Dwight

Wandered out to a Dwight Yoakam show Saturday night in Chattanooga.  First concert I've been to in a month of Sundays.  The changes in income somewhat whined about in previous posts have lead to that state of being.  But I've wanted to see Dwight in his own show for a while.  I've seen him twice before, once the part of a festival, and once sharing a bill with Willie Nelson.  Wanted to see a whole set from him...

He's got a hillbilly sound and a simple presentation that I enjoy.  He played some old favorites, and a couple new ones.  He encored with Suspicious Minds, which is a favorite song in general, and probably my favorite thing that he's covered. 

Dug the show.  Went with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew.

Had an interesting night after.  Tried to leave their house, only to find both headlights on the car burned out.  Rather than drive home with high-beams, I stayed the night at their house.  Was able to procure new bulbs on Sunday, which did the trick.  I was afraid that something bigger electrically might be awry.  But such is life on older cars......

Random Thoughts

 Random Thoughts, this Sunday the 17th.

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Today would have been my Dad's 73rd birthday.  If you've been reading, you can see that I miss him.  I can only think of the reams and reams of questions I'd like to ask him.

Foremost among them today:  Did you know what the fuck you were doing at 48?

I don't feel like it most days, here lately.

Sometimes I need to be reminded that we're all just bags of water with attitudes and varying degrees of self awareness, and the ones that think they know what they're doing and know what's going on are only deluding themselves.

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Old blog buddy Eric and his wife Fiona are taking a trip to see some Tennis this weekend.  It kinda hit home that Shyam and I haven't taken a trip in a couple of years.  Trying to save up some money, and possibly looking for some part time work in the fall.  Maybe we can change that up.  Even if were just a trip over to Fall Creek Falls or Cumberland Mountain for a cabin for a couple of nights.  

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I mowed yesterday, and then took myself to the movie Weapons.  And I dug it.

I don't want to talk about it too much, because I went into the thing cold, and that was the right way to do it....knowing only what the poster and previews had told me.

It's excellent, and doesn't find a moment to drag in its 129 minute or so run time  (a run time that made me leary for a horror flick.....it's tough for some flicks to maintain suspense and atmosphere for 90 minutes, let alone longer than 2 hours.

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Ranking the Zero Sugar Root beers I've tried in the last few weeks.

Prior to July, I'd only ever tried one zero sugar root beer: A&W.  Which I didn't care for back in the day.  But, when they had a sale on Coke products at Food City, I grabbed a 12-pack of Barq's Zero Sugar, and said that if I didn't care for it, I'd leave it in the cooler at the vats, and let anybody who wanted them have them.

Turns out I liked it.

And I've gone on a minor tasting spree. 

So far, I've only tried 4, 3 of them new.  I retried A&W, which is the only one you can find in 20 ounce bottles, that I've seen.

Anyway:

1.  Barq's.    Delightful.

2. IBC.   Quite good...in fact, were I to blind taste test, it may come that I like it better than Barq's, but it comes pricy in the 4-pack bottles.

3.  Mug.   Good, but not as strong a flavor.  Tastes almost watered down compared to the previous two.

4.  A&W.  It's not horrible, but it's got a medicine-y aftertaste that the first 3 do not.  Now, it's more convenient, because you can't find the other 3 in 20 ounce bottles at your local inconvenience store.  But it's not great. 

Maybe that comes as a surprise, as online, it's constantly rated best.  But those people rating it are wrong, and are probably on the payroll of Big A&W.

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Speaking of Root Beer, I'm up to 11/22/63 in my chronological read-through of Stephen King's work.  This one was a high-water work, and I was really looking forward to it.

So far?  Jake's going back for a Root Beer in 1958 caught my eye.

Also, Jake's a little too gung ho for going back and time and stopping the Kennedy assassination, for my money, but it's still fun......

1.

Cubs

It used to be a pretty regular topic on the blogamathing.

They lost 3-2 to the Pirates yesterday. 

They're 15 games over .500.

That's where they were after 71 games.

That's about where they'll stay. For the next 6 weeks,  I think. 

Unless the stars align,  and Kyle Tucker finds his groove again.   He's the lynchpin.  He's what keeps everybody else from having to perform outside their role. 

The pitching has been good enough.   I'd have liked them to have grabbed one more quality starter at the trade deadline.   Horton,  Boyd, Shota and even Rea were top notch this week.   MacKenzie Gore wouldn't have made a difference if you aren't scoring for him. 

I hope Owen Caissie is worth it.   They didn't want to give him up.   He's highly rated.   I just see a guy who's gonna hit 25 homers and strike out 180 times.   Hopefully I'm wrong. 

It's been a weird summer.  The Cubs doing well was a nice spot.  And it still is,  I guess.   .500 ball since mid- June just doesn't feel the same.  Especially against the Brewers playing almost .800 ball during the same stretch......

Anyway.   Just down that they lost.   

(I'm 48!)

Reading recommendation: When the Clock Broke

Finished this one this past weekend.   Ganz is part of the Unclear and Present Danger podcast with Jamelle Bouie, a frequent but not quite regular podcast listen of mine.   Bouie is one of my favorite writers.... commentators.... thinkers out there.   But in listening to the podcast,  I've come to like where Ganz comes from by way of thought. 

I'd been on the lookout for this one since it released last summer, and was happy to find it on sale on Audible. 

A bit of an answer,  thirty years years after the fact,  to Francis Fukuyama's End of History,  and an unintentional companion to Chuck Klosterman's book The Nineties,  it follows a handful of media and political figures who rose to prominence and perhaps infamy in the early 90s, as the world wandered through Desert Storm, the economic downturn,  the L.A. Riots and the 1992 presidential election and beyond. 

The sections on David Duke and Pat Buchanan were my favorites for underlining the growing power and voice of those who felt underserved by the political establishment.   The same goes for the history and candidacy of H. Ross Perot, in what was maybe the most enlightening part of the book.... despite being 15 and then 19 for his runs, i realized i knew very little about Perot's history. 

Other names that popped to the forefront: Gates, Sister Souljah....Ice Cube.

The section on Ruby Ridge,  and the up close look at a family that lost faith in the American system was actually chilling.....

Strong read.   Especially for those of us who lived through these events,  but still look around and wonder how the hell we got into this handbasket.....

Strong read,  with a lot of good for thought.   I recommend.

Dreams

 I forget where I read it, but there's somebody out there who once said something along the lines that there's nothing more insufferable than listening to someone describe their dream.

George Carlin?  Harlan Ellison?  Maybe somebody more contemporary like Bill Maher?  

I don't remember.  And I guess I don't care because I'm going to use the little bit of time I dedicate to the blogamathing to describing a dream I had the other morning.

And I say "the other morning" because it came in a brief snooze after Shyam got up at her (our) regular time of 5:30 or so.  I'd stayed up a little longer the previous night, and we didn't have anything pressing at the business that needed my attention, so she invited me to stay in bed.  This'll happen every now and then, and most of the time, I recognize that I'm awake and just get up.  Sometimes I'll try sleeping in, and I end up just fucking around on my phone.  But yesterday?  My happy ass just fell right to sleep again.

But it wasn't for long.  Another 30 minutes, 40 tops.

In that little bit of time, I fell into a weird dream.

It starts at my childhood friend Lindsey's house.  We had many a sleepover at his house growing up, usually everybody piling into his family's living room.

And we were there.  Tregg.  Matthew.  Jeremy.  But there were also several members of the group we did Cons with in the late 90's and early 2000s.  My buddy Steven.  the Bills.  Shyam and Diane were there.  And we were all waiting for my friend Stephanie from high school, to celebrate her birthday.

And in the dream, the phone keeps ringing, and I pick it up, and it's my Dad.  "Hey, bud," he says.  "Just wanted to see what you were doing," he says.

"Just hanging out at Lindsey's," I say.  There's a little more small conversation, and then he says "he's gotta go" and like that he's gone.  I remember asking him not to go, and I woke up with the words "I miss you" on my lips.

Just a dream, I suppose.  But it's messed with my mind for about 30 hours now.

I do miss him.  But I don't know where this one came from, out of the blue like it did.  Dad's been gone 8 years, this past spring.  Two Summer Olympiads, One Pandemic and 8 years of the most ridiculous political environment you can imagine.  I think about it a couple times a week that I'd like to talk to him, just to hear what he thought about stuff.....

Anyway.  There's your boring dream post.  Sorry George, or Harlan, or whomever.....

Tree Frog