Springtime on campus

The stodgy old Chronicle of Higher Education actually has a pretty funny and edgy piece in it this time around. Any guy that works on a college campus should get a real kick out of this piece...

I wonder how our EWU faculty rates out in the chili pepper ratings...

Words turning cartwheels

I read the most exquisite passage tonight...

"Shut the door and sit down," the Boss said, and his voice moved right on without any punctuation to something it had been saying before my entrance, and the forefinger snapped, "-- and you can just damned well remember you aren't supposed to get rich. A fellow like you, fifty years old and gut-shot and teeth gone and never had a dime, if God-Almighty had ever intended you to be rich he'd done it long back. Look at yourself, damn it! You figure you're supposed to be rich, it is plain blasphemy. Look at yourself. Ain't it a fact?" And the forefinger leveled at Mr. Byram B. White.

For some reason it took me 27 years to discover the brilliance of Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men." And I figure I'm lesser for it -- so I'm making up by trying to etch it in deep in my thick skull...

I've always preferred writers that can make the words spin and sparkle, but RPW does it with such depth, in such density, that I'm not sure that "All the King's Men" isn't the best American book written in the 20th Century. Maybe I'll have more conviction pro or con to that by the time I traverse the entire work.

Philip Castille, the Dean of Eastern Washington University's College of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences, is one of the foremost authorities on RPW's work -- I may need to have him tip me off to the nuances over coffee...

"All the King's Men" is being made into a movie again by Steve Zaillian for this winter with Sean Penn as Willie Stark and Jude Law as Jack Burden. I suspect it will be an Academy Award contender if it can even scratch the excellence of RPW's penned version. I know the previous cinematic "All the King's Men" won 3 Academy Awards -- including Best Picture -- in 1950.

Oh, and that strange post below this one is my cat Pistol's attempt at blogging -- believe it or not, he typed AND PUBLISHED that entry on his own, while sitting on my lap at the keyboard... freaked me out a bit...

0plbgg vvhh

Bike lane from hell, choose your poison -- flip over the curb, mangle yourself in the gravel filled trench, slide into the sewer via the grating or get run over by a bus on the left side of the white line... Photo courtesy of Kunstler's "Eyesore of the Month" series. 

Kunstler Nightmare

I first read James Kunstler's "Geography of Nowhere" as a junior in college for a social geography class I took. It changed my view of the world and gave me an understanding of our freakish prediliction for creating a future with no future.

After I read it I loaned it out whenever I could, as it actually is a book that should be read by every American -- though it is ghoulishly pessimistic. I e-mailed Kunstler a few years ago to thank him for making me see things that I hadn't bothered to look at before -- he chided me for loaning out my book instead of making my friends buy it...

But he also thanked me for my kind words and then proceeded to say we haven't even seen the worst of what our Geography of Nowhere was going to locate us -- that was way back in 1999.

Apparently, Kunstler is ready to unveil his own Book of Revelation upon us in May, when he releases "The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century."

I read an excerpt from it tonight in my new Rolling Stone issue and the passage is a big "told you so" to those of us that got the preface over a decade earlier.

I'm not sure that I want to buy and read the new book, as I have a pretty good inkling it paints a picture of the future that is so dreary as to be nearly unbelievable. It might be a bad trip I'm not willing to take -- but I probably hop the freight anyhow...

James and Emmylou in the Pennebaker music laboratory. 

Ahhh, Emmylou

So, in the Way-Too-Cool category, my famous Internet discussion board friend James Pennebaker, the multi-instrumentalist for the gonzo country band Big and Rich, just got done doing a session for Danny Flowers' (the dude that wrote the Don Williams hit "Tulsa Time") upcoming record with the legendary Emmylou Harris.

James is producing the record for Flowers, as a follow-up to their previous collaboration, Flowers' "Forbidden Fruits and Vegetables," which got rave reviews.

Anyhow, Flowers drove Emmylou out to James' house for a visit -- which, as you can imagine, is quite the "Oh My Gosh!" event... Apparently, Emmylou likes to bring her dog with her here and there and she brought the pooch with her to JP's.

During the visit, the dog took some liberties with the Pennebaker carpeting by taking a whiz or two...

Of course, the ever gracious JP just shrugged it off, for a little dog tinkle never hurt anyone...

I figured there was a country song in an experience like that, so I quickly penned this for James:

Pissing on the Carpet
By D. Rey 3/24/05

Directions from town
Slowed you way down
as my friend missed that left turn

And you didn't complain
About my dusty ole lane
I guess grace is something you earn

Emmylou
Emmylou
Quite pleased to meet you
But your dog is pissing on the carpet

We went on upstairs
You never put on any airs
As we wandered into the music room

Among the Idaho steels
And the analog reels
We snapped a shot to bring on the swoon

Emmylou
Emmylou
Doing that magic you do
But your dog is pissing on the carpet

Emmylou
Emmylou
Now I'm still feeling blue
Even after your dog pissed on my carpet

*****
I suspect JP and Flowers, w/ the help of Emmylou and, rumour has it, Buddy Miller, will deliver another fine record...

Adams - Rawlings - Welch 

Destroyer, et al...

The long-rumoured, never found "Destroyer" sessions songs by Ryan Adams turned up at a Ryan Adams fansite recently. Adams collaborated with David Rawlings and Gillian Welch on the 14 songs, which includes "Time (The Revelator)," which Welch delivered on her masterful "Time (The Revelator)" album a few years ago.

This session pre-dates the release of Adams' best record to date, "Heartbreaker" -- which Rawlings and Welch played a big part in helping shape.

The "Destroyer" sessions music is very strong and a real treat for those of us that miss Adams' masterful country-based stylings. It's hard to believe material this strong was shelved and lost for so long.

Choosing "One Hand Loose"

I didn't realize it would be such a challenge to name my blog...

In the end, "One Hand Loose" won out because it seemed to sum up what I envision the territory this blog will traverse.

Runner up was "Crosscut Saw" -- other contenders were: "Hell or Highwater;" "I'm Only Bleeding;" "Dear Landlord;" and "Ragged and Dirty."

To tell you the truth, I don't really know where this blog will end up navigating me -- my guess is it will be some sort of organized disjointedness... Nobody will really know where we are heading each day...

I do expect that some of my now-defunct music column -- "TWANG!" -- will find it's way in here fairly regularly.