Sunday, September 09, 2007

Things I Learned This Weekend

With house guests in my...well...house, college football on the telly, and gigantic festivals taking over downtown, I've learned a lot about COMO...and a few other things.

Some house guests need closet space and dresser drawers and some just use their
suitcases. I think people's preferences in this area is a major divider in the populous, maybe even more so than race or economic class. I am a suitcase/throw my dirties all over the floor kind of house guest, but that isn't good enough for some people. I guess we'll put "bedroom set for the guest bedroom" on the list ahead of our own bedroom set and windows.

Michigan really does suck. They haven't stopped anyone or won since the passing of their late, great coach, Bo Schembechler. I'm not convinced they'll beat an anemic Notre Dame squad. I, like any tOSU fan, enjoy watching Michigan squirm, but I don't wish such struggles on anyone. Oh, and I still think Mark Hart is a punk. In fact, I've changed the "a" in his last name to a "u" to better reflect his playing style.

Apparently, about 2/3 of COMO's population (60,000+) can fit downtown all at once - most of them on eighth between Cherry and Broadway. The Roots 'n Blues 'n BBQ Festival (Why so many 'n's?) took over the entire "District" (yes, the District of Columbia) for two nights this weekend. I was able to score a free pass to some free piss (beer) thanks to K, didn't really see Taj Mahal (although I could sort of hear him), and stood on the corner of Broa
dway and 8th for about a half-hour trying to pass through to that previously mentioned beer of media types and bad beer. It was a crazy-ass mess of a cluster f---. It was probably a good thing drunks were not allowed to roam the streets freely.I learned that I still don't like the blues. Sure, I got them, but I just don't get the appeal of a dead art form. It's like classical music or Britney Spears: it's a musical genre that has ceased to evolve. What's worse is that it encourages white people to do that hippie, swaying dance style made popular in Woodstock. The blues is maybe the most misappropriated of all African-American art forms...other than Jheri Curls.

Top 10 Wines is going to be the best place to meet and drink in town. We stopped in for a beer since the Blue Fugue had a cover. The owner of Top 10 (I've forgotten his name) is uber-friendly and likes to wax poetically about the red stuff (and white or rose'). He served us a nice Belgian beer and continued his lively conversation with friends.

While sitting there, we learned that ABC 17 personality/journalist, Greg Dingrando, goes by the nickname "Dingo" and apparently plays soccer every Sunday. So, ladies and other fans of the "Dingo" should head down to the soccer fields in Jeff City to watch some hot guy-on-guy soccer action.

I learned that maybe I know more about the NFL than I originally thought. I'm tied for first in my NFL Pick'em group and beating my opponent in my fantasy league by 60+ points going into Monday Night Football. Maybe I should quit my day job and gamble for a living.

I probably should have learned something from the Times this weekend (which they haven't delivered in like three weeks despite numerous phone calls), but that's not how things work. I also should mention several other important lessons learned this weekend - I'm not a bad teacher, how to fix the garbage disposal, enough red wine is never enough - but I've written too much on this post as it is. This is what stuck out over the weekend. I'm sure there's more to learn in the coming days.

Stay tuned for my 100th post spectacular where I recap the highlights of the last year+ of blogging.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy to be in the "suitcase user" group!!!!

Thanks, again :)

ATR said...

That headline's a beauty on the link to the Trib. You just made my day. I may have had a semi-rough adjustment here, but I should thank my wife every day for not having to deal with that BS anymore. It's a different kind of BS, here. A BS that I feel I can deal with a great deal better...we shall see; maybe BS is BS wherever you go. Steadfast, unalterable, unyielding BS. Writing tests are the beginning of October.

Mike said...

I couldn't agree more on the blues being a dead genre. It's all based on one chord progression, the lyrics aren't as important as guitar proficiency, and there's no such thing as good blues drumming (outside of White Stripes, Black Keys, Led Zep, et al) so there's no room for growth once you're a decent guitarist.

Have to disagree about classical being dead, though. It's very much alive, but the best living classical composers are more academic or avante garde now. That said, I can only name three relevant composers from the last half of the twentieth century. I'd say it's alive in the artistic sense but deader than dead commercially.

comoprozac said...

Suitcase users unite!

Yeah, there's BS @ every school. It doesn't help that governments keep throwing more BS at us.

I'm not sure truly "classical" music can be avant garde. Isn't avant garde inherently the opposite to anything classical?

Donna said...

Oh, you and your anti-hippie rhetoric. And I think any kind of music is alive if someone is playing it. That's what I think.

I think I'll throw some patchooli bombs in your yard or something. Ha. That'll show you.

comoprozac said...

Patchouli? Them's fightin' words!