
It’s amazing what a shot of music can do for me.
Uncle Crappy’s ass had been dragging for the last couple of weeks, boys and girls, with a brief and welcome respite provided by Fred and Ethel’s visit to Pittsburgh last weekend. That part was outstanding — a fruitful trip to the Three Rivers Arts Festival (and by fruitful I mean we bought stuff), a couple of hours at the Penn Brewery in observation of their 20th anniversary (and all the beer and sausage you might expect to go along with it) and a soggy Buckwheat Zydeco show at the point that night.
But despite that highly successful visit, I was still a bit off-kilter. Some of it was the Grateful Dead-related deaths I’ve already documented here. Some of it was the fact that I’ve been flying solo at work for the past two weeks, while my other cops/courts compadre was on vacation. I had fun handling that gig by myself, but there hasn’t been much room to breathe for the past few days.
So what got me right? Just as the cause was multi-fold, so was the solution. The biggie was the moe. show at the point last night. Buckwheat was excellent, but I apparently needed some true hippie music to snap my soul back into place. I needed, and here’s what I got:
Crab Eyes/Tailspin/Can’t Seem to Find/Rebubula/Yodelittle/Head/Brent Black/Tailspin/Where Does the Time Go/Rebubula (E) Nebraska
Keep in mind: The Rebubulas bracket non-stop playing, seamless segues and big, big fun. Seeing a free show can be a dicey proposition, in that many of you fellow audience members aren’t going to share your attention level. And I’m still have some difficulties with the kids these days and the basic deficiencies they have in terms of hippie concert ettiquite. But, especially when considering moe.’s set, that’s minor shit — easy to overlook. We got two-plus hours and drove home happy.
This is what it’s like being an addict. You may not even know what’s bugging you, but when you find the solution, everything’s OK again.
So. I’m back. Here’s a few other things I’ve been meaning to mention:
Um. Soccer. Thanks largely to Fred, I’m hooked on the World Cup. We watched games all weekend, and today, I listened to play-by-play of the U.S./Czech Republic match. In my car. On the radio. And The Wife? After abusing me through Saturday’s first match — the one where I suggested we go to Piper’s Pub on the South Side so we could watch with the England supporters — she got hooked watching the 0-0 tie between Trinidad and Tobago and Sweden. WE EVEN DROVE TO PITTSBURGH, AS PER MY SUGGESTION, TO WATCH ANOTHER MATCH AT PIPER’S. Yeah. We’re both now one of them.
Dirt Merchant posted a poignent reminder about what life should be about, in response to my post about Ramrod. Dude, you got it exactly right.
W. Ahh … umm … Christ, why even bother? I’m in too good a mood.
And one final thing, concernning even more recent news. I don’t want people to get hurt, and I’ve been to enough motorcycle accident scenes that I know even a mild one is a bad thing. But every single Stiller fan who made fun of me after Kellen Winslow Jr. wrecked his bike is welcome to stop over at my house, sometime in the next few days, so you can kiss Uncle Crappy’s ass.