that other guy’s thoughts

My favorite trumpet player in all the world, Maynard Furguson, died Wednesday night at the age of 78. He is the man behind the theme from Rocky. He is the soaring melody that hits your heart, and he will be missed.

His recording of “Coconut Champagne” was nearly singlely responsible for my love of jazz. I orginally heard it 6-8 years ago in high school and I was hooked. The energy he put though just moves you in the ways that music is supposed to.

You want solid music and blistering licks? I suggest “Live from San Francisco“. Some of the best $12 you’ll ever spend.

For better send-offs than I could write see here or here

Boo on the IAU for demoting Pluto to “dwarf planet” status. In protest I quote my most favoritest band ever.

That right, my most favoritest band ever included a protest song about pluto’s 2nd class status way back in 1998 a full 8 years before it actually happened. Obvious evidence that my musical taste is vastly more awesome than yours.

With depravity, I break lots of gravity
Blast past the atmosphere to the last frontier
I go boldly through space and time
The sky’s the limit, but they’re limiting the sky
I break orbit by habit,
I ignite satellites and leave rings round the planets
A flying ace like that beagle,
nevertheless this alien remains illegal
Cause their discovery don’t cover me
the immigrants been left in the cold
to grow old and disintegrate
Discriminate against the distant and disclaimers,
Cause small minds can’t see past Uranus
When I shun their race
cause that’s just a phase
and my odyssey runs in 2001 ways
And I can see clearly now like Hubbell
shoved off the shuttle, here’s my rebuttal:
It’s a planet.

Pluto is a planet. Pluto!
Pluto is a planet. Pluto!
Pluto is a planet. Pluto!
Pluto is a planet. Pluto!

Who do you represent?
I represent the smallest planet
Attorney in this journey
versus those who tried to ban it.
If you don’t agree
go see interplanet Janet
Cause the sun is star like Pluto is planet.
So lend me all ears and let me state my case,
about all the types of satellites we must embrace
Cause like parents’, great-grandparents,
this planet was an immigrant,
to deport it is an offense.
It’s an upstanding member of the solar system
Abide the laws of Earth and make it a victim.
Of Proposition 187,
When Pluto spawns a moon it will apply to the heavens.
A dandy like Judas of Escariot
If you demote this boat remote to a goat
It’s like taking ET’s custody from Elliot,
support yours clearly put cause, simply put

Pluto is a planet. Pluto!
Pluto is a planet. Pluto!
Pluto is a planet. Pluto!
Pluto is a planet. Pluto!

Do it for the children,
if not for yourself.
Pluto is a…

-Pluto, 2 Skinnee J’s

I own a house, blah blah blah. I spend my weekends making trips to the Home Depot or Lowe’s and talking myself into home improvement projects that are way out of my league. I spend actual time thinking about color palettes, crown modeling, and the optimal cutting height on my lawn mower.

I occasionally have dreams about my house being destroyed in a massive and unexpected flood. I worry about termite damage and the county property tax. I fear revealing how un-entertaining my life is so I don’t disclose it or have conversations with anyone new, thus ensuring my life will remain un-entertaining.

I’m not sure how this happened. Sure I was never one for the clubs and parties and getting wasted on a Tuesday night because Uncle Johnny’s Back-Alley Pub has $1.50 U-call-it’s. But damn man, I haven’t even been to an IHOP or Perkins or Steak ‘n Shake at 3 in the morning for a year and a half!

I know it didn’t seem like fun to my sex-crazed alcoholic peers, but I greatly enjoyed the 4-hour conversations on the emergence of shape-memory alloys at the Chinese buffet. (Though slightly misplacing my modifier, you can be sure that the conversations took place at the Chinese buffet, not the actual emergence of the aforementioned alloys.)

As much as I like my job, I don’t get into the kind of great forward-thinking all-encompassing discussions that I did in college. Nobody speaks to me of matters of what matters. There is no drive to point out the ‘technically correct but irrelevant,’ in the worlds we enter. Thinking and speaking we searched for the next great revolution, and pondered about the changes it would bring.

I loved that about college. I loved the potential for greatness. I loved the desire for great things. I think about what I spoke of then, and what I’m doing now, and I get a little depressed. For sure, you’ve got to pay your dues in whatever world you join, and that performing great deeds takes more skill than I possess, but no one even talks about these things in this life.

No one talks about anything but their weekend landscaping projects, how old their kids are, or how that damn performance review system is a crock. I’d hate to think all this energy that used to be reserved for ascribing to a higher pursuit has be relegated to installing sprinkler systems and looking for good colors to stain the new deck.

I like my job and I love my new house, and I do enjoy crown molding and the Home Depot, but I simply can’t stomach the thought of being reduced into this collection of suburbanites, this group of home-dwellers who’ve settled down in place and in thought. I absolutely fear joining this league of ordinary humanity.

I want more, but it will have to wait a day, I’ve got some yard work to do tomorrow.

…doubt starts to creep into your mind. Sure you’ve always enjoyed a little bit of cooking, and you watch the food network more than any normal human being would, and you always felt a little dirty dining from the frozen foods section of the grocery store; but maybe you’re not very good at it.

Maybe you’re one of those sadly chosen few who passionately enjoy some activity they genuinely suck at. Every once and a while twinges of inadequacy seep into your mind.

Then you go and grill yourself the most delicious steak in the history of the world, and decide:

“Screw that! I’m the lord of all that I prepare, every taste bud ‘ore the shall bow before my sacred hands and worship my culinary magnificence…and that Emeril Lagasse is a bitch.”

Finally back. I hate moving, even more so into a house I own. SBC/AT&T jerked me around a bit on the phone/DSL service transfer, and the previous owners had actually physically disconnected the phone and television lines between the house and outside world. I have no earthly reason why, but I’ve fixed it now, so no worries.

I’m pretty sure nobody finds my boring home ownership stories interesting, so I’ll try to dial them back a bit. On an actual interesting note, 2 a.m. baseball is awesome.