Mid-August Musings

Last night's "Jerry Garcia" much of a mixed bag. We missed the music and Phil and Bob singing the national anthem due to crowds and the muni running late. Our seats were great but the Cubs scored early and the Giants played poorly most of the night. Very little Dead-ness for how it was advertised and then the damned game went into extra innings. I'm all for a nail-biter on a weekend with no time commitments but when it's freezing in the city and it's eleven o'clock, I could give a rat's rear end what happens. We made it home at 1:15 and while the Giants eventually won in the bottom of the eleventh, it was not the fun experience I'd hoped for.

Haven't hit the gym in a long while and feel slumpy. Need to go.

One of my twins shoved a blue Lite Brite peg up his nose and so we spent last Friday night in Emergency. Two and a half hours all for a forty-second procedure in which the "specialist", i.e., the guy with the longest tweezers, worked his medical magic. The Lite Brite peg was solidly into the sinus cavity and things were perfectly painful for my little one. Of course, this is one for the record books.

"Croweology" arrived yesterday but I wasn't able to spin it until this morning. An odd set; not up to the reviews I've read that raved about the band's send-off though I will listen to nothing but this for the remainder of the week. Not that it's bad but as I've posted before, their previous output was the album of 2009 and most of this year. There are a couple of tunes, including, surprisingly, 'She Talks to Angels' that soar, like they were recorded at Levon Helms' Woodstock studios. Crying steel pedal guitar, lilting acoustic harmonies and brooding tempos made for the great cuts. Others which I didn't think would catch my ear have but others right now haven't stopped me in my tracks. Hopefully this will change with repeated listenings.

The President did not make it out to Oakland as hoped though my father ended up being the keynote speaker at the Caldecott's dedication. Photographers snapped him in the giant boring machine, like Teddy Roosevelt in Panama a century earlier, and when this project will be complete, people will freely move in the Bay easier than they've been able to in a generation. While this isn't my dad's brainchild, he gets to share a little limelight as he steers the current committee through the proper channels it needs to in order for federal, state, county and municipal governments all cooperate. Go Pop.

Both Giants and A's losing tonight. Oh, well. Off to lesson plan and hopefully catch a little t.v.