You're Doing It Wrong

Typical: I’ve been poking around here this morning because I woke up early and didn’t have to rush and now I want to leave in about 20 minutes and I still need to comb my hair and completely get ready from scratch.

I finished the Bob Dylan book yesterday: Chronicles. Volume One.

I’m not a Dylan fan which isn’t to say that I dislike him, only that I never voluntarily spent time with his music so I only know things that have been on the radio or TV or whatever.

I loved the book, the way he writes, the way his mind works. I started marking some pages with quotes I wanted to include here and then when I went back to check the marked pages, half the time I couldn’t figure out what passage I’d intended.

Here are a few:

He describes a guy, “he looked like a riverboat gambler.” [p. 63]

“If you have to lie, you should do it quickly and as well as you can.”

He and Bono have this discussion which includes something about the birthplace of America. They were talking about Vikings and Minnesota in the 1300s. [pp. 174-175] I’m sure my rant here is predictable. We’ll leave it at that.

RE: Rappers (he admired what they were doing)
“They were beating drums, tearing it up, hurling horses over cliffs.” [p.219]

Update #1

Last month I wrote a post about the death of Max Schmeling. I knew there was a Tante Irmgard story but I couldn’t remember it and I not-too-generously suggested he was a cranky old man.

I was wrong.

Dad asked Tante I about it and she said he was connected to the Friendship Force in Hamburg. Friendship Force is a travel organization with the idea of promoting peace through international friendship. More here.

When Irmgard was involved with FF she wrote Schmeling a letter and invited him to meet with some international visitors. He promptly wrote back and thanked her for the invitation but kindly excused himself, more or less because of his age. Apparently he wasn’t cranky at all, but rather, a nice and generous man. Pamrentz.com regrets suggesting otherwise.

One time when Irmgard was with Friendship Force she traveled to the US. I can’t remember what state but she stayed with American FF members and in the morning they didn’t drink coffee and offered her none. (Any person familiar with German hospitality is cringing about now.) She finally asked if there was any coffee and they searched the bowels of their kitchen cupboards and presented her with a jar of instant so ancient she had to chip it out of the container. She called it “Roosevelt coffee” because she suspected they bought it when he was still in office.

Update #2
My second update concerns flipping off the Trimet driver.

According to OtherBob, the trains are on some sort of system where the driver can’t just hold the door for the running passenger to hop on. I guess this makes sense since there are other trains and road crossings and so forth. I apologize for the bird and removed the curse and hope it didn’t cause any inconvenience.

Last night we were at Everyday Music. I got Paul Westerberg – Folker. As we were walking back to the car, Bob said that he got Maxwell and now had the entire Maxwell catalog.

I started singing: “I always feel like somebody’s watching me-eeeeeeeee.”

Bob has a puzzled look on his face. Then he stops walking and says, “That’s ROCKwell.”

I’ve haven’t been riding MAX for 2 full weeks yet and I’ve already flipped off a driver.

What is wrong with these people?

She can see me running up the stairs. (What sort of crack team designed the Vanport TC? There is no short way to get to the train platform from the parking lot. In fact, if you didn’t crawl through the bushes, there would be no short way to get across the parking lot.) She can see me holding my ticket out and plunging it into the validator.

I turn around and the doors slam shut and the train drives off? WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT? The 5 seconds it would take for me to get on the train would seem to fall into the category of basic human decency and not even a small inconvenience to anyone anywhere.

(Other Bob, if you can enlighten me, I’m waiting.)

I was furious. She got the bird. I said numerous colorful bad words and no one could even hear BECAUSE THEY HAD ALL JUST TAKEN OFF ON THE TRAIN. I kicked the SINGLE bench that TriMet deigned to put at my stop. And I put a curse on the driver.

Good luck getting rid of that itch lady.

Good Effing God.

I’m still adjusting to my new schedule. Seems like I’m always rushing to get out of here and getting home later. And I seem can’t manage to get a proper breakfast in me or a proper lunch made. I’ve been sustaining on Girl Scout cookies (thanks WKB) which is not my preferred way to eat.

So you are getting a very phoned in Wintergrass wrap up.

Wintergrass has gone the way of Bumbershoot which is to say it’s too freaking crowded. I don’t understand humanity’s tolerance for massive crowding. Why would you want to fight your way to an event and be humiliated by parking and then wait in line and pack in to see something and then wait in line again every time you wanted a corn dog or to take a pee?

People do it. Not for me. Seriously, I’ll skip my own funeral if there isn’t spacious seating and parking right out front.

Having said that, the weekend worked out just fine. We picked up Priscilla and cruised up to Tacoma on Saturday. We managed to catch a nice set at the church before heading back to the main room at the hotel. We saw some more great music before we went to dinner and met Aunties and Uncle and then Bob and I managed 3 more sets before we staggered to our lodgings in Fife. We met the family again for a terrific breakfast, hit the road and were home in the afternoon. I even did some yardwork in the late afternoon sunshine.

Bluegrass does a body good.

Also in all the activity this week, I never got around to my review of the show Saturday night so this will be a half-baked commentary.

The setlist is here.. He played pretty much everything I would have hoped for in the time space allotted. I could not have been more thrilled with any live show anywhere.

Paul’s audience, I kid you not, was about 10 guys to 1 girl. No wonder he doesn’t tour more. When I told Bob that Paul was coming to town he said, “Is he going to finish the songs?” and I chided him for slamming my guy. I sort of chuckled when Paul didn’t finish a song the first time. I stopped counting at 7. So Bob was right, big deal. Bob’s bands play one song for like a whole hour. Why is that so much better?

At one point Paul says, “Do you want to hear a Dylan song or Kiss Me On the Bus?”

I’m drawing a blank here. Too much stuff for one week. It was a great show. Every minute of it.

On Tuesday I slept in as best I could and dragged my sorry ass to the new office where it took me 6 hours to file some documents in tribal court because first I had to dig out of my temporary office so that I could move around and find things. Then I had to find the documents. Then I had to set up my old stand alone computer and printer. (We’re not on the network yet and don’t have voicemail — this whole transition could probably have been handled better but we’re there now so we’re all dealing.) Then I had to find envelopes. Then I had to find a stapler. You know the aftermath of moving is always chaos until you can get everything organized.

I should also probably mention that, so far, the new firm is super fantastic and everyone has been friendly and helpful. And here’s an advantage to the move: there are other people to take care of things. I don’t have to do all the problem solving. This is fantastic.

I left early (4pm) because I was still so tired I couldn’t think straight. I slept about 11 hours. Weds and Thurs were long days. I’m still adapting to it all.

I don’t have paid parking downtown anymore so at present I’m driving to the park and ride and taking the light rail (yellow line). It’s not a big deal but it’s a major pain in the ass to get used to a whole new routine. The ride there has taken shorter than expected (usually 45 mins. door to door) but the ride home has taken longer than expected– usually a full hour. I’m still figuring it all out.

It’s amazing how a major disrupt to the routine has impacted my entire existence. A routine is something you don’t have to think about. So all this new stuff is occupying more of my limited brain bandwidth so I ended up forgetting all sorts of loose end, misplacing things and flaking out on stuff. And having all these oddball anxieties like opening a drawer in the morning and thinking, “OMIGOD, I must replace all of my underwear.”

Today is the first day in about 2 weeks where I don’t have to do anything or be anywhere. (Well, I scheduled a massage, but that’s hardly onerous.) I need to get my act together but the couch is so inviting and I have fresh Buffy…

Tomorrow. Tacoma. Wintergrass.