it’s more of a fracture

Yeah, I hurt myself again. Does this even count as newsworthy anymore?

Playing basketball in the Maryville men's Rec League with my Tomato Head pals, I got my feet knocked out from under me while soaring high (so very high) in the air for a rebound. I was falling sideways with my left hand out to break my fall and the palm of my hand hit the floor hard (so very hard), creating a radial head fracture in my upper forearm, near the elbow (which I also suspect was dislocated).

It feels a little better every day, but because I can't turn my hand palm-up, like so: (ow! stop trying, dumbass!) No guitar playing for awhile.

and typing one-handed sucks.

9:20 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Home cooking.

Got a pot roast in the ol' crock pot and mashed potatoes chillin' in the fridge. It's gonna be a good night. Laundry's getting clean and I'm mulling over the upcoming week.

3 things make it a big week.
1) Monday night. The Tomato Head Maryville has our first game in the M'ville Rec League. It's gonna be a 12-game season involving match-ups against multiple teams from Clayton Homes (eat it, Warren Buffet, I'm taking it to the hole) and Denso (hows about manufacturing some defense?). Actually, I have no idea how this will go. If we lose our first five games, we relegated to the "D" league for the rest of the season. If win our first five, we get promoted to the "B" league. I really just want to keep our slot on Monday nights.

2) Tuesday morning. I get two pesky teeth extracted. What a super-fun way to spend a few hundred dollars.

3) Sunday. Thieves practice. We're sneaking back into the flow with a show (the first at the Maryville store) in which we'll test drive a batch of new songs as a trio then drag out some classics with almost all the thieves in tow. It'll be Friday night the 30th of November at The Tomato Head in Maryville. Joseph and His Brothers will do us the honor of opening the show at around 9:30.
(really, 9:30. This ain't the pilot light or the pub)


wish us luck.

2:32 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

optimism provided sportingly and meteorologically
Current mood: optimistic

I finished "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene this morning.

wait.

Actually, I sat down to get this out about an hour ago, but returning to kitchen for another cup of coffee, I was snatched away by the television. The Women's World Cup is being played in China and there were two games on. I watched a bit of Brazil as they, despite the will of the crowd, dimantled, disheartened, and destroyed China, 4-0. oh, Marta. I checked in on Norway calmy controlling a match they led 1-0 over an Australian side who had never won a World Cup match until a few days ago against the appearent doormat of their group, Ghana (sorry, Ghana, but it's true). I was drawn in by the stories. Australia's keeper had been told twice in her life that she would never be able to play soccer. Once, in grade school by a local coach, because she was a girl. Again, a couple years ago by a team doctor who was mis-diagnosing her with a career-ending back injury. Yet, here she was "writing history" (oh, hyperbole, so effective) with her team. As I watched, content to admire the tenacity and hope of the ladies in yellow, the tide turned. Impeccably managed substitutions resulted in a high-risk, offensive-minded strategy that was showcasing the speed, creativity, and hunger of Australian strikers Lisa De Vanna and Sara Walsh. In the 83rd minute De Vanna received a ball from midfield on the right corner of the box and cut hard inside, straight at all four Norwegian backs. She must have felt that window open (shooters know what I mean), because she split the collapsing defense with ball bending beautifully right and away from the keeper into the side netting. I was on my feet with my hands in the air. With the resulting 1-1 tie Australia are poised, if they can just tie Canada on Wednesday, to advance to the quarters, having never won a world cup match until a few days ago.

I'll have to get to my Graham Greene musings later. Meanwhile consider this excerpt:

"How twisted we humans are, and yet they say a God made us; but I find it hard to conceive of any God who is not as simple as a perfect equation, as clear as air."

Currently listening : Autumn of the Seraphs By Pinback Release date: 11 September, 2007

6:58 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

woke up furious (part two)
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

this is the final five seconds of my dream.

cheap and shiny, flimsy but sharp, a pair of six dollar haircut scissors are sunk to the finger holes squarely in the middle of the chest of the person I instantly realize I love more than anyone else in the world. I place a hand on each of his shoulders running them slowly down his arms in order to prevent him from yank them out and seal his own fate. Images of emergency rooms and doctors attempt to survive in my mind amidst thundering fury and limitless vengance.

"Who did this?" I am whispering, my face an inch from his as his futile effort to respond with a name ends only in a wet cough. His eyes dart around the room, and I read in them that the guilty party has gone out the front door. I seize his attention with a commanding glare, and in some remote corner of my mind a rip-cord is being furiously pulled over and over in an attempt to eject myself from this fantasy of terror.

