that we're playing two new songs and quite a few others that I'm just not 100% comfortable with makes it even harder.

2:00

Back home. While I haven't listened to it yet, It felt good — and it certainly was a lot of fun. The most fun I've had on stage in a very long time. Then again, it might have sounded terrible out in radioland. Live Lunch is difficult because you have an audience of about 100 people in the studio with you — so you're playing to them but you're also playing to a much larger audience through the radio and internet. You want to give a good show to the people who took the time to come down, but you also want to make sure things sound as good as possible. Anyway, we'll see how it sounds. Without fail we've always felt good about our previous Live Lunch showcases and then are incredibly disappointed when we actually hear them. C'est la vie.

Here's the set list:

Gravity
Beautiful Goodbye
Slow It Down
Paris to New York
Seventh Sign
Game
Kerouac
Lights of Louisville
Through My Door
Fool

Ten songs. The first eight were all songs from the new album and then we threw in the last two just for old time's sake.

I actually feel pretty good right now. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night — but I got solid sleep. One of those out like a rock nights and I'd rather have a little of solid sleep than a lot of intermittent sleep you know? Plus, the Live Lunch show was the one I was most nervous about.

Now I just have to worry if people show up or not tonight. Auugghh! Off to do a few radio interviews on the city's biggest AM station (WHAS). And then to sound check. If possible, I'll try to check in between sound check and the show.

R
rob@themuckrakers.com

7:02 PM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Friday Part 1

6:35

I missed my alarm. In my defense, I haven't had to wake up to an alarm in an eternity — who needs an alarm when you have a two year old and a one month old? Plus, the alarm was set to classical music. Really quiet classical music. Note to self — when given the option of radio or buzzer...always go with buzzer. Instead, I awoke to the sound of the cell phone ringing and Brian asking, "are you awake?"

So I had a furious dash to get dressed and out the door — tripping over cats, guitars, and anything else left on the floor from the night before (aka — every toy that Rilla owns). The day is not starting out well.

6:42

I forgot my belt. That means I will have to hold my pants up all morning long. Or maybe I'll just let them sag. That's how the kids where their pants these days right? I so desperately want to be hip.

7:20

In and out. We did a short interview on the Ben Davis & Kelly K morning show on DJX, Louisville's Top 40 station and they played "Gravity." (The joke was that it was the first — and the last — time you'll ever hear "Gravity" on a Top 40 station.) Brian and I were introduced as Ryan and Bob...but we've been called worse. In fact, I think I'm just going to become a Bob. There's a shortage of Bobs these days.

The interview was pretty fun — we managed to talk about WWII, ovaries, TI, Fred Schneider, the economic crisis, Isaac Newton in bell bottom pants, and just about everything else under the sun.

8:30

Back home to eat a bagel. Ben Davis has spent the last 40 minutes apologizing profusely on air for calling us Ryan and Bob. (No apology necessary Ben. I've always wanted to be a Bob — you just gave me the push I needed.) I am eating a bagel...but not just any bagel. The world's greatest sister flew in from NYC last night and brought me a dozen real New York bagels. I'm doing much better than I would have expected — but a New York bagel and four very large lattes will do that.

8:50

I have hit my low. Must drink more cofff.sdaer.gvvvvvvvvvvvvvAO{

1:17 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

!

Don't worry. I won't subject you to my neurosis today.

* I went to bed last night around 1:30 and was sharply awoken at 3:30 by first, a screaming one month old and second, a screaming two year old. The former was hungry for some boob milk. The latter had a fever and a cough. And had no interest in going back to sleep. Ever. On the bright side, it's impossible to miss a 6 am wake up call when you don't go to sleep.

* The appearance on the Louisville morning show went fine. We decided to be a little silly and showed up in our bath robes with thermoses full of coffee. Dave and I played a couple of songs while Brian sat behind us on the stage reading a newspaper. What made the morning really fun though were two boys (who look suspiciously like Brian) who joined us on camera. Ian and Dylan hopped on set to help with the weather report and the traffic report and when we played our songs they sat on stage with us eating bowls of cereal. (During "Gravity," Dylan choked on a frosted mini-wheat and I wasn't sure if I should keep playing or check on the wheezing boy behind me. For the record, I kept going. The show must go ..all.) Normally I loathe morning radio or TV appearances because they completely throw off the rest of my day — but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. A very special thanks to Cara and everyone at Fox for (as always) being so gracious and willing to accommodate us.

* Micah and Joel's mother Judy is a breast cancer survivor. Unfortunately, there has been a re-occurance and Judy underwent surgery this morning to remove the lump and to stop the spread of the disease. Tests have been sent to the lab and the family won't know the results for a few days. Please keep Judy in your prayers (as well as her husband Tom, Joel, Micah, and their sister Trina).

* You might have noticed that our website is down. Conveniently, just four days before the release of our fourth album, it's been hacked into and it looks as if we might have lost it forever. In the meantime we've switched everything to the-muckrakers.com. Personally, I think it looks a lot better with the dash anyways. A very special thanks to our web guru Cliff Hilton (aka Boat) for the speedy transition. And to our friendly neighborhood hacker...life is too short.

* You can listen to our Live Lunch performance tomorrow via WFPK.org at 12:00 est (just click on live lunch). If you live in the Louisville area, doors open at 11:30 — but seating is limited.

* No, I would not trade Johnny Cueto for Matt Holliday. I just wanted that out there.

* Friday night's big show at 4th Street Live is free and open to all ages, races, religions, genders, and eyesights. It starts at 8:00 sharp and our goal is too have one big hootenanny. You know that big hoe-down scene from "Oklahoma?" That's what I'm talking about.

* My goal tomorrow is to chronicle the day with periodic updates starting around seven in the morning when I make my first radio appearance of the day and ending around midnight — depending on internet availability. Check back...and check back often my friends.

* And finally, thanks for the kind words yesterday (and also the firm kick in the butt).

R
rob@themuckrakers.com


Pre-Order The Concorde Fallacy here


Catch Us On Tour!


Oct. 10 - WFPK's Live Lunch - Louisville, KY - 12pm
Oct. 10 - 4th Street Live - Louisville, KY - 8pm
Oct. 11 - Phoenix Hill Tavern - Louisville, KY - 8pm
Oct. 14 - Ear X Tacy - Louisville, KY - 6 pm
Nov. 1 - Western Kentucky University - Bowling Green, KY

8:54 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

My Kingdom For A Time Machine

It's Wednesday and I'm already just a spilled Diet Coke away from a nervous breakdown.

Brian and I had an interesting conversation today.

Brian is my favorite person to talk on the phone with because there is absolutely no etiquette. We can — and often do — have those intense long in-depth conversations, but we're also the master of the five second phone call. And believe me, that's all Brian. As you might guess, I've always been the long-winded type. Plus, I hate telling people I have to get off the phone. I feel like it's insulting. I prefer just to drone on and on until the other person either makes an excuse to leave or drops dead. But Brian gets down to business. Like someone is chasing him and he only has ten seconds to make the call. There are no greetings. No salutations. And at the end there aren't any goodbyes. Just the meat and potatoes.

Anyway, today was not one of those phone calls. Today was one of the in-depth conversations. The subject was this week.

I just want it to be over. I want to step into a time machine and wake up Wednesday morning. I don't want to experience any of it. If I could I would lock myself in my room, living only on tomato soup and Ritz crackers, and play Huey Lewis and the News albums for an entire week straight.

Brian, on the other hand, wants to enjoy it. Soak it up. Relish the moment. His argument is that we've worked very hard to get to where we are and, by God, this might be the last time we release an album so we should make the most of it.

It's a good argument. For a brief moment I felt inspired. He was right. This should be a celebration. We worked really damn hard and had to put up with a lot of garbage to make this thing.

And then something came up. And then something else. And before I knew it I was right back into my woe-is-me desire for that time machine.

This isn't a new development for me. I'm not sure when it began but I started seeing things as what-can-go-wrong instead of how much fun they'll be.

And the thing is, things will go wrong. That's unavoidable. Somebody will screw up. That's just the way things are — but ultimately, it's not a big deal. I understand that, but I still stress out about it. I make myself sick with worry.

Tonight I was driving home and was listening to NPR. Well...NPR was on the radio...I was stressing out about something. Will the CDs be in Louisville by Friday's show? What are we going to do about the piano on "Paris to New York?" And then I remembered my conversation with Brian and I essentially told myself to shut up. To stop worrying. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out and screamed as loud as I could. Screw it. I'm going to enjoy this. Who cares.

I got home and felt good. Not great, but good. As I sat down at my computer I thought to myself, "Self, maybe you shouldn't check your email." But I did. And several emails awaited me saying that our website was down. Maybe we've been hacked into again. Maybe it's just a glitch. Whatever it is, I can feel that nervous breakdown coming on right about...oh damn, I just spilled my Diet Coke.

R

3:43 AM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Mouth Ulcers and Fred Schneider

Two things.

1. I have a canker sore the size of Texas inside my upper lip.

If I stick my lips out (like the Jaime Fox character Wanda from "In Living Color") you can see it. Heck, people on the International Space Station can see it. It's that big. And it's hideous too. I was at the grocery store this morning and, too impatient to wait in line, I just flashed my canker sore and everyone in front of me ran off screaming.

It's one of those canker sores that constantly hurts because you can't avoid rubbing it against something. Whenever I talk it bumps up against my teeth. When I chew food little scraps inevitably hit it. And each time something knocks it — it sends shooting pains through my mouth. It's like my own little Opus Dei cilice belt.

I made the mistake of looking up "canker sore" on Wikipedia. (I have a serious Wikipedia addiction. And the thing is, it's not like Wikipedia is the gospel truth. Anyone — and I mean anyone — can create or update a page. Subsequently, I have gone to Five For Fighting's page and updated that whatever his name is likes to eat puppies. Ha! You better think twice before you steal our beer piano man!) I don't recommend it. (Looking up canker sores, not changing peoples Wikipedia pages.) What I thought was just a simple canker sore could now be a sign of a much more serious disease. Cancer. Lupus. AIDS. Behcet's disease. I don't even know what that last one is, but it scares the bejezus out of me. On the bright side, I learned that canker sores are a type of mouth ulcer and I think we can all agree that mouth ulcer sounds a lot more awesome than canker sore. I get a lot more sympathy from people when I tell them I have a mouth ulcer. And if they don't give me sympathy, I just stick my lips out and they run away screaming. Speaking of screaming...

2. We were rehearsing some of the new songs tonight in preparation for this weekend's slew of shows. After about two hours a hard rock cover band set up in the rehearsal space next to us. That's the way rehearsal spaces work. Usually you can hear a little bit of the other bands — but not to the point that it's intrusive on your own practice. Except tonight. It was so loud that I couldn't hear Brian — who was screaming only a couple feet away from me about the blood coming out of his ears.

We thought about going over and saying something, but the other band was wearing lots of black. Black pants. Black shirts. Black wristbands. Black earplugs. So, we just tried to push through. But it's impossible to play our particular brand of wuss rock when the screams of Black Sabbath are louder than your acoustic guitar. I knew I was singing and I playing guitar, and I knew that Dave was playing drums, but all I could hear was "Iron Man."

So we did the only thing we could do — sing karaoke versions of the hard-rock staples as if we were Fred Schneider from the B-52's. There's funny...and then there's Fred Schneider singing "Thunderstruck" by ACDC funny.

In hindsight, I should have showed them my mouth ulcer. (Note to self — mouth ulcer would be an awesome name for a hard rock cover band.)

R
rob@themuckrakers.com


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Pre-Order The Concorde Fallacy here


Catch Us On Tour!

Oct. 10 - WFPK's Live Lunch - Louisville, KY - 12pm
Oct. 10 - 4th Street Live - Louisville, KY - 8pm
Oct. 11 - Phoenix Hill Tavern - Louisville, KY - 8pm
Oct. 14 - Ear X Tacy - Louisville, KY - 8pm
Nov. 1 - Western Kentucky University - Bowling Green, KY

3:09 AM - 6 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

Kentucky Proud

Up until Saturday I didn't know what Liverwurst was. To be perfectly honest, I thought it was a type of cheese. A really foul smelling cheese made from yak's milk or something.

(I even had a perfect explanation for the name. Some guy, after taking a bite of the cheese, exclaimed: "Aack! This is worse than liver!" Except it was in German so it was something like, "Aack! Das ist schlechter als Leber!" And the name stuck. Well...the anglicized version of it. Kind of. Not really. I didn't really think it all the way through.)

I was going to include Liverwurst in Saturday's blog — as one of the ingredients for my special homemade marinade — not because I knew what it was, but because it's a funny word. So I went onto the ol' world wide web to find the correct spelling. Instead, I found this:

"Liverwurst, also known as Kentucky Pâté, is an anglicisation of the German Leberwurst (Dutch leverworst, Hungarian kenőmájas, Swedish leverkorv, Finnish maksamakkara), literally meaning "liver sausage". It is a typical sausage served in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden. Most liverwurst varieties are spreadable. The sausage is usually made with pork. Only about 10-20% of the sausage is actually pork liver, which is enough to give it a distinctive spicy liver taste. Other ingredients are meat, fat and spices like ground black pepper, marjoram, allspice, thyme, ground mustard or nutmeg. Many regions in Germany have their own recipes for liverwurst, often adding ingredients like pieces of onion or bacon. Recently more exotic additions such as cowberries and mushrooms have gained in popularity. Though the German name Kalbsleberwurst is translated as "calf liver sausage", it normally contains pigs' livers, rather than calves' livers, as well as veal. Braunschweiger leberwurst is a spreadable liver sausage that is sometimes called liverwurst, or just liver sausage in North America."

Wait...what was that? "Liverwurst, also known as Kentucky Pâté...?"

Really? I mean...really?

The "Kentuckians-Are-Yokels" generalization has always bothered me.

We are the state of Robert Penn Warren and Wendell Berry. Of Abraham Lincoln and Louis Brandeis. Of Muhammed Ali and Pee Wee Reese. Of Nobel Prize winners and astronauts. Of visionaries and dreamers. Artists and poets. Of movie stars (George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp) and musicians (David Kidd, Brian Meurer, Micah Gerdis). Of Duncan Hines and Colonel Sanders. Of Hacksaw Jim Duggin.

We have more turkeys and deer per capita than any other state in the country. (That really neither helps or hurts my argument — but I found it interesting nonetheless.)

I'm tired of Kentucky being the go-to state for jokes about in-breeding, rampant shoelessness, meth addiction, illiteracy, obesity, and every other ignorance related mockery. I know we're not perfect. I know we have flaws. But if we are speaking in generalities, than in general — Kentucky is an under-appreciated state filled with loving and thoughtful people.

So cut us some slack. It's not like we're West Virginia! (I kid, I kid.)

Now pass the liverwurst. I'm sorry, I meant the Kentucky Pâté

R
rob@themuckrakers.com

ps — Happy Birthday to one of my all time favorite Kentuckians...my sister. Happy Birthday Mel.

Pre-Order The Concorde Fallacy here


Catch Us On Tour!

Oct. 10 - WFPK's Live Lunch - Louisville, KY - 12pm
Oct. 10 - 4th Street Live - Louisville, KY - 8pm
Oct. 11 - Phoenix Hill Tavern - Louisville, KY - 8pm
Oct. 14 - Ear X Tacy - Louisville, KY - 8pm
Nov. 1 - Western Kentucky University - Bowling Green, KY

2:51 AM - 9 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Sunday Review 10.5 (Meat Sweats Style)

Ok. The meat sweats.

Several years ago we went with a group of friends to a new Argentinean restaurant in Louisville.

(Why we went is beyond me considering that, at the time, the pretty brown-haired girl and I were pretty die-hard vegetarians and the only reason you go to an Argentinean restaurant is for beef. They don't even have side dishes of vegetables. If you order beef you get two sides of beef with your beef. There wasn't even bread. Just chunks of beef served in little woven baskets with packets of butter for spreading.)

The great Robbie and my friend Christian decided to split the meat platter — a feast for the famished that promises every edible part of the cow. (And some inedible parts too.) When they wheeled the platter out, Robbie and Christian's eyes opened as wide as humanly possible. This was not a meal. This was a mission. Possibly a suicidal one. But it was one they had to do.

I don't think I have ever seen a more focused display of eating (except maybe the indomitable Louis Jamon). Chorizo. Short ribs. Flank steak. Sweetbreads. (In hindsight they wished they had asked what sweetbreads were before they ate them.) The rest of the party had finished, ordered desert and coffee, and was ready to go — but Robbie and Christian ate on. Determined to conquer the beast before them.

And they did. Not a speck of meat was left on the platter.

And then we all went over to the club that our band was playing at that night.

Two things you should know at this point:

1. I don't remember when we went, but it was warm. Unseasonably so. In fact, one might say it was balmy.

2. The AC in the club wasn't working, so it felt like a sauna. A steamy, sweaty sauna.

During our first set I couldn't help but notice that Robbie and Christian were standing off to the side of the room — both pale as ghosts. Like zombies. Oddly rocking back and forth. And they were profusely sweating. At the end of the set I walked over and asked what was wrong. One of them (I can't remember who) did one of those burps where you know a little vomit comes up and then said, "I've got the meat sweats."

It was the first time I had ever heard the ..I'm not saying they invented it, just that it was the first time I had heard it. It's not like the word "bootylicious" which my old friend B-Train swears he invented long before Destiny's Child used it in a song.) That moment — just the way that Robbie and Christian looked — was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

On to the review — a look back in the week of blogs, emails, comments, and ROUS's. (Frankly, I don't believe they exist.)

* Saturday Night Live is at its best when it is politically relevant — something it hasn't been in a long time. Subsequently, Lorne Michaels should write a personal letter of thanks to John McCain for choosing Sarah Palin as his VP. It was a Godsend for SNL and, thanks to the absolutely fantastic impression by Tina Fey, the show had one of its best episodes in a long time last night. If you missed it, you can watch several of the skits on nbc.com/snl.

* As hard as it is to be a Reds fan right now, at least I'm not a Cubs fan. 100 years and counting.

* The SlimCado! finally ripened and, much to my disappointment, it tasted like regular avocado.

* I didn't mean to create a mini-scare, but no — I wasn't just being funny. Could this be our last album? Yes. Who knows? Usually when I finish an album I immediately want to make another one. I honestly pray that God gives me the opportunity to do another. But this time, well, you couldn't pay me to go into the studio right now. (Although the thought of getting paid to make an album is an interesting concept.)

* It's going to be a busy week as we gear up to the release of the new album. On Friday we're going to play a live show on WFPK at noon and then that night we are going to be doing a free concert at 8:00 at 4th Street Live. The following day we're going to be playing a show at Phoenix Hill with BonePony. And then on the actual released day (October 14th) we're going to be doing a special in-store performance at Ear-X-Tacy at 6. On top of all those live performances, I'll be doing various TV and radio appearances all week. I hope you don't get sick of us.

* I never once thought about the connection between "trotskies" and "trots." I feel rather silly.

* Welcome back L. How is Murray treating you? And be careful what you wish for. Husbands that are pro-bed jumping are also notorious for forgetting to pay the bills. And leaving milk out on the counter all night. And not lifting the toilet seat when they pee. And...

* I'm with you Jaime, parenting = shenanigans. (I should use the word shenanigans more. It's just fun to say. Shenanigans. Shenanigans.)

* My sister pointed out that when you google the name of my old friend Jeff — my blog is the second thing that comes up. So, if Jeff is at all as narcissistic as the rest of us, he's going to stumble upon this blog pretty soon. So...um...hi Jeff. It's me Rob. How have you been?

* On a side note, is there anyone out there who honestly has never googled themselves?

* Donna you could not be more right. I am a magpie. But I'm a conscientious magpie in that, while I am attracted to shiny things — I never buy them.

* Gabe, if I leave right now I can be at your house in just under two hours. Fire up the grill!

* Pigg, you're right — I don't dig on swine. Or beef. But everything else is fair game. That being said, there are days where I seriously debate about ordering a big slab of ribs. Mmmm...ribs. If I leave right now I can be at your house in about eighteen hours. Fire up the grill!

* The falling-off-the-stage during a performance of "Much Ado About Nothing" story sounds better than it actually is. (Which is why I used it.) It was a special early morning performance — for local high school students — and I was dragging a bit. I honestly don't remember what happened. One moment I was walking on the stage and the next I was on the ground with a huge gash in my chin. Just one of those moments where you misstep. (Unfortunately, those moments seem to happen to me quite a lot. In fact, I did it again yesterday — completely missing the bottom step of the porch stairs and falling on the ground.)

* Happy birthday today to my friend Helen — you know her best as the voice of Hundefuter.

* Have you pre-ordered the album yet? If not, please don't make be beg. Order it here. Or here. But not here.

R
rob@themuckrakers.com

8:01 PM - 7 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Boy Meets Grill

I want a grill.

A big, propane-fueled grill.

With lots of levels so I can cook lots of things all at once. Chicken. Vegetables. Fish. Tofu. Alpaca. Yeti. Whatever. I just want stuff to put grill marks on. Everything tastes better grilled.

I want tongs. Lots of tongs. Different sized tongs for different meats. I want sets and sets of tongs. With foreign names. "Honey, could you fetch my Remmenhaller tongs? Yeah, I'm cooking Coelacanth tonight. What's that? No, it was extinct. It's all better now."

I want lots of different types of marinade and then I'd spend hours combining flavors until I have found the perfect concoction to soak my meats in. My fridge would be stocked with bags of marinade-soaking meat — ready just in case I want to grill up something for a late night snack.

And I want a "King of the Grill" apron. Or "Kiss the Cook." Or "World's Greatest Griller." I don't care if it's hokey. In fact, the hokier the better. I want it.

I want someone to say, "Hey Rob, we were just talking about the time you fell off the stage while doing "Much Ado About Nothing" in college. Come over and tell the story." And I'll say, "I can't. I'm grilling. Maybe later."

I want to use a beer cozy. The only acceptable time to use a beer cozy is when you are grilling out meat. That's not an opinion. That's a fact.

I want to feel like a man. Grilling out is, short of wrestling bears, the most manly thing you can do — and, except for that one night in the Yukon, I'm not one for bear wrestling.

I want to walk around the dinner table while everyone is euphorically devouring my meat-tastic creations and ask questions like, "Hey Bill, how do you like that Mango/Walleye/Count Chocula marinade?" And then Bill would try to tell me how awesome it was but his mouth would be too full so he would just spit pieces of food at me so I would say, "Yeah. I made it myself. I tried BooBerry first, but I really think you need the cacao punch that the Chocula provides."

Unfortunately, I have a deathly fear of raw meat. So does the pretty brown-haired girl with dimples. What we really want is for people to have grills to invite us over and grill things for us. And then let us pretend like we cooked it. (And not have to do any of the clean-up.) Is that too much to ask?

R
rob@themuckrakers.com

3:06 AM - 8 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

A Memory Exercise

For some inexplicable reason, I started thinking about a childhood friend yesterday. He just popped into my head. Randomly. Uninvited. But instead of pushing the thought right back out — I decided to try to remember everything I could about him. Like it was a little memory exercise. Some sort of timed exam where I had to try and remember as much as I could about Jeff Jachowicz in an hour. There was a sheet of paper. A pencil. A stopwatch. And a teacher walking around with a yardstick to make sure I didn't copy off anyone else's paper.

Usually my memories are images. Still moments from the past. Photographs of a time and place — but without sound or emotion. I don't remember specifics — just vague generalities. And that drives me nuts. My sister can remember the tiniest details and she can recall all these moments from our childhood that are nothing but a still blur to me. But for some reason, I can close my eyes and be right back at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City. The smells. The stickiness of the stale Kansas summer. The sound of Jeff throwing up in the bushes after the dangerous 1-2 punch of too many hot dogs and the merciless spinning ride.

I haven't seen or spoken to Jeff in over ten years. We weren't best friends — just friends.

So why is it that I can distinctly remember playing "Top Gun" on Nintendo on the downstair's television at Jeff's house and being ridiculed because I couldn't get the up, up, down, down landing sequence right? Or riding our bikes to the unkempt baseball field a few blocks from his house and taking turns throwing batting practice to eachother? Or our "band" featuring me on piano and him on the laundry basket drums — performing concerts in our library?

I think what separates Jeff from a lot of my other friends in Murray, KY was that Jeff and I didn't have to be friends. We weren't thrown together. We weren't friends by default. We didn't go to the same school. Our parents didn't work together. We weren't in the same social circles and, outside of baseball and girls, we didn't really share any of the same interests. In fact, I have no idea how we even became friends in the first place, but we did and when he moved to Kansas City when we were in Middle School, we kept in touch. I visited him a couple of times. When his family moved to Chicago, I visited him there too.

But somewhere we just stopped. There was no big fight. (At least none that I can think of.) It was just that we had different lives. In different places. We grew apart. The friendship had run its course. And that was it. No more contact. No Christmas cards. No occasional emails.

I won't share all the memories with you — but I surprised myself with the number that I came up with. The weird thing is that I don't have this burning desire to track him down. In this day and age you can find anyone through the internet, but I'm not at that stage of my life yet. Maybe one day soon. But right now I'm just happy that I have these memories. That being said, I can't help but wonder how he's doing. Hmmm...

R
rob@themuckrakers.com

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3:49 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment