Blogger Plays in Bar by Accident.

I wasn't blogging, just playing guitar with a crazed country singer from Austin, TX. I was on my porch at home and somehow ended up at Slabtown - famous hangout of cheapskate drinkers, pinball addicts and the Dandy Warhols - backing this guy up for free drinks. Photo courtesy of Genie (and her new camera). Thanks for coming, all twelve of you - and the two guys playing pinball.

Genie self-portrait with flowers

My crappy outdated camera takes weird photos. But I do like this one, kinda reminds me of a Warhol silkscreen.

Exile On Main Street is The Only Rock N' Roll Record I Really Need.

I was dreaming of a steel guitar engagement
When you drunk my health in scented jasmine tea
But you knifed me in my dirty filthy basement
With that jaded, faded, junky nurse
Oh what pleasant company

I was fifteen when this record came out, and I've probably heard it several hundred times. No, the above lyrics are not from it, but they are apropos of everything. Get the damn album already.

Blame it on Reagan...

Not to get Political or anything, but some recent comments by some guy named Beck (no, not either of the talented ones we often refer to fondly as "Beck") contain a serious error so huge as to be impossible for most humans to miss: the assumption that we all believed this song to be some sort of "Patriotic Anthem." The first fool to believe that was a campaign advisor to a former President, (another apt song quoted out of context here would be "What a Fool Believes" - a song so horrible that I feel bad bringing it up, but it does fit) the second fool being Ronald Reagan, who apparently took the first fool at his word and never bothered to read the lyrics. Reagan decided the song was perfect for stirring emotions and proceeded to have the chorus blasted at campaign stops (personally, I think "Like a Virgin" would've been less vague and just as effective). So, it seems that loyal followers of the President and his rocking party adopted the song, sight unseen, and continued to blast it amongst themselves for decades without ever getting to the annoying verses. How this could happen is beyond me, but I'm sure it's not unlike saying things like "Just Say NO!" and "Drill Baby, Drill" (insert "Like a Virgin" here...).
So, fast forward the 80's cassette to 2010. Now this Beck guy has figured it out - 26 years later. He says it's NOT A PATRIOTIC ANTHEM! Yes, well that's good news, because I still have a copy on vinyl. Here's the shocking truth: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201003110027