Cryin' Won't Help You, Prayin' Won't Do You No Good

I promised myself that no matter how busy I was today, that I'd get a blog post up at some point.  I wish I had something good in the 'draft' file, but the cupboard has been bare for some time.

However, that is about to change because lately the Muse has been singing her heart out. But I've been away from the computer for most of the week.  The other night I was killin' time in a coffee shop and ideas just started gushing so fast that I couldn't keep up.  Of course I didn't have my laptop with me, but I had a legal pad in my backpack and got two pages worth of scribbling done.  No coherent stories, but lots of ideas, a few smart turns of a phrase, and an overall vision for what I wanted to do.

And I realized that I actually have to write TWO books, not just one.  I had a flash of inspiration while reading one of my 'how-to' writing books, and everything just clicked.  Had I not been in public I would've just turned on the voice recorder, like a songwriter, and let 'er rip.  But I got some words on paper and we'll see where they take me over the next few months.

In the meantime, the chores of daily life continue apace.  I was actually off today, but I'm at the tail-end of a 20+ item to-do list, and I've got two hours till the next place I have to be.  So I'm holed up at a corner table at the Panera Bread in Brentwood, fully aware of the envious glances cast my way from those who would colonize the electrical outlet where the Hurricane Mikey flag is currently planted.

I got out of the house early today, hit the bank and the grocery store, then had my emissions check done on the Challenger.  After that I took a nice drive over to my favorite little town, Gallatin, to renew my tags.  Unlike the DMV in Henderson, where it is not only an all-day affair, they never even gave me a reach-around for the $900 a year I paid for the privilege of driving my truck on Nevada's roadways.  Here, I pull up to the drive through window--that had no line--gave the nice lady $75, and my car is fully legal once again to flex it's muscle on the back roads and freeways of Tennessee.

Once that chore was done, I drove over to the Dodge dealer to get the last of my severely-discounted oil changes and the 20,000 mile look-see.  Except for the huge pile of crusty bird poop on the satellite antenna, everything was in mint condition and the total cost of the check-up was about twelve bucks.  I was done much earlier than expected, and all of my automotive chores that I'd budgeted four hours for were finished inside of one.  What was I to do?  I had all kinds of time to kill.

So I drove down to Opry Mills and caught an early matinee of Silver Linings Playbook.  I'd been wanting to see it, but just never had the time until now.  And while I wasn't quite sure what to expect, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.  (It's always risky when the only people who recommend seeing it are women... I'm never quite sure if I'm gonna get suckered into a romantic comedy or costume drama).

After the movie, I got a bit of exercise by walking just over a mile around the mall.  I ended up at Bass Pro Shop, where I picked up some synthetic clothes for backpacking.  I've needed a long-sleeve shirt forever, because it seems that it's always too cold for a short sleeve t-shirt, but much too warm for a fleece jacket.  And I also got some convertible pants (the legs zip off and turn into cargo shorts), but the more I think about it, the more I realize that synthetic convertible pants are direct descendents of those silly zipper-covered parachute pants we all wore in the 80s.  And while I was tempted to go full-on MTV style and get the black ones, I went with a respectable and trail-friendly olive green instead.

The best part of the whole shopping experience was the simple fact that I didn't have to go to the Big & Tall store to buy new clothes.  Yes my friends, while I still have a way to go, I know longer have to give the rip-off artists at Casual Male and King Size Men another dollar.  I can now shop amongst the 'normal' folks.  And I can't believe how CHEAP clothes are for skinny people.  I was disciplined and only got a couple of things, but it was actually enjoyable to try on new clothes.  It was a momentous day for sure, and that's an essay for another day, too.

I was planning on going to Costco and picking up some non-perishables, but the check I deposited at the bank was larger-than-usual, so they put a 24-hour hold on my money, only letting me walk with two hundy.  So the Costco excursion has been delayed until further notice. 

I have another Meetup Group gathering to attend this evening, tonight it's the Tennessee Backpacker's Meetup.  It's not until 6:30, and it's way down here on the south side of town, so that's why I'm parked at Panera Bread this afternoon.  It's just not worth driving home thirty miles and then trying to come back through downtown in the height of rush hour.   So I'm kickin' it here enjoying half a steak and mushroom panini and getting full on iced-tea refills.

Tonight's meetup should be an interesting one--we're all bringing our trail stoves and cooksets to compare and compete.  Word around the campfire is that there is a contest to see who can boil water the fastest, but I'm more interested in finding decent meals I can pack that won't make me sick, but will still get me the nutrients I need.  I usually take in about 500-1000 calories a day, total, and when backpacking you burn about 8000 calories a day.  So I have a few more challenges ahead of me.  But I guess the takeaway is that if you really want to lose weight, just strap on a 35 lb backpack and walk 12 miles a day up and down hills...

I'm really liking these Meetup groups I'm a part of.  The writers groups are absolutely fantastic, it's like drinking from a firehose of knowledge and experience.  The hiking groups aren't quite as enjoyable as I'd hoped, only because of the subconscious competition that seems to go on whenever I go on a group hike.  Everyone wants to be the Alpha, and everyone wants to be the fastest. 

Not. For. Me.

I haven't given up on 'em yet, but I've scaled back on signing up for trips.  My new thing is to find out which trails they're doing, and then just go on them by myself at a different time. 

Regardless of the Meetup groups scheduling, I've still got three overnight trips planned between now and the end of April, and then at the end of May, I'm going to hike most of the Georgia portion of the Appalachian Trail with a friend of mine for about eight days.  At least that's the plan right now. Gonna go from Springer Mountain to Hiawassee, which off the top of my head I believe is around 65 miles.  That'll tell me what I'm made of.

If I don't find any inspiration, at least I'll have something to bitch about.

Mikey

Sorry, But I've Been Pretty Busy Lately

When I got back to blogging, I told myself that I'd like to do the way I did back in Vegas--going on binges and pounding the keyboard for hours on end, always having something in the hopper and always drawing on new ideas.

Unfortunately, real life has intervened with a never ending line of commitments and other projects, and a small bout of writers block hasn't helped either.  I've been putting in lots of overtime at work (even went in to the office on Saturday and stayed till about 6:00 pm), so financing my buffoonery has been taking the lions share of my time lately.

But I'm here at the computer all day today, so while you may not see the fruits of my labor immediately, trust me, I'm putting the time in.  My big project, a book, has got to be started, and while I know I can actually write a pretty good one, it's that second step in the journey of a thousand miles that nobody seems to want to talk about that's holding me up. I have a topic, I have some stories to tell.  What I don't have is cohesion and an overall vision.  And being a planner, it's tough to start on any project when you're not exactly sure where you're going or quite how you're going to get there.  I mean, I have an idea (Cold War propagandists would call it the 'Radiant Future'), but it's still kind of nebulous.

So in the meantime, I went out looking for help.  And to borrow a tortured metaphor from my past, I went all-in looking for help. My normal cranky muse (and I say that in the best way possible), Linda Lou, is not around to crack the whip on me every day-- her already-full plate is 1300 miles away and so I'm kind of out here dangling in the breeze.  Some folks would say that writing is a lonely endeavor, but if you want to get good at it, you need some feedback and encouragement from people more talented and experienced than you are, otherwise you're just hunkered down in a cabin somewhere vomiting up a 'manifesto' that nobody really cares about. 

It's also discouraging to work on something, post it up on the blog, and see it get ignored for days on end.  I'm all about the instant gratification, so when I get no comments, my particular demons tell me it's because my work sucks and nobody wants to read it.  Taking a year off, losing most of my audience, and not having any Vegas stories has nothing to do with it, I'm sure... So it can be a never-ending downward spiral of procrastination and apathy.  But that is over.  This book ain't gonna write itself, so even if I have to lock myself in a hotel room for a month and type All work and no play makes Mikey something something over and over again, I'm going to overcome the inertia of sitting around not writing.

So what have I done so far, you ask?

Well, first of all, I joined the Nashville Writers Meetup group.  I figured out a long time ago that the path to success is to surround yourself with people better at you in whatever activity you wish to improve upon.  You want to be a better musician? Hang around with talented musicians.  You want to be a better options trader?  Hang around with the experts.  You want to be a better writer?  Go to where the writers congregate.  And yeah, sometimes that means I have to swallow my pride and hang out in trendy coffee-houses populated with hipster-douches in skinny jeans and nerd glasses, but that's where the writers seem to be found.

Of course, I'm over-generalizing there--they can be found at Panera bread, too!  In the past month I've been to three or four different meetings, and so far, it's been a totally positive experience, regardless of venue.  We've actually met in the conference room at a lawyers office, coffee shops, and a couple of restaurants.

The best part is that not only are there groups for writing in general, but then there are meetups that are more specialized.  When I was attending the Henderson Writers Group with Linda Lou a few years ago, my biggest gripe was the never-ending parade of suck that came with listening to an endless barrage of drivel about vampires and dragons.  Oh dear god, just kill me now.

Wait.  What I meant to say was, hey, if you're into that, bless your heart.  Just keep it away from me.  Basically, I had to go to these readings, and if I wanted to present anything, I had to listen to everyone else's material too.  Now, some of the time, there was some real brilliance to be had--I believe Linda Lou presented her entire first book to the Henderson Writers Group in chunks over the course of a couple of years and had it critiqued and deconstructed.  On the other hand, it's hard to offer any kind of constructive feedback when the subject matter is nothing that I'm remotely interested in reading.  Then couple that with truly painful storytelling and character development, and well, it's a recipe for me paying my dues at the first meeting and skipping out on future meetings depending on the email I'd get listing that month's presenters.

But here in Nashville, they've got it broken down all kinds of ways.  I've been to groups discussing the 'craft' of writing, along with groups whose interests lie in non-fiction and personal essays.  My favorite thus far has been the memoirs group, and I've managed to take away some great tips and suggestions from each group, all without having to suffer through another juvenile 'fantasy' reading.

Participation has also introduced me to some truly gifted people, and of course I'm picking their brains and having them look over my stuff, too.  I've already met Linda Lou's younger sister--she sat next to me one night in the conference room at the lawyers office.  I shared my old Asteroids essay, and she wrote an entertaining piece about her sister's wedding.  Hell, she even blogs and does stand-up comedy, too.   Chatting with her helps get my brain in the right place.

And last Sunday, while I was sitting in the upper loft of Portland Brew East, being self conscious of being the only person there without a Macbook Air, I met another lady who I'd otherwise have absolutely nothing in common with, but the essay she shared hit me like a ton of bricks.  Not wanting to let an opportunity pass, I've already gotten her to agree to let me use it as the foreword for my own project.   Yes, it was that good.

In addition to the meetup groups that are helping me along, I've picked up a few other references over the course of the past few months to help me overcome some of my self-imposed hurdles to creativity.  I've got books dealing with the nuts and bolts of writing non-fiction, creating a memoir, and telling better stories.  I carry them around with me in my backpack wherever I go, and if I'm not out walking around the office park on my lunch hour, I'm reading and trying to learn.

Lastly, I put up a financial investment.  Years ago my dad turned me onto something called The Great Courses, and it's basically college-level classes on a myriad of interesting subjects, 24 lectures to a set, all on DVD.  He's raved about them for a long time, and somehow their catalog found it's way into my mailbox last month.  From there, it found it's way to the shelf above my toilet, so eventually I found myself browsing through it.  I couldn't help but be intrigued, and last week I finally coughed up the scratch and ordered four of their courses: 

• Analysis and Critique
• Building Great Sentences
• Writing Creative Nonfiction
• Understanding the Fundamentals of Music

Yeah, that last one I got just because I want to attempt to make music 'click' for me, something that hasn't happened in all my years of trying. But the other three courses represent knowledge that I'm sure I'll need once I put fingers to keyboard.

I will say, however, I'm not a total neophyte at this.  I know I have a small bit of talent for writing, and I'm amazed at how much I've retained from my freshman composition class at Ricks College that I took in January of 1988.  I couldn't appreciate it at the time, but I had an amazing teacher. That shiat stuck with me for all these years, and I'm still using it today.

But that's where I'm at.  My main priority is writing this book, finally.  I know that this blog will suffer because of it, and I may even lose more of my dwindling audience.  But hey, stick with me.  It'll all pay off in a couple of years.

In the meantime, I'll be busy figuring out how to approach step two.

Mikey

While I'm Out In This Tent With These Freaks and Musicians

Sometimes, it pays to be in the right place at the right time.  Actually, I'm betting it always pays to be there, but it's such rarity for me that I'll just enjoy it when the occasion comes along.

Earlier, this week I was miserably sick, which is usually a big pain in the ass, but it kept me home in bed for a few days instead of actually, you know, working.  And since I wasn't working, I was goofing off on Facebook, which is almost impossible while I'm at the office.

Anyhow, like most people do, I follow one of my all-time favorite musicians, Todd Snider, and keep an eye on his posts, hoping for early info on concert dates, new albums, and stuff like that.

A lot of you may have never heard of him, and that's understandable--I didn't hear about him until about four or five years ago.  While I was living out in Las Vegas, my sister Amy made me a modern-day mix tape, basically a CD of a bunch of stuff that she liked that she thought I might like also.  In fact, at the time, I think I wrote a post about it--the CD was called Hello CD Listeners (Check out the archives for March 2008, 'The Tom Petty Reference' for the full story).  Anyhow, the first song on the disc was Todd Snider singing Vinyl Records, which was not only a great song, but it cracked me up.





Hope you enjoyed it, but that's just a taste of his collection. Not only does he write fun songs, his live shows are great because of the stories he tells between numbers--they are sometimes the most memorable part and always good for a laugh. 

I had the opportunity to see him live at the Ryman Auditorium last fall, and if you ever have the opportunity to see a show at the Mother Church, please take advantage of it--unless you have the misfortune of sitting under the balcony, it is one of the greatest places in the world to see a live show.  Words can't quite describe the coolness factor, and for an old-school venue, the acoustics are excellent, and most of the seats are fantastic--I've yet to have a bad one for any of the shows I've been to.

Anyhow, after finally being able to see him do a live show, I was hooked.  I had so much fun and was amazed at how good of an entertainer he is.  Some people have a real talent for it, and others, while being great artists in their own right, either don't care or never really learned the craft of entertaining.  Hell, Bob Dylan is one of American music's greatest songwriters ever, but if I paid a few hundred dollars to see him sit on a bar stool for two hours, never looking up, never engaging the audience, just working through his songlist, I'd be pissed.  But Todd Snider, he knows how to entertain--those of you who've been to a Bruce Springsteen concert will understand.  He's got a reputation for putting on high-energy shows where everyone in the audience has a great time.  Eddie Vedder and Bono are supremely talented, but I don't want to pay to get preached to--I come to see them sing, not pontificate.  But that's a whole different rant I guess.  My point is, some artists have really embraced the performing-for-an-audience gene, and Todd Snider is one of them.  It would be well worth your time to familiarize yourself with his music and go see him next time he comes to your town.

Point is, I'm a huge fan.

So when I saw on his Facebook feed that he said he'd be playing a semi-impromptu gig at Drifter's BBQ in east Nashville the next night, I was all in!  A few weeks ago, he put the word out that he'd be doing an open rehearsal in town and everyone was invited, and it turned out that it was in that very same rehearsal space that I wrote about a few posts back--he was there the night before we were and only about fifty people showed up.  Up until then, I'd never been to that place, so I had no idea what he meant when he said he'd be at 'the big purple across from the red door'.  Of course, I found out when Scottie and the guys were doing their Geek Jam practice and the sound guy told us that Todd Snider had been there the night before.

WTF?

Yeah, we were all a little pissed that we'd missed it, but at least now I know.  I already knew that the guy lived, and drank, in East Nashville, so when he's not touring, he's just hanging around his neighborhood like a normal guy.

Speaking of East Nashville, for those of you who aren't familiar, I guess a few details are in order.  I actually lived in 'East Nasty' eight years ago, just before I moved out to Vegas.  Back then it wasn't nearly as hip or as trendy as it is now.  It was pure ghetto.  And old.  It's across the Cumberland river from downtown, so the running joke about going there is 'over the river and through the hood'.  It's come a long ways since then, and although it doesn't have the upper-middle class cache that Franklin and West Nashville have, the wannabe hipsters that infest the place are just fine with it.  All the tourists hang out on Broadway and Second Avenue downtown.  East Nashville is where the real people live.  Especially if 'real' means having a neck beard and 60's nerd glasses, wearing a beanie hat 24/7, you like to be seen drinking tallboy cans of PBR, and never did quite made it to Austin... (Sorry if that last bit sounds snarky, but all seeing all of these stubborn individualists trying to look exactly the same cracks me up)

Most every place you want to go is within a block or two of Five Points--lots of bars and restaurants and such, and maybe my next post will be about the Vodka of Doom we had at Mad Donna's, also in the area.  But if you ignore the hipster d-bags, there is a lot of coolness to be found in the neighborhood. Just not a lot of parking spaces.

Anyhow, I told the hippies (Amy and Scottie) about the show, and we made plans to go. I was feeling well enough to finally get out of bed, and was looking forward to solid food for the first time in a couple of days, too.  While the show wasn't scheduled until 7:00 pm, we wanted to get there early.  The  announcement had way too many 'likes' on Facebook, and we wanted to make sure we got seats.  I found a place to park about a block away and scored two small cocktail tables and three chairs maybe twelve feet from the 'stage', which was actually just a taped-off corner of the tent in the alley behind the restaurant. About the time I took my first sip from the front end of a two-for-one Sweetwater 420, Amy and Scottie walked in and joined me.

We had about an hour to kill before the show started, so we ordered some dinner.  I got a basket of some excellent hush puppies for an appetizer (made with bits of jalapeno!), but could only eat two of them.  For dinner, we all got variations of their signature BBQ.  I had three sliders--one pork, one brisket, and one chicken.  They were great, but entirely too much food for me.  I managed to eat two of them over the course of about a half an hour, then just picked at the chicken from the third one.  The bun just got in the way.  And even though I rarely, if ever, eat french fries, I was told that their seasoned fries were pretty good.  I ate two.  They were.

As we ate dinner, the crowd started showing up and space in the tent got to be a premium.  We'd scored primo seats, and nobody could get in front of us, so it was ideal.  About twenty people had seats around the stage area, the rest was Standing Room Only, so it was nice to be part of the chosen few.

The show started a few minutes late, but well worth the wait.  Todd came in talked to the crowd for a minute and thanked us for showing up, and kicked in to a couple of his more popular songs to start things off--Play A Train Song and East Nashville Skyline (a huge hit and a favorite local anthem).  I guess that was it for his play list because then he just asked us what we wanted to hear.  Both Amy and I offered up Vinyl Records (much too early in the evening to yell Freebird!, although later, somebody behind us inevitably did).  The word from people who've seen him a lot more times that I have is that he rarely plays Vinyl Records in his live shows, and he didn't do it when I saw him at the Ryman, either. But it's our favorite and he looked right at us, got up off the stool, and off he went.  The rest of the band caught up in no time and the small crowd all went bananas for it.  (And bananas is good!).

He played every request we tossed out, so it was like having our own personal concert.  Imagine sitting front row at a concert and just dictating the playlist to your favorite artist.  Yeah, it was that cool.

He took a break after about an hour to let everyone go to the bathroom, have a smoke, or get a refill.  And while the tent emptied out and everyone headed inside to the bar, Amy went over to talk to him, got a hug, and then I had the chance to spend a minute or so talking to him.  Nicest guy in the world, and genuinely appreciative that we'd come to see the show and knew so many of his songs.  Now, he's not a hugely famous artist by any stretch, but he's got a pretty big following and could easily have a big ego and attitude to match, but that's just not the case. (This is Nashville fer cryin' out loud--the town is full of musicians with big egos!).  He's totally laid back and mellow, and it's quite obvious that he knows he's got a good gig going--people will actually give him money to sing for them!

After the break, he played for another 45 minutes or so, and had a few other people from the crowd join him on a few songs.  He took requests the entire time, too.

An absolutely awesome show.  And it was totally free, except for the dinner bill.

By the time it ended, I was absolutely drained.  I'd gutted it up for as long as I could, and was glad that I made it as long as I did, but I was back on the freeway headed home less than ten minutes after the show.  I made it back to the house, took a hot shower, and collapsed into bed, thinking I hadn't had this much fun since I left Vegas.

Mikey

Saturday, On The Couch

I don't think it was the fourth of July...

Hey Gang!

I hope y'all are all having a great weekend. I had big plans for mine, but they fell through with a thud.  Friday seemed OK at first, but it was one of those days at work where you just have to grind through it and try not to look at the clock.  However, instead of spending the entire day at work, I had to go to Summit Hospital and visit one of my least favorite places in the world, Tennessee Oncology.

Yes, I have an oncologist, but no, I don't have cancer.  We had a huge scare earlier last summer and I dealt with it for several months, which was a definite pain in the ass, not to mention worrisome.  Long story short, after several months of scans and every test known to man, in November they finally decided to cut me open again, then took out a bunch of stuff, tested it all, and a week later gave me the good news that all results came back negative.  Of course, no doctor in the world is going to declare you 100% healed, that would be bad for business, so I have to go back every few months, cough up that co-pay, and have more tests and lab work done.  (Cynical me thinks that if I didn't have insurance, I would've been 'healed' months ago...)

Did I mention that it's a pain in the ass?  Well, that's how I spent my Friday--after getting bent over at work all morning, it was off to the Oncology center to get poked, prodded, stabbed, and examined all afternoon.  What makes it worse is that I'm in there with all of the cancer patients, everyone else is getting chemo, and the whole place is about as lively as a funeral home. I hate going there. On the plus side, my doctor, who by the way is fantastic, told me that I'm his healthiest patient.  Well duh, I'm the only one there who doesn't have cancer.

I was there for quite awhile, and it turns out I was damn near the last one in the building.  Half the office staff was already gone for the day by the time I got checked out and released.  The problem was, they had drained several vials of blood from me, and since I hardly eat much of anything anymore, it just wipes me out.  And also, since the hospital is about 50 miles from my house, the drive is a tough one in my condition.  They told me to go eat ASAP, so I called up Amy and Scottie to see if they wanted to go out and get some dinner since I was down in the city and needed to get some sort of nourishment, even if it were bar food.

They suggested that I just drive over to their house for dinner, Amy was cooking turkey chili (one of my favorite things nowadays) and our friend Cory was over with her kids, too.  So I motored over to the west side, exhausted, played with the puglets and visited with Scottie for a bit, then collapsed on the couch before dinner.

The food did me good, and they even broke out a bottle of good red wine, which always makes me feel better, although only in small doses. 

We had an enjoyable evening, but then one of Cory's kids dove head first into my wine glass after dinner, covering me with purple stains.  My white shirt immediately giving me the look of a victim at a crime scene (We were all sitting on the couch, and since most kids treat me as a jungle gym, well, shiat happens).  I ditched the clothes from the waist up, and just wore my fleece jacket while Amy threw my stuff in the laundry.  Of course I kept it halfway unzipped, rocking the Seventies porn-star look for the rest of the evening.

But the rest of the evening was a short one.  Even though the food and wine were just what I needed, I still felt pretty crummy and shuffled off to the guest room earlier than usual, sharing my space with two adorable pugs who's small stature belies their uncanny ability to completely take over an entire queen-sized bed.  Scottie even turned on the PA in the music room, running the Pink Floyd Spotify station through it, so I drifted off much too early, listening to Dark Side of the Moon.

My alarm went off at 6:30 in the morning, and I swear I was out the door, sans shirt, at 6:45.  To all outward appearances, it probably looked like a walk of shame, but the neighbors know me and my car, so it didn't raise too many eyebrows when I snuck out early on a Saturday morning. 

I was scheduled to work that day, and although the shirt I wore the day before was still in Amy's washing machine, I still got called out for obviously not going home the night before. Luckily I had a company t-shirt in the trunk of my car for just such occasions--although it's business casual during the week, on weekends we can wear any of the swag the vendors provide, and so my collection of t-shirts and polos with logos I would never buy in a million years is quite extensive.  Perfect to have on hand when I have an unexpected need for a change of clothes.

I was only going to work a half day, but I still felt like crap on a stick all morning.  Another friend of ours was having a housewarming party/cookout that afternoon, but I just wasn't up to it.  Instead of partying with everyone and enjoying some more bacon-wrapped dates (Amy made up two full trays of them to bring), I spent the afternoon and evening at home.  I took a shower, as hot as I could stand, grabbed some old comfy gym clothes that are about four sizes too big, and put on a pair of my favorite wool socks.  I don't think I got off the couch for about eight hours straight. 

I cleaned up some of my DVR, and watched a couple of movies, also.  That movie, Flight, with Denzel Washington, about an airline pilot who survives a crash, was actually pretty good, and it certainly wasn't about what I thought it was about.  I also watched Battleship, which wasn't nearly as stupid as I thought it would be.  Clearly I went in expecting the worst, but it wasn't too bad for mindless entertainment.  Lots of action movie cliches and a little bit of ripoff of Independence Day (or was that an homage?  I couldn't tell), but having Brooklyn Decker in a supporting role kept me watching...

Speaking of movies, that reminds me of the absolute WORST movie I've seen in a very long time--the other night I watched Alex Cross.  Oh dear god what a steaming pile of crap that was.  It was awful.  I think Tyler Perry wrote it (he must have, I mean, who would cast him as the lead in an action movie?), and while I understand how difficult it is to write a script and a screenplay, he, and everyone else involved in the production, should seriously do some hard time for crimes against creativity.  I felt bad for Edward Burns, who I really like as an actor, but it appears that paychecks must be getting hard to come by for him to take a role in this silver-screen turd.  The only problem is, once people see this, it's gonna be even harder for him to find work.  Yeah, it was that bad.  Imagine a two-hour long Cadillac commercial, with a script churned out by a bunch of eighth-graders, and well, you get the idea.  The most ridiculous over-the-top product and logo placement you could possibly imagine.  I expect that crap from Pepsi, but now Cadillac is in on that annoying game, too.

OK, rant over.

So yeah, that was my Saturday.  I didn't do a damn thing except go to bed early.  Of course I woke up at 6:30 this morning all pumped up and excited to go on a six-mile hike in the woods, but I'm still under the weather.  I've got a pot of coffee brewing, and I'm hoping I feel better after I get a bit of food in me, but right now I'm still pretty drained and listless.  The weatherman says it's supposed to rain all afternoon, and it's pretty windy out there right now, so we'll see how it goes. 

I have an excellent Marmot rain hat that I bought at REI last summer that I use exclusively for hiking, and it's so nice that I also wanted a Marmot rain jacket.  I got the jacket for Christmas, but I purposely asked for one that was too small for me--their stuff is *expensive* and I didn't want to shrink out of it like the rest of my clothes.  So while I can put on the rain jacket, and this point I can't really zip it up--it's still too small, but I'm getting there.  But basically it means that for now, if it's raining, I'm not going--I know it sounds fun walking in the rain, and it is, but only if you can get back to someplace warm and dry whenever you want.  Being out in the woods soggy and cold all afternoon, a few miles from your car, with no shelter around, is not fun at all.  So I'm in a holding pattern this morning.

I'm tempted to just say the hell with it and park my ass on the couch all day, but then this picture starts to gnaw at me and guilts my soul:

Mikey

I Keep My Eyes Wide Open All the Time

I started this on Thursday, but ran out of energy...

Right now I'm one tuckered out little trooper.  I just got back from walking over seven miles out on the local greenway, and I have to toot my own horn because seven miles is a new personal best for me as far as distance goes.  The most I've walked at one time since I embraced this form of exercise was five miles, and that one wiped me out.

This hike didn't really kick my ass, but I sure took a few punches. I was thinking earlier of strapping on the full backpack and doing a six-miler down at Beaman Park, but that seemed a little bit too ambitious for me at this stage in the game.  Instead, I did an easier hike with a longer distance, and instead of my full-on 36 lb. expedition pack, I just took my daypack.  With water, a snack, a rain jacket and some other essentials, it tipped the scales at only eight-and-a-half pounds.

Walking the greenway is fairly enjoyable, and while the pavement harder on the feet, it's much easier on the knees, ankles, and lungs.  I think it was designed so that people in wheelchairs can enjoy it, so it's an easy stroll for the most part.  However, there are a couple of pretty steep hills along the way, so that would explain why I've never seen anyone with a wheelchair out there hiking with me...

I caught a break in the weather, too--all the predictions were for overcast and rain all day, but even as I type this it's still 66 degrees and sunny out.  It was a beautiful day to be outside.

I parked my car at the trailhead in town, and did the exact same walk I did last Thursday--three and a half miles along the Honey Run Creek.  This time, however, I stopped to eat a coconut/chocolate chip Cliff bar when I got to the trailhead at the far end, rested for about five minutes, and turned around and started the long walk back.  It was motivation in the purest form--there was nobody around to pick my tired ass up, and my car was three and a half miles away.

Like a wise man once said, It's just walkin'...

The first half took me about an hour and twenty minutes, on the way back, however, I stopped for a couple of three minute rest breaks, and my pace was definitely slower on the way back, and over all it took me right at three hours to do the entire seven miles.

Yeah, I was wiped out when I was finished, and my right foot was on fire.  I had the beginning of a blister that wanted to form, but didn't quite make it.  I wasn't smart enough to bring tape and moleskin with me this time, but on my next hike, it's definitely going along for the ride.

I credit my lack of blisters on having some good gear.  First of all, everyone has their little quirks and things they obsess about.  Some folks like jewelry, some have to have the latest electronic gadget, others are particular about coffee--everyone has their oddball triggers that put them in their happy place.  I may be weird, but I swear, one of life's simple pleasures, the thing that presses my button, is wearing high-quality wool socks.  Not just any socks, but the expensive stuff.  Yeah, I know it doesn't have the cache of a Coach bag or Gucci sunglasses, or even an expensive post-Rolex watch, but I love me some Wigmam silk-and-merino wool socks.  And Darn Tough Vermont Boot socks, too. I think I have about four or five pairs now, and while they range in price from $16 to $25 a pair, they are worth every penny.

First of all, I've spent the better part of the past twenty years living in the desert.  Phoenix, Vegas--both extremely hot locales.  I've also lost about 150 pounds, and I'm now on blood thinners.  So let me share with you a bit of my daily misery--I am COLD all the time. I may be living in the South, but it still gets damn cold here in the winter time, and everyone makes fun of me for bundling up like Randy in A Christmas Story every time I venture outdoors between October and March.  And half the time I'm home watching TV down in the den, I've got the space heater cranked on, I'm under a sleeping bag on the couch, and I'm wearing a knit beanie on my head. 

So I started buying wool socks to keep my feet warm.  Once I got into hiking, I decided to invest in the ones that would last, and, well, here we are.  I put a couple of pairs of Darn Tough socks on my Amazon wishlist, and a generous soul got them for me for Christmas.  And every long-distance hiker I've talked to swears by them.

So I wore some on this hike, just to see how my feet would hold up.  I also wore a pair of synthetic undies that Reverend Dave swears by, along with my favorite hiking shorts.  Imagine, if you will, a pasty white guy huffing and puffing down the trail wearing a fleece jacket two sizes too big and a pair of old cargo-style swimming trunks hiked up above his belly button yet still hanging down below his knees, with the crotch blown out.

Sexy, huh?  I know, ladies, try to hold back your orgasms!

But it worked for me. I was plenty warm (even ditched the fleece halfway through).  So while it was a shakedown on socks and underwear, (both proved to be up to the task), it was an enjoyable hike also.  Besides being great exercise, I saw all kinds of excellent wildlife.  Every time I go, I always see plenty of cool birds and squirrels, and this time I saw some sort of hawk, a blue heron, and the usual assortment of robins and cardinals.  But the absolute coolest thing that made me damn near freak out was I saw a real-live bobcat for the first time ever. At first I couldn't tell if it was just a huge rabbit or possum or something when I first saw it creeping through the underbrush, but then it jumped out on the trail, stared at me for about two seconds, and then darted off in the woods.  Not nearly enough time to get my camera out and snap a picture, so hell, it may as well have been Bigfoot, but still, that's one of the reasons I love wandering around in the woods.  Oh, and that picture above, the one about watching out for snakes, yeah, there are four of those signs along the entire seven miles.  I didn't see any, luckily, but I was on the lookout.

It was a beautiful day out, too.  While the weatherman called for rain and overcast all day, it was sixty-plus degrees and sunny--perfect weather.

 
Even though it was a gorgeous day out, and I really wasn't that far from civilization (I mean, the trailhead is right next to a Sonic fer cryin' out loud), I only encountered a few other people the entire time I was out there.

One of the things I learned, however, is that using the Motion-X GPS app on my iPhone for three hours will completely drain the battery.  I like to use it as an accurate way to track my time and distance (and also upload it to Facebook to brag a little), but it's too much of an energy suck to use it for that long.

I'll probably stop using it on longer hikes altogether, and when I head out into the 'real' woods, not along a paved greenway, I'll ditch my iPod, too.  I love having music to motivate me along, and it's fine for a paved track that's relatively civilized. But whenever I'm way out in the middle of nowhere, I never use it.  First of all, I want to hear if there's anything else out there with me--human or animal, and second of all, it just seems like blasphemy to do so--like talking on the cellphone in church or something.  On the uphills, however, it was an awesome tool to have at my disposal.  Just as I started up the steep hill near the end of the first half, Joaquin Phoenix's cover of Walk the Line came on, and that two-step country bass line mirrored my pace almost exactly, and that extra 32 measures at the end of the song where there is no singing and it just drones on and on, well, that got me to the top of the hill. I got a kick out of that--it was some great unplanned timing, but I think the all-time greatest hill climbing music has got to be Promontory from Last of the Mohicans:


  
Can't help but motor up the mountain when hearing that, especially if you remember the movie.

On Sunday, Scottie and I were planning on doing a six-and-a-half miler down at Garrison Creek on the Natchez Trace, but doing my pre-hike planning, I found out that part of the trek involves a knee-deep creek crossing of about twenty feet.  Ain't gonna do that in February!  I bitch about being cold enough already, so I think we'll just go to Beaman Park instead.  I know I won't have to get my feet wet there--it's nothing but hills.

More in a bit...

Mikey

An Expedition to the Bowels of the Storage Shed

My move back to Tennessee from Las Vegas was much less of a hassle than my move out there five and-a-half years prior, and y'all don't have to dig too deeply to read all about it.

But since I got back, circumstances have prevented me from having my own apartment again, so most of my household stuff is still in storage, sealed up like an archeological treasure, just waiting to be re-discovered.

And human nature being what it is, all attempts to simplify and not acquire more 'stuff' have been a series of ongoing battles.  I'm too embarrassed to post a picture of my room at my current digs, as I have tons of books, magazines, clothes, office supplies, and other assorted junk cluttering up the joint.  It's not up to Hoarders level just yet, but it's getting to be too much.  I always *plan* on being more organized, but something always distracts me or I find some other more enjoyable ways to spend my time.

Today was a normal Wednesday, and I was grinding out another workday in the cube farm when my alarm chimed on my cell phone, reminding me of another doctor's appointment.  I thought it was going to be a long one, but it was a quick in and out, only getting stabbed in the arm once.  Instead of going back to work (hey, I'm getting paid for the whole day), I decided to bag it and enjoy an all-too-rare sunny day.  I thought about going hiking, but then realized that all of my good wool hiking socks were wet and sitting in the washing machine, having forgotten to put them in the dryer last night before going to bed.

That plan was out, so I decided to tackle the never-ending to-do list that I seem to carry around with me like Earl and his Karma roster.

The first order of business was to stop at the auto parts store and buy a new bubble mirror for the passenger's side rear-view.  My car, as cool as it is, has a huge blind spot, and the drivers here in Tennessee are a lonely sort--they never want to pass, but they love to catch up to you and drive along in your blind spot, like a baby whale next to his mama.  I don't know why that is, I've never encountered that anywhere else, but since my car is basically ALL blind spot, I need a little extra protection from the all the good ol' boys trying to absorb some of my coolness by proximity. I also picked up some wheel polish and tire cleaner, along with a vanilla scented flip-flop air freshener, and if Sunshine and Day Off ever collide, I'm going to detail the hell out my car.  I don't have time to today, and there's a 50% chance of rain tomorrow, anyways.

As soon as I got home, I put the clothes in the dryer and headed back to the bedroom to get a good look at what needed to be done.  I figure that if I only had a decent bookcase in my room, 90% of the clutter would disappear, and then I remembered that I still had a bookcase out in the storage shed.

Unfortunately, it was deep deep DEEP in the storage shed--all the way in the back, buried under dozens of cardboard boxes and plastic storage totes.  And this storage shed is huge--it could easily be a two-car tandem garage and a workshop if anyone was so inclined. Not only does it have all of my stuff, but also a lot of Mamasan's junk, plus all of the camping gear and Christmas storage, too.  And Reverend Dave has used it to store his furniture when he had to spend a few months traveling for work. 

Of course the shed is older than Alabama, and it has a few leaks and holes.  Those leaks and holes invite critters in who seek shelter and more than a few mice have made nests in there, along with possums and the occasional raccoon.  The most unsettling thing came to light last summer when I was helping Reverend Dave get his queen-sized bed out of there when he took a job in Birmingham and had to relocate.  We got the box-spring out first, no problem, but when we pulled his mattress out there was a huge dried out snake skin attached to it.  Oh yeah... No nightmares there!

As an older brother, it was my duty to remind him that the snake is probably hunkered down inside the mattress somewhere and will crawl out once he went to sleep that first night in his new place, providing  a source of heat that snakes love so much...

Since then I don't go out there barefooted anymore, and usually I take work gloves with me, too. 

Today, however, I was in a hurry and just put on shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals.  I packed my whip and lit a torch, and picked my way through the maze of junk and boxes.  I found the bookshelf in question after just a few minutes of searching but it was covered in nastiness.  It had gotten damp over the past two years, and it was home to all kinds of bugs and spiders.  At least there were no snakes.

I found the shelves and set them out in the sun, then went back in for the main unit. Of course it was covered in spiders, mostly harmless Daddy Long Legs, but there were a couple of fat nasty cousins of the black widow that I didn't want to mess with, so I smashed as many as I could find.  Picking it up over my head to carry it out, a few more fell out on me, providing me with both the heebies AND the jeebies. And it's not like I could drop the thing to brush them off of me, so I just had to take it.

I made it back to the safety of the entrance ramp without getting any bites, as far as I could tell, so I hauled everything up to the driveway.  I found some 409 and a sponge, and then blasted the crud off with the hose.  It was a nasty, and cold, job, but after a few minutes drying in the sun, it looked almost new.  No bugs, no spiders, no mold or mildew.

So now I'm spending the afternoon organizing all of the junk in my room and filling up my new-found bookshelves. I'm making progress on my organizational goals, but I am NOT looking forward to the day when I have to go back out and organize the storage shed. 

I'm thinking of hiring some top men to do it for me instead.

Top. Men.

Mikey

Paved With Good Intentions

Is it Tuesday night already?  Wednesday for most of you, by the time you see this? 

Believe me...  I want to write and post more, I really do.  I'm just never in front of the computer very much any more.  Well, scratch that--I'm in front of a computer all day at work, but that doesn't count.  And while I can facebook and browse on my phone during the day, I don't much care to.  I even downloaded the Blogger app so that I could theoretically blog 'on the go', but it's better in theory than in practice.

I suppose one could blog from their smartphone, but only if one's blog posts are more like Twitter updates. Y'all know that once I get all this stuff moving, it's hard to stop, so pecking away on the touchscreen of my iPhone does not appeal.  And I can't even begin to imagine all of the nonsense that autocorrect would do to my updates. 

So you'll just have to be patient and let me go at my own speed...

So what's new?  Of course I worked all last week--I'm pretty sure it was the first 40 hour week I've done in ten months or so, and it wasn't much fun.  For those of you who don't know, I had a few more health scares this past year, but some pretty good health triumphs also, but even so, I've been under the knife twice and have had three hospital stays since last April, plus countless doctor visits.  Most of that is behind me, and I'm down to about once-a-month appointments, so instead of spending a couple days a week at various hospitals and doctors offices around town, I actually go to work and have to sit in my cube for about nine hours a day. 

It's not quite as enjoyable as pitching the cards at Bally's or Sunset Station, but then again, not much is.  I have a few distractions to keep me entertained.  This past weekend, for instance, was a lot of fun.  Although I worked all day on Saturday (Umm, yeah, we're gonna go ahead and need you to come in this weekend...), that night was a whole bunch of fun.

It was my friend Cory's birthday, and she had rented out the Nashville Performing Artists Co-Op for the night and hosted a party.  What is the Nashville Performing Artists Co-Op, you ask?  Well, imagine a combination of Forman's basement, your Grandma's attic, a condemned building, every stereotypical practice space you've seen in countless videos, and the bathroom from Trainspotting thrown in for good measure, and you have the NPAC.  (Did I use that reference last week?  I did? Sorry, it's the only nasty bathroom I can think of.  Writing is hard)

It. Is. Awesome.

The only thing fancy about the place is it's name.  But it was cleaned up as well as could be, with space heaters and candles providing heat on a cold night.  We had a keg of Fat Tire, a truckload of catered BBQ, all kinds of smokeables, and even a jar of moonshine on hand.  Scotty and the boys set up on stage and provided about five hours of live music while the rest of us mingled, danced, drank, told stories, took pictures, and had a much better party than all those dress-in-black poser d-bags from that Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl.

Let me dig out the camera and find some pics:

The first impression as you walk in the door...

 

 The sound booth and 'facilities'

 

 The view from the stage.  Not sure what the random acts of hanging bamboo were about, but it only added to the funky ambiance

The band in action.  That's Scottie, Colin, Sparky, and Tommy

Lots of different people went up onstage and played with the band at different times throughout the evening, the most memorable being some dude I'd never met before singing a cover of Tush that brought down the house.  The highlight for me was one of my friends, so drunk she could barely stand, got up there and just absolutely nailed a cover of Rollin' In The Deep--not an easy song when sober, but she just killed it.

Good times all around.  Before we knew it, it was after midnight and being old farts, we were finished lettin' it all hang out, so we had to pack up the party and head home.  I think I got home around 1:30 (but hey, I had a beer in my hand pretty much ever since 6:15) and fell directly into bed.

I sure didn't want to get up on Sunday morning, and almost considered begging off of my sister's Super Bowl party (strawberry moonshine was a bad choice), but I gutted it up, packed a bag, and hit the road early that afternoon.  

My contribution to the party buffet was an old Vegas Firefly favorite-- stuffed dates wrapped in bacon. 

Oh hell yeah.  I made about sixty of those little suckers--about twenty of them filled with garlic and herb cream cheese, and the rest stuffed with pecans.  And I wrapped them in thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon.

They were the hit of the party.  Oh, there was some great food to be had--shrimp cocktail, pulled pork BBQ, Rotel dip, etc., but everyone raved about the dates.  I have to admit, they turned out pretty damn good!  This is the only photo evidence that I have, however...

The picture doesn't do 'em justice, but trust me, they were good.

As far as the game goes, I was rooting for the 49ers, but earlier in the week TRev and I were discussing wagers and settled on the Ravens getting 4 points and the under.  We were half right, as usual. 

Since my sister's place is much closer to my office than my house, and it would've been a 50 mile drive home after the game, I just stayed there in her guestroom that night and went to work from there in the morning. 

Monday was a tough day for me, but at least I didn't have a moonshine hangover to deal with.  I'm back at the homestead tonight, doing the never-ending chores and planning a hike for Thursday.  I think I'm going to try and do a 7 mile greenway walk or maybe strap on the 36 lb. backpack and head out to the woods for the day.  If it's not muddy, I'm heading to the woods.  If it's raining, I'll walk the greenway with the local soccer moms.

More on Thursday--

Mikey

I Don't Work Hard Enough To Be This Busy

Damn, has it been a week already?  Have I lost my audience to crib death? For those who grew used to me posting all the damn time when I lived in Vegas, I sincerely apologize.  I just don't have the time I used to.  Of course, I could lug the laptop to work, but I think the bosses would frown on me for tickling the blogging Elmo whilst sitting in my cube all day.

Word around the campfire is that there is a recession on--we'll all have to make due with less, I guess, and that includes your regular dose of Mikeyisms.

Thinking back over the past week, I realize that I've been much busier than usual.  It's not like I have a bunch of people pulling me in different directions, but I still try to load up my figurative plate with things to do, and sometimes, it gets to be too much.  It's much tougher to make friends here in Nashville than it was out in Vegas where we were all strangers in a strange town, so I've been trying to put myself out there and keep busy.  And to be honest, when I worked at the casino, I loved hanging out with my co-workers after my shift or on our nights off, but here, for the most part, I don't dig the job very much, and the people I work with I tend to keep at arm's length.  I don't really socialize with them, and once you're an adult, it's pretty tough to make new friends outside of work.

However, I have a pretty good network around here, and the hippies have introduced me to most of their friends and we all get along well.  Of course, it works in my favor because most of them are accomplished musicians, and a little bit of talent rubs off on me from time to time.  I love to go to their self-described 'Geek Jams' and fumble my way through a few songs on the bass whenever I can.  They rock the house while I play whole notes and count to four over and over again, trying to anticipate the chord changes. 

It's a work in progress.

Of course y'all know that I love to hike, too.  In fact, just this morning I did a three-and-a-half mile hike along the Honey Run Creek in White House. I did the exact same hike last summer, and I had to stop and rest a couple of times along the way.  This morning, however, I powered right along and only paused to answer a text message and to snap this picture:

I had a pretty good pace going and it only took me about an hour and twenty minutes.  This is a huge personal victory for me, especially when I think about how long it took the last time around.  For those of you who sit in a cube all day, get up off the couch this weekend and try to walk three-and-a-half miles without stopping to rest.  It's not as easy as it sounds when you're not in any kind of shape. And I don't mean on a treadmill, either--go out in the real world and experience some hills.  Of course I'm a long way from hosting an episode of The Biggest Loser and cracking the whip on people with the same kind of body type as me, but it feels good to be able to motor right along. 

Hell, if I were back in Vegas with any of you clowns, we could wander the Strip all day and I wouldn't have to pretend to tie my shoe in order to get a rest break...

Anyhow, besides hiking around on my own, I decided to join a couple of Meetup.com groups here in Nashville.  There are a few hiking groups that I'm a part of--the Tennessee Backpacking meetup, the Middle Tennessee Hiking meetup, and even a writers group.

This past Saturday night, one of the hiking groups sponsored a Full Moon Hike down at Edwin Warner Park.  I'd planned on doing the one they had in December, but as I recall there was a Christmas tree emergency at the hippies' house, and well, I was unable to attend.  I wasn't going to miss it this time around.

It gets dark around 5:30 nowadays, and the hike was scheduled for 7:30 that evening.  I got there a few minutes early and was surprised to find that about 50 people showed up.  I made pleasant conversation and small talk with a few other attendees, but we were freezing our asses off.  It had been really cold for a few days prior, and well, after dark in January, what did I expect?

The problem, however, is that hiking, for me, is a sport enjoyed much more either alone or in a very small tight-knit group.  Trudging through the woods with a bunch of people with kids and flashlights and dogs and such ain't too enjoyable.  And not only does everyone talk much louder than they need to, it's like an unspoken rule that everyone has to power-walk like they have to escape the zombie apocalypse, yet they are not allowed to run.  So they set a ridiculous pace, with all of the wannabe alpha-males offering up 'advice' and unwanted instruction, while the hoard huffs and puffs it's way up the hill. 

No fun.  No fun at all.

And remember, this is the same Warner Park that I was talking about in an earlier post--it ain't very level.  Once we got to the top of the first big hill, the herd took a turnoff to an overlook, and I just kept on truckin', trying to distance myself from the noise.  I guess I got about a half mile ahead of them and managed to have a really enjoyable walk after that.

It was kind of eerie, a quiet night in the winter woods, with the full moon casting shadows on the ground from all of the leave-less trees.  Of course your mind plays tricks on you, your senses are heightened, and every scampering squirrel or foraging turkey sounds like Bigfoot is stalking you.

I loved every bit of it, kept my headlamp off, and embraced the experience.  Before I knew it, I'd walked over four miles, could see my car back down the hill in the parking lot, and heard the caravan catching up from behind, everyone racing to the finish.

While the hike was great, I doubt I'll do that one with a group again.  I like to go at my own pace, enjoy the scenery, and try to make as little noise as possible--that's when the magic happens.  This was like a roving band of gypsies scaring off any wildlife as it plowed through the forest at maximum force.

So while I technically went to the 'meetup', it was a pretty solitary affair, and I'm going to think long and hard before doing another one. 

Anyhow, I was pretty warm by the time I got back to the parking lot--it was a lot of exercise, and it wasn't even 9:30 yet.  So I pointed the car towards east Nashville, looking for something a little more fun. 

Scottie and the geeks had rented out an authentic old-school rehearsal hall down near Five Points for several hours, and were hosting another jam session.  While not an official band, they love to get together and play on the weekends, and it's lot of fun.  The rehearsal space is pretty big, right in the middle of everything, but it's as old-school and run down as you can imagine.  One can only speculate at the stories that must've taken place in there over the years. 

And while it wasn't quite as bad as something out of Trainspotting, I was definitely uneasy about touching any of the furniture in the place... But it had power, a huge stage, plenty of mismatched chairs, and even flushing toilets (so I was told).  The guys had set up their gear and were wailing away by the time I got there, so I hit the convenience store across the alley for a sixer of Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan ale and settled down to enjoy the private show, like an aging groupie with no place else to go. 

A few minutes later my sister Amy and her friend Cory showed up, so the size of the audience immediately tripled. We had a great time laughing, taking pictures, and singing along, and at one point I even helped out with Wagon Wheel and Hotel California, two of the easier songs on the set list.

Unfortunately, I was worn out.  That four mile walk in the woods and hills of Warner Park had kicked my ass, and I still had a thirty mile drive back to my bed.  I think I called it a night around twelve, completely exhausted. 

Sunday was a blur.  I remember being sore, drinking a pot of coffee, and lying on the couch.  That's about it.

On Monday, I had a full day at work--it was nice to be 'good busy' instead of 'annoying busy'.  You know what I mean--it was nice to do my own work and not have to worry about fixing other peoples messes, which is almost unheard of on a Monday, right? 

That night I was scheduled to go to a writers group meet up out in Bellevue, but I got there and found out it was canceled. I was cool with that since I wasn't presenting anything, but it was a bummer to drive out there for nothing.  So I headed back over to the hippies house for the evening, where we played games, listened to music, and just hung out for a bit.  Instead of driving home forty-some-odd miles, I just spent the night there before heading back to the office in the morning. 

I guess that explains my absence from the keyboard this past week, doesn't it?

So I'm making up for it now.  I've had a fairly productive day so far, and while the spaghetti sauce is simmering away in the crock pot, the dishwasher and washing machine are running, and I rest my feet from my mornings adventures, here I sit, pecking away at the keyboard, looking for inspiration.  The two bottles of Yuengling may have helped, because all of the sudden I've got this big long post written.

Mikey

Getting To Second Bass

I'm on a writing binge today--I've got a pot of coffee in me and hours of free time.  It's just like the old days in Vegas, only without the heat and the screaming kids at the pool just outside my door!

Those of you who've been with me for the long haul (still trying to come up with other ways of saying 'longtime readers') know that I'm the worlds biggest wannabe musician.  I gave the guitar a shot for a long time, spending thousands of dollars in the process, and yet it never really clicked for me.  I learned to play everything by rote memorization, and trying to improvise was basically a display of musical ineptitude on the level of watching a baboon with an accordion.  Finances and reality caught up with me around 2002 or so and I spent most of the oughts never even picking up a guitar.

When I got back here to Nashville a couple of years ago, I realized that everyone is this town is a musician.  Or wants to be one.  It's good and bad, because the best way to get better at something is to hang out with people who are better than you at that particular activity, but on the bad side, you can't go to any social function around here without some asshat pulling out his guitar and insisting that you listen to his latest offering that is about to blow up, just as soon as he gets a record deal. Maybe not quite to that degree, but you get the idea...  There are a lot of asshats with guitars around here.

Now, even though I wish I had some musical talent, I've never wanted to be a rock star.  I'm perfectly content to play stuff that other people, who know what they're doing, have written.  Even back in the late 90's when I was putting together a real band, anyone who wanted to join who uttered any variation of 'my own stuff' was immediately dismissed.  A man's got to know his limitations, and I know mine.  If I'm gonna play music, it's gonna be cover tunes.

Anyhow, my brother-in-law, Scottie, is an extremely talented musician, and can play just about any song on any instrument.  Hanging out with him has not only broadened my musical horizons immensely, but it's motivated me to try again.  Now, the hardest thing to find when putting together a band was always a bass player.  Drummers are a dime a dozen, and if you can sift through the rabble, you're bound to find a good one eventually.  But that is too damn much work.  They say rock-n-roll is all about lugging your gear from one end of town to the other, and drummers have more gear than anybody.  Too much work to sit in the back, if you ask me.  Guitarists are everywhere, because, face it, chicks dig musicians in general and guitarists in particular.  If you're a type-A personality but can't sing, like myself, playing guitar is where it's at.  But bassists are a rare breed, and if you can play the bass, your services are always in demand, kind of like being a dice dealer in Las Vegas.

So hanging around with Scottie and his buddies, I noticed that they all played guitar but they always took turns playing bass.  Well, there was my 'in'.  Scottie suggested I learn how to play bass, so that's become another hobby of mine, which I'm finding more and more enjoyable all the time.  Not quite a year ago I took lessons, briefly, but my teacher was so in-demand that our schedules just wouldn't jive.  He was *always* getting called to sit in with a band down at one of the local venues, or be a session musician down on Music Row, or working the stage for some local artist on the cusp. With me back to working full-time and his phone going of like mine did back in the day when I was on call 24-7, we just couldn't make it work. 

But I got a good foundation to work with, and I started playing with Scottie on weekends.  I even picked up this here bass last winter, and while it may not have the cache of a wine-colored Les Paul with gold hardware, it's still pretty.  And it's fun to play, too.

Now that my musical horizons have been expanded, I'm working on my repertoire.  About once a month a group of people much more talented that I gather over at Amy & Scottie's place for a self-described Geek Jam.  Yeah, they're all programmers by day and musicians by night, and probably some the funnest people I know.  Of course, I don't bring much to the table, music-wise, but I'm more than happy to fumble my way through songs with them all night long.  Of course, I take a break every now and then and have somebody else play bass while I observe, and they just rock the house.  Still, I enjoy trying to learn while playing with a real band--it beats the hell out of sitting alone at home with my iPod playing through my amp and trying to keep up with my metronome.

Right now, I'm trying to learn a few new songs for next weekend's get together, including

• I Don't Feel That Way Anymore by Charlie Robison
• Son of a Preacher Man 
• Rollin' in the Deep 
• Home by Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros (great song!)
• Sleeping Monkey
• She Left Me for Jesus 

There's a bunch more, because we'll play for hours, but these are the ones I'm concentrating on at the moment.  In the meantime, I couldn't let this post pass without adding this:

Mikey

So THIS Is How Normal People Live

Some days I really miss my life in Vegas.  Most days, actually.  Don't get me wrong, there were things I hated about it--always having to work holidays, never getting to spend time with family, etc.  And while I've traded those bad things for all of the pluses that come with living in Nashville, I really hate the fact that I have to work about twice as long (at a job I'm not really that fond of) for less than I used to make dealing cards in the casino part-time.

And believe me, even being stuck on a poker table full of crappy and annoying players for a half an hour at a time is way better than being chained my desk eight hours a day down at the Shawshank-on-the-Cumberland where I'm currently employed.  Right now, that's my lot in life and although I've made peace with it, I'm not happy with it.  Like Andy with his rock hammer and Rita Hayworth poster, I've been planning my escape for some time now.

Longtime readers know that when I first left Las Vegas I faced some very serious health issues that damn near pulled the plug on me for good.  (Here he goes again!) So serious that the doctor at the Vanderbilt critical-care unit told me to call my family and say goodbye. Somehow, miraculously, I pulled through that and even though I was unable to function normally for about six months afterwards, I've made a complete and full recovery and I'm even better off than I was before.  Y'all know I was big--morbidly obese is the clinical term which sounds so awful that I don't even like saying it--but since then things have turned the corner.  Right now I'm about 150 lbs lighter than the last time I graced a poker table at Sunset Station and I'm still slowly shrinking.  My pants are 14 inches smaller around the waist and my old leather belt that I wore every day almost goes around me twice.  I still have a long way to go, but I'm getting there.  At 45 years old, I'm probably healthier than I've ever been.