This twisted reality offers me absolutely no assurance that the doctors I would race him to could help at all. At this point I know they are dream doctors and their knowledge of anatomy and medincine is limited by mine.

Just before the chute of consciousness unfurls forgivingly, I share a moment with my wounded brother and realize that, even were I not to wake anytime soon, he will be fine.
I, being undead, will simply share my gift/burden with him through a bite on the shoulder and we will be free to see the sun rise again, exact revenge at our leisure if we care to, play music together, hang out forever, as zombies.

7:57 AM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

woke up furious (part one)

luttrell.
knoxville, TN
7:45 AM
my bed.

I sat straight up, eyes wide open, all concern for rest or comfort gone instantly and completely.

I should back this up an hour or so. a dream:
A dilapidated, low ceiling, stained carpet, poorly lit, one-story house is filled with seriously shady looking young adults partying, dancing, chatting late into the night. The sound swirls into a rolling moan and no single word is discernable. I find myself friendless and not feeling well at all. I'm not messed up or anything, I just have a sinking weight in my chest, like physical pessimissm. And while I sense mortal danger in the room, I have no fear for my own safety. This puzzle is all I can focus on as details begin to tell a story that I'm increasingly more uncomfortable being a part of.

A greasy-haired toothy fellow smiles fiercely in my direction, as if the joke he surely must have just made about me was so hilarious that even I should join him in laughter. But I will not. I stare back blankly, but not benignly. Motionless and indifferent. dead.

It dawns on me slowly and painfully that I am, in fact, dead. But here I stand, beer in hand. And as tha word "zombie" enters my mind for the first time, I see face in the crowd that fills me with hope and the promise of adventure. It's Trace, my brother. Thank God.

I begin to squeeze and wriggle my way through the crowded and darkening room toward him as the front door, behind me, swings open violently to the porch where an altercation is in progress and intensifying. As I reach my brother, gunshots ring out and the room begins to clear. I have no reason to fear gunfire and do not even flinch at the sound. Trace seems freaked, but something about my composure must reassure him that we will both be fine, because neither of us flee. I realize that there are others, maybe six or eight, with reactions similar to mine.

The grinning greaser laughs out loud from his seat on the couch, delighted at the chaos. He, I realize silently, is a vampire. And he has a gun, too, which I find quite curious. He fires off a couple rounds into the dry wall over my left shoulder in the general direction of the front door, as if answering a hollering buddy on the porch. I take a bullet in the upper arm, and as I nonchalanty glance down at the hole from which no blood emerges, the smile drains from couch vamp's face. He wasn't prepared for a showdown and believes he may have started one.

I turn to Trace, having no interest in involving either of us further in what will no doubt end up festival of madness and destruction that will likely leave on a lot full of rubble where this house now stands. "We are leaving." Those were to be my next words, but I find Trace's eyes wide as midday in the west.

[guys, i'm getting so angry just thinking about this i might not be able to finish it]

[but it was just a dream]

7:12 AM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

you can't stop the rock.
Current mood: ready to rock

for my fellow knoxvillians:
Take heart, the FSCMB is not dead.
We have chosen to become unpredictable. Now it is time to take it to the streets once again.

This Saturday the crushing fanfare rings out in the Fort.
The time to meet at the Laurel House back porch is between 5:00 and 6:00. We warm up, practice, organize ourselves. We march around 6:30.
Be there. Tell your friends. Bring your friends. Tell strangers, and bring them, too.

You can't stop the Fort Sanders rock.

9:25 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

tell me this doesn't rule

I gotta tell you guys a story. It happened in Grace, NY.

Cynics and nay-sayers don't fucking bother reading this.

This kid's name is Jason McElwain. He went out for his JV basketball team several years ago, but he's 5'6", and pretty scrawny. He's also mildly austistic, but high-functioning. The coach offers him the JV team manager position, as a way to stay involved, and over the next three years he's reliable and energetic. He has since moved up to Varsity, again as the manager, where he's a fixture on the bench wearing the same white button-down and black neck tie for game nights. He keeps stats, passes out water, and keeps the team and crowd enthused at every contest, where he can't pretend to hide his passion for the game. He's on the cross country team for Grace Athena High School, but he really loves the roundball.

But he's where this story sets itself apart.

Senior year. End of the season. Coach comes to Jason with an idea. As a reward for his years of dedication to the team, he asks if Jason wants to suit up for the final home game, Senior Night. "I can't promise anything," coach tells him, "but, I'm gonna try to get you in." The students get wind of this and pack their end of the gym, carrying signs (J-Mac is the Man!) and cut-outs of his face.

