Mutterings to Sing ... or whatever

What a day. I need a kick in the butt. I don't feel like postin' nothin'. And it's usually when I start a post like that when something rolls outta me, through the fingers, and onto the screen. Anything now? Hmmmm.... Clinton, Obama, Wyoming, do-overs in Michigan and Florida?!?! -- yada yada yada. Saturday Night Live -- HA! Amy Adams is great but the show itself, eh. First time I've watched this much SNL since ... beats me ... maybe once all of last season. Can't believe I've been watching it for, holy cow, long time. No show I've been watching longer... from "I'm Gumby, Dammit!" to "Tim Calhoun for President of America." Yup. Long time.

But now time for...

Unconscious Mutterings

a free association game -- I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Homicide :: TV show filmed in Baltimore several years back ... Richard Belzer played Detective Munch ... the same character he now plays on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

2. Divisive :: Not getting along, does not play well with others, argues consistently, does not wish to seek common ground... your average everyday extreme left-wing liberal who believes all Republicans are wrong and who does not wish to give an inch in order to see America go all Democrat while conservative thinkers are banished from the land.

3. Flash :: Gordon ... the movie sprang to mind, haven't seen it in ages, from the early 80's.

4. Steaming :: pile of ... let's just say manure.

5. Crunch :: snap, krackle, and pop ... not the same cereal. Isn't there a Captain Crunch cereal? Yes, there is, I remember now... but I never get that one.

6. Look out! :: below!!! ... something's falling, you might get squashed!!!! Oh, sorry about that, the piano was just too heavy for me alone. Duh, I should have known that. Hope you're not dead. You're not dead are you? So sorry, my bad.

7. Anticipating :: the return of a soldier from Iraq or Afghanistan ... I'm not but many, many people are anticipating someone's return ... but first they need to succeed in their mission. To have them all leave before either is a stable nation would be a tragedy.

8. Slim :: Whitman? I could look it up and have a link but I won't ... maybe a country singer from when country was truly country? I'm not sure. NEXT!

9. Navel :: Officer ... HA! I didn't read it properly. Naval Officer isn't quite the same thing as a Navel Officer... I'm not even sure what one of those would be!

10. Help :: I need somebody, Help! ... When I was younger, so much younger than today ... come on, sing!

Let's Celebrate War!!!!

About two weeks ago, The Countertop Chronicles went to San Francisco. I think it was in a comment that someone left in his SF-related posts, the USS Pampanito (SS-383) was mentioned. It may have taken me awhile to git 'er done but reading that comment was my inspiration for posting up my two pics I took of that weapon of war. I've been to SF maybe a dozen times, for anywhere from a day to a couple months (lived on Judah Street for a very short while,) and out of all that time, I played tourist just once (rather than being a tourist, I'd rather just be.) The two pics below are from the remaining few dozen pictures that I have anymore.

Way before having a role in the film Down Periscope (1996 - starring Kelsey Grammar,) the Pampanito patrolled the Pacific Ocean while taking part in World War II. She sank and damaged several Japanese ships, including one "hell ship" carrying American and British POW's. Fortunately many were rescued and brought safely home.

Today the Balao-class sub is designated a National Historic Landmark.
At Fisherman's Wharf, she proudly serves as a museum...
a celebrated weapon of war in San Francisco!

USS Pampanito at Pier 45
with Alcatraz in the background (on the right)

click to see bigger, if you wish

once again, click to see bigger, if you'd like

some Santa Cruz JGB ... 25 Years Ago

Some sweet tunes for a Tuesday morning. No wait, it's Wednesday now, right? Yes, yesterday was the Super Tuesday 2 ... gettin' closer to havin' 1 Dem to face off with 1 Repub. Crap, man, we need another good school shooting or something so all this political junk won't be practically nonstop in the news every freakin' day. Maybe a bridge collapse or major plane crash ... something! Gruesome thought, huh? Yeah, just really sick and tired of seeing millions upon millions of dollars being spent to elect a new President. How self-centered is that?! Imagine, what Obama and Hillary and McCain $pent on their election$, and the million$ $pent on the failed bids to become the candidate, if all that was spent on charitable causes that actually helped people in dire situations... hmmmm... What a Wonderful World this could be. Well, at least a bit nicer than it is now. Instead we've got multi-million dollar two-year long campaigns to pick two people for President. Something just isn't right about that.

Oh well, in any case...
at least there's good music to play to take one's mind off it all...

Jerry Garcia Band March 5, 1983 Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium Santa Cruz, California

1st Set:	How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You), Catfish John,
	That's What Love Will Make You Do, Valerie-»
	Run For The Roses
2nd Set:	Mission In The Rain, The Harder They Come,
	The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,
	Dear Prudence-» Tangled Up In Blue

Nice show. This is a pretty fairly standard setlist and there's not much here that's incredibly spectacular... but the band is tight and the playin' is sweet. The fact that this is a soundboard makes it definitely worth listening to.

Source: Soundboard Master Cassette > DAT > CDR
•
Quality: there's a splice in Tangled that kind of hurts
but otherwise it's a nice recording;
not quite A+ ... but a good solid A, or at worst A-

Download the show right Here

JGB 3/5/83 Santa Cruz - 1st Set

Set 2 - Santa Cruz 3/5/83 JGB

3-5-83 aka 03-05-83 aka 3/5/83 aka 03/05/83 aka 83-03-05 320 kbps mp3 download and setlist

There are weird ideas ... and then there are weirder ones!

Music for a Tuesday afternoon.

Strange music for a Tuesday afternoon...

The Electronic

Tribute To

The Grateful Dead

(2002)

256 kbps	Electronic Tribute To The Grateful Dead
	· Truckin' -- J.P. Melen
	· Brokedown Palace -- Kinetika
	· Scarlet Begonias -- Jun Jun Clinic
	· Box Of Rain -- Galactic Achievement Society
	· Ripple -- Motor Industries
	· Cassidy -- Issa
	· Dark Star -- J.P. Melen
	· Friend Of The Devil -- Radha Kali
	· China Doll -- H-Hustler
	· Feel Like A Stranger -- J.P. Melen
A bluegrass tribute to the Grateful Dead and now this? When there are thousands upon thousands of hours of live Grateful Dead shows, plus a stack of studio albums that are good listening in their own right, concerning the listening of an album such as this, and/or GD cover songs, one question arises -- Why?! I've never heard of anyone on this album or on the GD bluegrass tribute album that I played not too long ago. I'm not even a huge bluegrass fan and I'm even less of a fan of this type of music. But I think for that one-word question there's a one-word answer that seems to work for me -- curiosity. That's about it. I'm not gonna question why it was made. It doesn't matter if they could have done a better job or should have used any different songs. It exists and curiosity's a part of human nature so I thought I'd check it out.

40 Years Ago ... Some Free Tunes On Haight

"LBJ IS LOOKIN' FOR PEACE!"
--anonymous crowd dude.

Grateful Dead - March 3, 1968
Haight Street
San Francisco, California

Viola Lee Blues, Smokestack Lightning,
Turn On Your Lovelight, It Hurts Me Too,
Cryptical Envelopment

It's amazing and kind of sad looking at all the dates the Dead played in '67 and '68 and knowing how few recordings there are from those two entire years. Some were made, some survived the decades ... and while they're not all stellar soundboard recordings, they are, for the most part, to be cherished because so wicked rare it seems each one is. This is one of those rare shows that we have from that incredible time in the history of early Dead. A full show, unfortunately, it isn't but still a tasty nugget to listen to. It might not be a soundboard but it sure sounds like one at times. Listening with headphones brings Phil right up front and allows the ears to better pick up everyone else, as well. Even listening with regular speakers, or semi-cheap computer speakers I've also noticed, the quality really ain't too bad... even better than some audience recordings of GD and Jerry shows in the 80's and 90's!

Here's a little somethin' from DeadLists:

Larry, an eyewitness writes: "i remember getting off the bus on haight street that spring day, pushing my way through the crowds to see what all the excitement was about (i didn't know- did anyone? -that the dead were parking a flat bed truck across haight street to play a free gig!) ...completely by accident, i got there (well, within a few hundred feet) just as they fired up the music... the bus came by and i was splattered like a bug on the windshield!!! ...the version of "dancing in the streets" (which, unfortunately, isn't on the tape) was not the "disco" version they came up with later, but a much stronger r&b/rocking tune... I never forgot that set"

And for furthur good reading check out the cool review of 3/3/68 that's posted @ Grateful Dead Listening Guide. There are a whole buncha really good reviews there worth reading (with links to downloads on Archive) so spend some time, enjoy!

3/3/68 Source:
Steve Brown's Master Audience Reel > DAT > CDR

(No soundboard exists)

Thank You, Steve!

Haight Street Dead 3/3/68 is @ Archive.org
for both listening & downloading

3-3-68 aka 03-03-68 aka 3/3/68 aka 03/03/68 aka 68-03-03 320 kbps mp3 download & setlist

Thanks to Mark for posting about this once upon a time...
and to (ariel) for her original pic of this unique (and official SFFD) stealie.

March Run #2

Too lazy to type about important stuff outside of exercise.
Well, at least I'm exercising.

Monday Morning Run: 17 minutes 49 seconds

+5 sec · indoors ·

XXXXXXXX+++++++ 33 sec +++++++XXXXXXXX

Run Time March: - 35 minutes February: 3 hours 11 minutes January: 2 hours 56 minutes

A splendid run. Yes, just splendid. Inching my way up to 18 minutes...
or should I say: seconding my way up.

Running tunes from
the album of the day...

Suzi Quatro

Rock Hard

1981





Rock Hard
Glad All Over
Love Is Ready
State Of Mind
Woman Cry
Lipstick
Hard Headed
Ego In The Night
Lonely In The Night
Lay Me Down
Wish Upon Me

Fascinating music from this rocker from Detroit, Michigan. Interestingly almost no one's heard of her! That's not entirely true... no one in America has heard of her! Shouldn't really say that... it's just that she's had next to no commercial success here in her very own country. Scored big in Portugal and Down Under... but not here. Very strange how that works for a few Americans. Her sound could be described kind of like Joan Jett and Lita Ford... also like cheesy 80's soundtrack music for a movie that has a Kenny Loggins song as the main theme. But while Joan Jett made it big here for awhile and Lita Ford, who knows what's happened to her but she had at least one popular song in the 80's, Suzi Quatro I had never even heard of until just recently and that was purely by accident. Apparently she's still rockin' in her 60's and has released quite a few albums. I'll probably never listen to her ever again but twas definitely interesting this one time.

128 kbps dload @ Walldill

muttering in sadness

it's March already. How'd that happen?!?!

Unconscious Mutterings

a free association game -- I say ... and you think ... ?

1. (it's at the end)

2. Poker :: game ... with gambling

3. Federal :: Government ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What a joke.

4. Mattress :: bed

5. Who am I? :: Who am I? I'm Batman.

6. Investigation :: FBI

7. In good hands :: safe

8. 8:30 :: p.m.

9. Creditors :: bad people? (beats me, i don't deal with any. i guess they don't have to be bad when they loan people money at decent rates and it's paid back on time.)

10. Resource :: Wikipedia ... whenever you need 100% accurate information! HAHAHA... It is a handy resource for when you want quick info and don't necessarily need it to be definitive... but then again many articles do have definitive sources... you're just a fool, though, if you believe beyond a shadow of a doubt everything you read on there.

1. Chemical :: Ali

... "harmless" Saddam Hussein (who the world should have removed from power years before the United States did) used Chemical Weapons AGAINST HIS VERY OWN CITIZENS and "Chemical Ali," Hussein's cousin, was in charge of the Chemical Weapons program at the time.

But Hussein should have been left alone, huh? Appease evil in the world? Allow it to do as it wishes? Always the right thing to do? Yeah, I'm pissed off we didn't leave Hitler alone. Someone needs to be impeached for that!!! (No, I'm not equating Hussein to Hitler, just saying Hitler never attacked the United States and he was a very bad man, you might say. Hussein was also a very bad man... but not a harmless little kitten who should have been left alone.)

Victims in Halabja, Iraq



of Saddam Hussein's use of

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Right now I absolutely cannot think of anything to type here

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Late Friday Run

Got all the way up to 5° (-15° C) today. Soon as the sun went down -- back into negativeland. Last day of February and we're most definitely still in fairly bitter coldness. The insane wicked cold is probably all gone... but we've got a lot of time ahead when it'll be below freezing, for the most part. My third Alaskan winter and I can't decide if I'm getting sick of it or not. I figured this would be my last Alaska winter before I head back to the seriously sickening Lower 48... but who knows. Maybe I'll take a road trip and see if I can find somewhere new to live... and then the idiocy that I hate about this great country will show itself to me and after I puke, right back to Alaska I'll go. We shall see.

At least I've got a couple gyms to use for running when the temperature is just too freakin' cold for trying to run outside. Almost didn't make it tonight. With the hours in the month running out fast, I HAD to get there tonight in order to push my February running time above January. That was my goal. But now that I'm back from the gym, showered, clean, resting, feeling good, I've got to wonder -- I had Friday off... why the heck did I wait until THE VERY LAST MINUTE to go!?!? The Rec Center at the University closed at 10. I got there at 9:40. Stoopid.

Friday Night Run: 17 minutes 41 seconds

+3 sec · indoors ·

XXXXXXXX+++++++ 00 sec +++++++XXXXXXXX

Run Time February: 3 hours 11 minutes January: 2 hours 56 minutes

Nice run. No need to elaborate... but I will... a little: not difficult, not easy. Twas just a decent run. Made it around and around on the track with no serious problems, no huffing and puffing at the end. When I got to my End Cue in the music, walked on feeling good, couple laps to cool down and return to normal, got to my towel and felt like I coulda ran some more. So the question is: why do I only add on such small times to each new Playlist for each run? The other day I went 19 minutes... yeah, broken up with rests in between running, but I can go longer. Might not be doing anything huge to progress towards being able to run a marathon, but the most important thing is I'm running and for my health, that's a great thing.

Running tunes from
the album of the day...

Aaron Shust

Anything Worth Saying

2005






Give Me Words
Glory To You
Matchless
Let The People Praise
Stillness (Speak To Me)
More Wonderful
Give It All Away
Change The Way
My Savior My God
Stand To Praise (Psalm 117)
In Your Name
One Day

Apparently at the 2007 Dove Awards, Aaron Shust was named Songwriter Of The Year (which is for music in 2006, right?) He also got Song Of The Year for My Savior My God. I'm not sure why but the Grammy Awards mean absolutely nothing to me, but the Dove Awards I'd give more credence to. I didn't know these facts about Shust before I started listening to this album, but... okay, cool, I guess.

The songs here all or mostly all fall into the category of praise and worship. And his sound ranges from a lighter more adult contemporary feel to edgier with more guitar, a sound more suited to the listener who doesn't want fluff. Fluff's okay when you want to fall asleep listening to something on a long flight or train ride, or when you have a headache, or your pastor's mom is in the car... but I like songs that you want to turn up loud, tunes that make you want to run faster, not music that's just... nice. Aaron Shust on this first album brings both which is welcomed. Sometimes you get all of one or all of another and even if it's great music, it can be rather monotonous. No sameness all the way through here -- just pretty good music that sings out loud the glory of God.

Couple reviews: Jesus freak Hideout & Christianity Today

128 kbps dload @ Música Cristã MP3