I discovered that one of the exercises I like the most is hiking.  Back when I couldn't lift a gallon of milk or carry anything more than about five pounds, the only activity I could really do is walking.  So I started 'hiking' to build my strength back up.  First it was laps around the back yard, then I ventured out to the cul-de-sac to do a loop before shuffling back ten minutes later utterly exhausted.  Eventually I made a full mile without stopping to rest, which ironically was a hell of a milestone for me. But my proudest moment came when I did the two-and-a-half mile Harpeth Woods Trail at Edwin Warner park. 

Normal, in-shape people would say that it's a 'moderately difficult' trail, but for me, it might as well have been Everest.  It's very hilly, and pretty steep in some places, although the maximum elevation change is only like 300 feet or so.  But to me, 200-something pounds overweight and just a few months out of the deathbed, it was quite formidable.  It took me almost two and a half hours to complete it, but when I finished, I had to admit that it was one of my accomplishments that I was most proud of.  What made it even better was that someone I know told me that they had to turn back on their first attempt to hike the trail, it was just a little too steep and maybe they were a bit too hungover, but for whatever reason, it was too much at the time.  But my chubby ass made it to the top of that mountain on the first attempt.

And once the hard part was over, the last half mile was a nice flat stroll along a creek back to the trailhead.  An excellent payoff after all of the effort, if you ask me. A serene walk where I could process the totality of the obstacles I'd overcome--not only from that day, but everything else I'd faced before that.

It may sound overly dramatic, but one would've had to have walked those two-and-a-half miles in my moccasins to really understand.

It must've been some kind of turning point for me, because once I got home, showered, and was able to finally relax, rest, and think about the progress I made, I couldn't help but wonder what other challenges I could tackle.

About the same time, Reverend Dave (my younger brother, for you noobs) decided that he wanted to get into backpacking.  And as much as I loved sailing in my previous life out west, reality dictated that I needed to find a new hobby.  Backpacking it was!

At some point thereafter, Dave had the brilliant idea that he wanted the hike the Appalachian Trail, all 2000+ miles of it, all the way from Georgia to Maine.  I thought it was a good idea at the time, but figured there was no way I could do it. I was just too fat, too weak, and too out-of-shape to do it.  Fast-forward a year and a half later, and here I am, preparing to go in March of 2014.

Yes kids, I'm doing it.  I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail.

There.  I said it.

While I was on hiatus from this blog last year, I thought about doing a hiking-centric blog, but it wasn't very good, so I bagged that idea.  And while I missed writing on this here Hurricane Mikey site, I figured my life in Nashville just wasn't interesting enough to keep people reading it.  But hey, if there can be a thousand successful mommy-blogs talking about shiat I have no interest in whatsoever, I figure there are all kinds of freaks nice people out there who'd be interested in what I have to say...  So I'm back, and part of the reason I'm back is that a goal is most likely to be accomplished if you announce to the world what you're going to do.  I have plenty of supportive readers who'd like to see me succeed, I'm sure, and I know I have a few trolls who'd love to rub my face in it if I failed.

But you know what?  I don't care--I'm here today to announce my intentions, and whether I succeed or not, at least I have the stones to try.  And like the high-wire dude who performs his craft without a net, I'm throwing in the added degree of difficulty by telling the world of my plan.  It would be much easier to be anonymous and give it a try, and nobody would know if I failed.  But I guess there's a big part of me that performs better under pressure, so that's why I'm sharing this today.

Another reason for all this is to let you, my loyal readers, in on the secret.  Linda Lou has been on my ass for several years now about writing a book.  And now I have a topic.

It's an epic journey from the ICU at Vanderbilt Medical Center, being mostly-dead all day, to the top of Mt. Katahdin in Maine, and my plan is to tell the world all about it.  Y'all are the first ones to know.  Being chained to my desk every day for the next year or so may be the river of shiat that I have to crawl through to get to freedom, but eventually I'm going to make it.

Prepare to be entertained.

Mikey 

The Ice Storm That Never Was

All right stop, collaborate and listen...

Oh man, did I just quote one of the worst songs in all of musical history? (outside of Paul McCartney's post-Beatles career, I mean)

Sorry about that, but I warned you, I'm out of practice.

Anyhow, it's freezing-ass cold here in Nashville, and while the State of Tennessee declared an official emergency due to weather, Mother Nature kind of gave us a break.  Oh yeah, there was lots of sleet and freezing rain out last night and all the schools are closed and everyone bailed out early from work and such yesterday, but the reality is that it ain't all that bad.  The roads are bad, just not nearly as bad as anticipated, although everything else is covered in that bumpy rime ice that's so hard that it'll break an ice scraper.

Really bad weather makes me nervous, too.  Last January, I was driving home in the freezing rain and my truck got annihilated by a big ol' 18-wheeler out on I-65.  He sideswiped me and kept on going.  My truck got spun around seven or eight times, according to eye-witnesses, and I tore down about a hundred yards of barrier cable in the median, but I walked away without a scratch.  A few bumps and bruises, that's for sure, and the wreck looked so bad that the cops tried to call an ambulance for me, but I emerged surprisingly ok. What really pissed me off was that my truck, which I loved, had been paid off for less than a year and was still in damn-near mint condition. 

However, the encounter with Mr. Diesel Truck fixed that.  Both axles were broken, the frame was bent, and it looked like somebody took a big ol' can opener down the side of the body.  But the cab was intact and I emerged unscathed, further proof that like the Highlander, I am an Immortal!  And long-time readers know how proud I was of this vehicle when I bought it and how happy I was when I paid it off.  Unfortunately, she met a sad end...

Yeah, I was really bummed at the time, and driving up the ridge just south of my house is a white-knuckle experience at least once a week.  I had to go to traffic school in Millersville last year (the little burg on the side of the highway, whose police force came to my rescue that night), and the cops there said that somebody gets killed on that stretch of highway about once a week.  So I'm ok with not being out playing frogger with with all the semis this morning.

Anyhow, for those of you who aren't on my facebook, my period of grief over my wrecked truck didn't last too long.  Luckily I have really good insurance and they gave me about five grand more than I thought I'd get, so I took the settlement check down to the local Dodge dealer a week later and got this...

Yep, that is a 2012 Challenger R/T, with 5.7 liters of fire-breathing muscle under the hood, all 375 horsies worth.  That photo above is not actually my car, just a stock photo from google image search.  But that's what she looked like on the day I picked her up.  And although she was extremely cool, she wasn't quite cool enough.  So I spent a few extra ducketts and had her slightly modified at an aftermarket automotive accessories shop.  THIS is my car:

 

I think the rally stripes up the coolness factor by at least an order of magnitude. Now, everywhere I go, I always get compliments on it.  And whenever I stop to pump gas, somebody always asks me about it.  Just the other day I pulled into Kroger and as soon as I opened the door, the kid getting into the car next to me said "Holy crap that's a cool car!".  I think he might've been all of ten years old, too.  And the rumble it makes when I first start it up has been known to cause quite the visceral reaction for anyone lucky enough to be standing nearby...

I can thank long-time reader T-Rev for making this happen--he got a Challenger a couple of years ago when they first came out, and as soon as he sent me a picture I was smitten.  Of course, I figured I'd never get one, as my plan was to drive my Dakota until the wheels fell off.  Actually, that pretty much happened, just much sooner than I anticipated.  Anyhow, that's enough automotive porn for the day.  But now y'all know why I don't want to drive my baby around in this mess, especially when these idiot truckers turn their trailers over on the freeway a couple of times a week in good weather--I can't even imagine how bad it is out there on I-65 today.  

Anyhow, I'm waiting on the mailman to bring me a check from Fidelity today.  I liquidated a little bit of stock about a week and a half ago, and I'm just waiting on it so that I can get to the bank and then pay a few bills and such. Once traffic dies down and it hopefully warms up, I'll make my way back down the hill towards civilization and get my errands taken care of.  Right now, however, I'm just holed up in the shanty trying to keep warm.

Mikey