Four and a half minutes left in the game, and Grace Athena is up by 20. So, coach motions to the end of the bench for Jason. The crowd erupts. First trip down the floor a teammate hands him the ball behind the 3-point line in the corner and gives him a bit of a "go ahead, man. shoot it." nod. So he does and misses everything. total airball. From the crowd, a collective sigh/groan. Next trip on offense, 3:19 left, he gets the ball on the wing and puts up another three. He drains it, and the crowd explodes. That was just the start. Over the next three minutes he goes off, hitting six threes, the last coming with 3 seconds left. The horn sounds and the absolutely frenzied crowd storms the court and carries Jason off.

 20 points in less than four minutes. Game's high scorer.

Next game is tournament play and Jason's back on the bench, white shirt, black tie, big smile.

8:26 AM - 6 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

cypress hill

so sometimes it seems the world is piling on. ganging up on you. the phone gets cut off. all your roommates leave at the same time. the student loaners decide to start caring. being single sinks in, finally.

but then, like the intro to "little april shower" from bambi, drips of hope begin a pitter. drops of promise answer with a patter. you meet someone sweet. you have a lovely night with a lovely person. a friend demonstrates a confindence in you.

and ever so faintly, from the far corners of memory, a rhythm emerges slowly. hey, that kinda rocks. what is that? the words become audible, repeating a refrain. what are they saying?

and, of couse, it's cypress hill. "I ain't going out like that."

8:52 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

asheville in the afternoon

10/18 4:15pm

I'm in the Great Hall of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, waiting on Leslie as she enjoys the amenities of the spa, which is about four years old. The Inn itself was built in 1912. The possibility that she is enjoying her present experience, to be honest, is a slim one. She was not, as we discussed on the drive from Knoxville, the least bit excited about the exfoliation/aromatherapy/massage, er, -a-thon. I hope she finds the courage to refuse the Sactuary of the Senses Body Treatment for Women. But, if she doesn't, I hope the massage, at least, relaxes her neck and shoulders after a somewhat stressful drive through the mountains.

My enjoyment of a cigarette here feels mischevious, although I am less than six feet away from a carved wooden sign that reads, "Smoking is permitted in this area only." Time and progress and science have passed us smokers by. There are children in the room, or at least occasionally passing through. There's one now.         and they're gone.

Well, F. Scott Fitzgerald spent a decent amount of 1935 and 1936 in this rugged, yet lavish mountain resort (actually, he was in a room, right across the hall from ours). This bit of trivia and history emboldens me to enjoy another.

3:24 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

strange habit
Current mood: okay

I'm not sure how or when this happened, but at some point last year I started listening to talk radio. alot. At work, on road trips, even at home occasionally. I had developed a bit of a fancy for sports talk radio in Memphis, following the Tigers and such. That carried over to my Knoxville life, because someone is talking about sports 24 hours a day here. Sports radio, though is not the point here.

I'm referring to conservative "new media" right-wing type stuff. It's infuriating and fascinating. (the anger helps me stay awake on the long car rides) And sometimes, it's even intellectually stimulating. Following the train of thought from information received to opinion formed with some of these people, with whom I happen to disagree, is like a freaking car chase. I'm in a normal car, a fast and reliable one. But, Mike Savage is in this hovercraft thing. I have to stay on the street, but this guy can go wherever he wants. No obstacles. He'll just veer off into a lake, and I can't follow him. I can see him, slowly getting away. But, I have to stop, take out a map, and chart the quickest course to the other side. My car is faster. But sometimes they get away.

They have different rules. different goals.

Also, I get a glimpse into the minds and plans of our leaders. You see, most of these dudes get "guests" based on the Republican agenda for the next six months. They're not all "in on it" or anything, they get played just like the rest of us. For example, right now, on several shows, there's a storm a brewin' over those wacky, power-mad, commie party animals: the Supreme Court. Hannity's court jester is in the process of marching a book entitled something like "Men In Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America" to the top of the NYT bestsellers list for non-fiction. Why?
Here's a guess. Because Rehnquist is dying, or dead. (I don't really believe he's dead already) The conservative strategists know they are in for a fight when that seat opens up. The Dems have all but said the first nominee is going down. So, the "new media" is firing up, and to a lesser degree educating, their base with fear-mongering about the loose cannon liberal elitists who control everyone's lives. It's gonna get nasty. Republicans have developed a taste for winning, an arrogance that wasn't there a few years ago, and Bush needs to leave his mark (by pissing) on everything, including the Supreme Court.

I'm not done. just done for now.

4:11 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment