Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Securing the Homeland



I thought my suggestion of Michael Jordan as Secretary of Defense was pretty bold, but I really admire the daring of appointing Concrete Blonde lead singer Johnette Napolitano as the Director of Homeland Security. Her raspy growl should be enough to intimidate just about anyone, including terrorists, and as long as she brings Jim Mankey along, his incisive guitar leads will add a fine counterpoint. Certainly I will feel a hell of a lot safer at night knowing that Johnette is in charge of our safety from the bad guys! Much moreso than the current guy - I don't even know what band he played in!

Photo by Cunning Stunt

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Holiday Music

Hege V and the Bijous

The Master Entertainer

The Backbeat

I'm a sucker for music at Christmas - not just Christmas music but music in general, although I do dig me some Christmas music. We've got CDs of traditional, jazz, bluegrass, New Wave, Celtic, early Rock, 70's, 80's, lounge, and alternative. We've got Mannheim Steamroller, Celtic Women, Johnny Mathis, Jethro Tull, Mojo Nixon, Squirrel Nut Zippers and just about anything else you can imagine, except maybe hip-hop and straight country.

But it's not just Christmas music on the radio or CD player that we're into - November and December are prime times for us to go out and see live music. We caught the North Carolina Jazz Rep Orchestra at Memorial Hall a week ago for their annual Christmas jazz show and last night we went over to the Cat's Cradle for Hege V opening for the Backbeat.

George Hamilton V (Hege V) went to high school in Charlotte at the same time I did (he was a Myers Park Mustang, I believe, where I was an Independence Patriot) and we both spent the same four years at UNC. I remember seeing George at Festifall early on and he had a band when we were seniors that included my bud Handsome Dave on bass. But I never really met him until first Gumbo YaYa and then Hege V played the Rhythm Alley. I can honestly say I've never seen anyone that is a better overall entertainer (or a nicer guy) than George and of course the show last night was no exception. Excellent as usual!

I'm not a fan of tribute bands (no offense to my friend Not-Slash with Appetite for Destruction) but the Backbeats are quite good at the Beatles cover thing.

Next Tuesday we've got tickets for the NC Symphony's Christmas Pops show at Memorial Auditorium in Chapel Hill. Wednesday we'll be at the Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas show at the Arts Center. And next Saturday we've got tickets for the annual Southern Culture on the Skids Christmas show at the Cradle.

There are more shows coming up - those are just the ones we've got tix for...

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Happy Thanksgiving

The three most important women in my life that I'm not married to - sister, mom and mom-in-law

Daddio

Spent a very nice Thanksgiving at my sister's rebuilt-after-last-years-Halloween-fire house outside of Charlotte. Drove down in the morning with JennySlash, her mom and her mom's fiance - the drive down the back roads to Harrisburg via Liberty, Ramseur and Asheboro was pleasant and the food of course was all that one could ask. Got a chance to see nephew Sailer Boy for a bit, although he spent most of the day shuttling between family members' houses. They're heading out for the Gulf in February and then (probably about this time next year) heading to the Orient, which should please Sailor Boy since he's been wanting to get to Japan since he joined up.

Spent some time Friday cleaning up my home office (it's still something of a disaster area but not as much as before) and then got a little Christmas shopping done on Saturday before going over to the Cradle (more on that in the next post). Today we got the tree up and decorated (I think it's our prettiest tree yet) and now I'm enjoying a fine local IPA at Top of the Hill while J is at church for the first Sunday of Advent.

Got a lot of work to do over the next few weeks before Christmas but also have a lot of good holidays stuff planned, so I'm in a good holiday buzz that I hope will last for a few more weeks!



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