Alice and the baby went to bed early last night

Alice and the baby went to bed early last night, so I had a few minutes to slog away at the book. I got a couple of paragraphs out--they're still very rough--but here they are:

I seem to recall his name began with a Thom, something along the lines of Mister Thomas or Mister Thompson or maybe it was Mister Thomason but it did at any rate begin with a Thom I am almost certain, and while I may not be able to recollect exactly his name it was, to be fair, something like at least twenty-five years ago not to mention the fact he was of that particular breed of high school teacher that is not terribly blessed with much in the way of a memorable personality or a memorable style, the type mostly remembered by former students as “that teacher with the bad comb-over and the ties that were too narrow (or wide, depending on what decade you attended high school), now what was his name exactly?”, I do recall with quite some clarity the fact as relayed by Mister Thom-whatever with the bad combover and the ties that were far too narrow for the late nineteen-seventies during ninth grade Physical Science class that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. I also recall with quite some clarity that the desktops in Mister Thom’s classroom, being pretty much like the desktops in most every classroom at the Clyde Roark Hoey Senior High School were made of in the majority some sort of softish composite-type material that wasn’t quite as soft as masonite but was a good bit softer than any product designed be used five days a week for thirty-six weeks out of each year for an estimated economic lifetime of ten to twelve years by fifteen to eighteen year old boys and girls who would much rather be just about any other place doing just about any other thing had any right to be, with a laminated top and bottom of what was back then still called Formica and I suppose the reason this particular construction type had come to replace the wooden desks I recalled from my junior high school and elementary school experience was the near indestructibility and graffiti-repellant nature of that Formica top given the fact that I had been near about but not entirely unable to find any place suitable to carve my very own initials on my last junior high school desktop given the veritable Woodward County history of initials already carved in its top by generations of thirteen and fourteen year old boys and girls, rendering the desk just the other side of useless for its given purpose, namely providing a surface upon which to write, without placing a book or something with some substance and a smooth finish under the paper to provide some sort of surface that was in fact suitable for writing upon, and desks are after all not meant to be sub floors. But the soft-ish composite-type material that was sandwiched between the nearly indestructible Formica top, which I believe had some sort of pattern of soft grayish lines or maybe it was a grayish non-symmetrical grid work on it I can’t quite recall, and a Formica bottom which I don’t recall actually ever examining the aesthetic nature of was, as I have said, far softer than it had any right to be and could, with a straightened out paper clip or the tip of a ballpoint pen or number two pencil in a pinch, be bored into without too much of an effort, could in fact be outright tunneled through, and it was in this pursuit rather than anything even remotely scholarly I was engaged when I heard for the very first time ever the fact that matter could not in fact be neither created nor destroyed.

I do remember a fair number of other things I was taught at the Clyde Roark Hoey Senior High School, like the fact that mitosis is the quantitative and qualitative division of the nucleus of a cell or the fact that the eyeglass sign of Doctor Eckles was not a sign at all but in fact a literary device although I didn’t learn the fact that Nick was of the homosexual persuasion until a dinner party just this past year, a fact I cannot feel all that much foolish for not having picked up on my own since I’m not entirely sure I was entirely aware of the very concept of homosexuality during the ninth grade in Woodward County, or the fact that Governor Clyde Roark Hoey was the handpicked successor and brother-in-law to boot of Governor O. Max Gardner and that during his four year term he gave a speech somewhere in the state of North Carolina on an average of every 2 days, but none of those other facts have the sheer adaptability of the fact that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. By this I mean not that the actual fact that matter can neither be created nor destroyed is adaptable because facts are, after all, facts and therefore pretty much fixed which is what makes them facts I suppose, but that the very way this fact was constructed and presented is, in fact, supremely adaptable because I have found that you can replace the word “matter” with just about any noun of your choosing and add the implied “merely redistributed” to the end and in doing so you are likely to end up with an entirely new and entirely plausible axiom, although I will confess it tends to work better with your more conceptual type of a noun like liberty or honor or pride than your more concrete type of a noun like spoon or pillow or citizens band radio which makes sense given that matter is itself one of your if not conceptual then at least non-specific types of a noun. Some of my favorite adaptations include the fact that unpleasant smells can neither be created nor destroyed, merely redistributed as anyone who has ever finally tracked down that foul smell in the kitchen to the decomposing chunk of god only knows what too gristly to be disposed of by the disposal and then disposed of it only to find that that particular odor was masking the smell coming from one of the containers of leftovers that has been in the refrigerator since god only knows when which, upon its proper direct removal to the outside trash can reveals the fact that the litter box should have been changed at least two days ago can attest to, and the fact that the fact that the I-III-V chord progression can neither be created nor destroyed, merely redistributed, as anyone who has ever listened to “Louie, Louie” by the Kingsmen (I-I-I-III-III-V-V-V-III-III), “All Day and All of the Night” by the Kinks (I-III-III-I-I-V-V-V-III), or "I Can't Explain" by The Who (V-III-III-I-III-III) can fully attest.

-Andy

I'm blaming IHOP

I'm blaming IHOP, which may not be fair but it is where we ate lunch on Sunday. At any rate, I woke up feeling like shit yesterday morning. Dry heaves in the shower are never a good sign. I went on in to work anyway, but by noon it was apparent that that was a bad idea. So I drove back home, turned off the phone, and crawled into bed.

Alice got home about 6:30 and woke me up to force feed me some Tylenol and ginger ale. The next time I woke up was at 6:00 this morning. I felt like a new man.

It's amazing what 17 straight hours of sleep will do for you.

-Andy

I have to tell this story at every party I go to

I have to tell this story at every party I go to, so I guess I'll share it here. In 1985 we had just released our second album and it wasn't doing very well (neither had the first). So the label decided that to get our name out there they would put us on tour supporting their Big Name Act. Now if you listened to college radio or watched 120 Minutes on MTV in the late '80's or early '90's you'll know who Big Name Act is, but to protect the innocent I shall refer to them here simply as Big Name Act.

So Big Name Act was embarking on a national summer tour, playing 2,000-3,000 seat venues in college towns, mostly. We were booked on for the East Coast leg of the tour, forty shows in fifty days. A real grinder. We met Big Name Act for the first time before the first show and they were very nice to us, offered to let us sleep on their bus--just nice guys. Looked like it was going to be fun.

That first show was in Chapel Hill--our hometown--and we went out there and just absolutely killed. It was one of those nights where everything went perfect. To be fair, we had been gigging three or four times a week for the past two years and we were tight. But that night we were awesome--and the crowd knew it and appreciated it. Now it sucks, as a band, to have to follow something like that. But it's even worse when, as was the case for Big Name Act, it's your first show in five or six months and your chops are rusty and you haven't really practiced enough. Man did they blow. People walked out, they were so bad.

They weren't as nice after the show. The next night was in Raleigh at the Rialto, and the same thing happened--we killed, they blew. They barely spoke to us after the show. The next night was Winston-Salem and the same thing happened--although they were getting better with practice. The next night was Charlotte and they were on their game by then (I suspect they had spent the afternoon practicing), but we were still in "our" neighborhood, and we still got a better response than they did.

The Charlotte show is where things went from frosty to nasty between us and Big Name Act. Weird shit started happening, like our guitars would go out of tune backstage. Labels on the soundboard would get changed between soundcheck and curtain up. Mult boxes would get unplugged during our set. Stagehands would disappear when it was time to load our stuff in or out. That kind of shit.

Two or three weeks of this pass and we're just sick of it. Now one of the things we had noticed early on was that Big Name Act played the same set every night. To this day I don't think highly of bands that do that. Sure, you've got a set list when you go on, but you've got to change things up if it's not working--give the audience what it wants. If downtempo is bombing--drop it. If the crowd wants speed, give 'em speed. And if no matter what you do it doesn't work, there's always "Freebird". But Big Name Act played the same list every night, no deviation whatsoever. Even the between-song patter was the same.

We got to Tampa with a three day break before the next show. Once we'd gotten out of the Carolinas/Georgia nobody really knew who we were and we weren't getting a great response. So we figured we should probably liven things up by picking up a few semi-obscure cover tunes we could sprinkle into the set. So we rented a rehearsal space to teach ourselves a few new songs--"Calling Doctor Love" by Kiss, the "Speed Racer" theme song, "Rain" by The Beatles, and "I'm A Boy" by The Who. About halfway through the rehearsal, Jess started playing the chords from Big Name Act's opening song. I picked up the bass line, and Jason jumped in on the drums. It was rough, but it was passable. All at once we all looked at each other and said "We're going to learn their set!"

So we raced to a record store and bought all of Big Name Act's records. And then spent the next two days learning their set--down to the patter. And then went out the next show and played their set--or at least the first forty-five minutes of it. When they came on they had no choice but to play exactly what we had just played because that's all they knew. And they were so rattled that not only did they have to repeat what we had just done, they sucked while they were doing it.

To say they were furious was an understatement. They wanted us off the tour immediately, threatened to sue us, the label was apoplectic, yadda yadda. We would have been happy to leave the tour right then, but it took our managers and the promoters and the lawyers about a week to get it all worked out. And so for the next five shows we went out every night and played their set. They tried mixing it up--pulling in different songs, but were so off their rhythm that they got worse every night.

It was all over the trades, and it pretty much killed us. But that was okay, because we'd all pretty much decided it was time to enter the real world anyway. Jess went to law school, Jason went to work for his dad's accounting firm, and I turned my part-time guitar brokering business into a full time job. It was the worst but most satisfying career move I've ever made.

-Andy

I had meetings in Greenville all day

I had meetings in Greenville all day today, so I didn't drive down to the plant this morning. So instead of drinking it in the car, I had my morning cup of coffee sitting at the kitchen table catching up on the overnight e-mails. And, not used to drinking my cup of coffee out of a mug that doesn't have a lid, I managed to pour it all over my white shirt. So I went upstairs and changed my shirt. On my way out the door I selected a pen out of the case (a 1936 silver pearl Parker Vacumatic) and clipped it to my shirt. Apparently the cap wasn't screwed all the way on, because as I got into the car I felt the barrel fall into my shirt. By the time I fished it out, there were several large ink spots. So I ran back into the house, went back upstairs and put on shirt number three.

We had lunch at Atlanta Bread Company downtown, where I managed to spill soup all over the front of my shirt. Which necessitated a quick trip to the car for the emergency white shirt I keep in the trunk.

Four shirts in one day. A new personal best!

-Andy

Back to the test Dennys in running in Houston

Back to the test Dennys is running in Houston. Alice is leaving next Wednesday (she's staying at the Hyatt downtown, not the Holiday Inn) and will be gone until late Sunday. This will be the first time she's left the baby, and the first time I'll be left alone with the baby. I'm not sure which one of us is more freaked out.

Now I'm already "the baby wants you" parent, so crying and puking and poop don't really worry me that much. Having no support system, nobody to "hey, watch her for a second, will you?" around does. I'll probably puss out and ask Dad and Bonnie to come down for the weekend--I not only won't have to take care of the baby while they're here, Bonnie probably won't let me within ten feet of her. She's the uber-grandmother. Dad and I can sit on the couch and watch football and drink beer like there's not even a baby in the house. And that does appeal.

How on God's green earth do single parents do it?

-Andy

About a year ago I got the Audi airborne by accident

About a year ago I got the Audi airborne by accident. Jeremy from the warehouse was getting married and I was on my way to the church (and running late) when I took a railroad crossing too fast and got the front end of the car airborne. There were no warning signs about the railroad crossing being dangerous like "no gooseneck trailers" or anything, but as I crested it I saw it drop off suddenly on the other side and I knew I was in trouble. The car came crashing back down and I knew it was not going to be good.

Sure enough, within five seconds the oil warning lamp came on and I coasted into a convenience store parking lot. I got out and got down on my hands and knees to look under the car. The oil pan was completely gone--I ripped that sucker all the way off. So I called the Audi 800 number, and waited about an hour for a tow truck to come pick me up. Enough people from the plant passed me and stopped to see if I needed help that by Monday everyone knew what had happened. Suffice it to say I took some shit.

Apart from the oilpan the damage was relatively minor, but the car was in the shop for about a week waiting for parts to come in. The first day I had it back Bernard called me in the afternoon and said I'd better get out front quick and look at my car. I thought it had burst into flames or something, but when I got out there all the guys from the warehouse were standing around it and laughing their asses off over the confederate flag and "General Lee" they'd taped on the roof.

Things like that make you feel that you might be a pretty good boss.

-Andy

We played a lot of cards on the porch

We played a lot of cards on the porch after Fran came through Durham in '97. It came through Sunday night, and we didn't get the power back until Thursday. We slept through the storm itself, but when we woke up Monday and didn't have any power we weren't that surprised--we lost power every time it rained hard in that house. We didn't lose any trees or anything, and so when Alice's receptionist called and asked if she had to come to work Alice told her of course she did. We didn't realize how serious it was until I got in the car to go to work and couldn't find a radio station.

It was ungodly hot for October, so since we had a big front porch with rocking chairs and a swing Rob and Greg and Brian came over and we all sat on the porch and drank warm beer and played cards for the next few days. It was too hot to sleep upstairs in our bedroom, so we pulled our mattress down into the den and slept on the floor in there. The south side of town had power, so we went and ate at the Panda Inn buffet a bunch. The whole thing was kind of an adventure. We did lose the fish after a few days--didn't even think about the aerator not working. Felt kind of bad about that as all we would have had to do was change the water out.

Watching the news when we got the power back, a reporter on WRAL asked a power crew down from Ohio somewhere if they'd ever been to Raleigh before. When they responded in the negative, the reporter asked them what they thought about it. "It's tore up," the guy said. Brian, who still didn't have his power back, did the only honest-to-god spit take I've ever actually seen in person

We finally heard from Brian this evening. He moved to Biloxi about two years ago, and we've been worried about him. He's fine. When I asked him how his house was, he dead-pan told me "It's tore up."

-Andy

I really should sell the MG

I really should sell the MG. I mean, I haven't even turned the engine over in at least six months, let alone drive it anywhere. It just sits there in the garage under its shroud mocking me. I should probably at least try to fire it up this weekend. And I probably won't.

I used to love that car. A 1958 MGA, Healey blue, blue leather interior. Top down on a fall day, wind in your hair, downshift to brake, the sound and the smell of the engine...man I loved that car.

But the master cylinder needs replacing. Drove it to work one day and lost the brakes on the way home. You could pump the pedal a few times and get the pressure back, but it was more than a little unnerving. And my driveway is so steep, I got afraid I'd lose the brakes going down to the street. So I left it in the garage to fix one weekend. And I just never have got around to it.

Alice keeps bugging me to get rid of it. I could probably get $14-15,000 for it. It's a beaut. All it really needs is a seal kit on the master cylinder. But I haven't been willing to sell it, because I love it so much, and I haven't gotten around to fixing it because I'm afraid that if I do I won't love it as much anymore. I don't know what to do. So it'll probably sit there a while longer.

I probably could put the baby seat in it, but I doubt Alice would let me.

-Andy

Dennys is running a test in Houston next week

Dennys is running a test in Houston next week, so Alice is going down to observe. It's running at a store near Hobby Airport, and I didn't really want her staying out by Hobby--neighborhood is a little industrial/sketchy around there. She wanted to stay in the Galleria so she could go get her hair cut--she still hasn't found a hairdresser out here she likes, and so every time she goes to Houston on business she makes an appointment with Ferita at Visible Changes there in the Galleria. But I told her (she's almost retarded when it comes to directions/traffic/travel times) that the drive from the Galleria to Hobby could be not much fun, and that I thought she should look downtown.

So she told her corporate travel folks to put her someplace downtown, and they put her at the Holiday Inn Express right across from the Brown Convention Center. And that makes me uncomfortable, because they're using the Brown as a shelter for people displaced by Katrina. It makes me uncomfortable on several levels, actually. One, I'm a little worried about her safety, and two, I'm a little worried that I'm worried about her safety. I mean, this very weekend I was spouting off to my in-laws about how if the storm had been in Orange County, CA we would have seen a lot faster response, that nobody seemed (to me) to care very much about a bunch of poor black people in New Orleans. But I have to say, in all honesty, if they were using the Brown for refugees from Orange County I wouldn't be as worried.

Does that make me a bad person?

-Andy

A real quick story about Gladys down the block

A real quick story about Gladys down the block:

I'm not sure how old exactly Gladys was, but she was definately in the mid to high 90's. And right up until the day she died (massive heart attack) as healthy as a horse. Worked in the yard every day, did all her own cooking and housecleaning. A model specimen.

But about a year ago we invited her over to dinner, and she had to cancel because she was under the weather. Which was unusual. When she felt better a few days later we had that dinner, and she apologized profusely for having to cancel. "That's just not like me at all," she said. "I'm never sick."

She paused for a minute, and then said "No, that's not true. I got sick a year or so after brother came home from the war. But other than that, no problems."

I thought about it for a second and then asked her "would that be the Spanish Influenza of 1919 you're referring to?"

"Yep," she confirmed. "I got a little sick then."

-Andy

Gladys down the block died three months ago

Gladys down the block died three months ago. And last night her kids auctioned off everything left in the house. I bet there were three hundred people there--surprised the heck out of me. At any rate, I walked out the front door at about 7:00 to check on the sprinklers, and somebody had parked right in front of my driveway. They'd completely blocked it--no way to get out. And--with that morning's "dropping-of-the-baby" incident still fresh in my mind--this disturbed me. If I needed to get out, there was no way to do it.

I went back inside, and Alice--who was even more scarred by the "dropping-of-the-baby" incident--told me to call a wrecker company to have it towed immediately. But being a nice guy, I decided instead to walk over to Gladys's and ask the auctioneer to announce that the car needed to be moved. Which I did, and he did.

Ten minutes later the car was still there. So I walked back and asked the auctioneer to announce that if it wasn't moved, it would be towed. As I was walking back home I heard him announce it, and by the time I got back to the house this guy was fast-walking towards the offending car with his keys in his hand. "Sorry about that", I called, "but you've got my driveway completely blocked. I can't get out."

He turned to me, and gave me the finger. Gave me the finger! Next time I'll follow Alice's advice and just have it towed.

Actually, I probably won't.

-Andy

I've got this great nib

I've got this great nib. It came off a 1924 Parker Duofold Senior I bought for parts. It's a signature stub with a lot of flex--really rare on a stub and rarer still on a Duofold. And I really love writing with this nib. But I just can't find a pen for it. I put it in my best hard rubber Big Red Duofold, but I started using it too much and was risking a cap crack. So I put it in a Jade with average color, but that wasn't a good enough pen for this nib. I put it in a Thompson Mandarin replica my wife gave me several years ago, but it didn't seem right to put a nib that good in a replica. I put it in a nice black Permanite Duofold, but found myself leaving the pen in the case because black Duofolds are so boring.

So the nib is sitting in a drawer now--it's too dangerous for a mint pen and too good for an average pen. I should probably sell the damn thing.

-Andy

We took the baby to Savannah this past weekend

We took the baby to Savannah this past weekend to see the grandparents. Coming through Columbia on the way home we passed the worst AC Cobra replica I have ever seen. It was so bad that until I passed it and saw the grille I wasn't entirely sure what it was supposed to be a replica of. Calling this car a "replica" is actually a compliment--"crude pastiche" seems more appropriate. It looked like someone had taken a Cobra body and stretched it to make it fit a Ford F-150 chassis. The wheelbase was too long, the track was too wide, the wheelarches too blistered...it was horrible.

It truly offended me, this atrocious Cobra replica, and I said as much to Alice. Several times, in fact. There are so many "good" Cobra replica kits on the market, why on earth would someone design--much less buy--a bad one? When we went to China last year, there was a guy selling counterfeit Louis Vuitton bags around the corner from our hotel in Beijing for 40 yuan--about $5. Alice bought one that she swore would fool anyone, and I believe her because she's got an eye for that kind of stuff. But half of the bags even I could tell were knockoffs. But he was selling just as many of those as the "good" ones. Why?

I don't really have a point here, no insight that explains it all. I'm truly stumped.

-Andy

Alice dropped the baby this morning

Alice dropped the baby this morning. It was completely an accident--I mean, who drops a baby on purpose? She was wearing pants with cuffs that rise perfectly when she's wearing heels but without heels they're too long, and she was coming down the stairs without heels and she stumbled and dropped the baby on the landing.

She actually fell before the baby did, and by the time she actually dropped the baby the baby only fell about a foot. I was halfway to work and she called me frantically--"I dropped the baby!"--and the baby was screaming in the background and I turned the car around and made it back home in less than ten minutes.

By the time I got home the baby had stopped screaming. I couldn't feel any knots, see any bruises or red marks, and I moved all her limbs and got no complaints. Still, it was the first time we'd ever dropped the baby so we took her to the doctor. She was fine.

I told Alice in the car on the way back from the doctor, "you knew it would happen sooner or later. The baby had to get hurt sooner or later. Somebody had to drop her sooner or later. Every baby gets dropped at some point."

"I know," she sighed. "I just assumed you'd be the one to drop her."

To be honest, I had as well.

-Andy