Worst Movie of the Year

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Shitty, Shitty Sequels.
Starring and directed by people who should know better.
Produced by a guy who clearly does not.

That many people still smoke? Jesus.

As alluded to yesterday, The Presidents of the United States of America were indeed elected to rock our asses til' midnight at Sundown in the City last night. Actually, it was more like 9:30, but I had to work a song lyric in here somewhere; it's a hard and fast blog rule when writing about music, right?

For those not from these here parts, Sundown is a free concert series held in downtown Knoxville's Market Square. The series' lineup is mostly lesser known but quality acts with the occasional widely known has-been act thrown in to get people excited. PUSA, or as I prefer PotUSA, is this year's has-been act. Because it's free and live music in general is a good thing, each weekly concert is well attended. This also means that a much broader cross-section of people show up to rock, from seniors cruising around in their Rascals to self-conscious high school goth-punks. The opportunities for people-watching (one of my favorite pasttimes) are boundless.

The opening band was a local group that I've been wanting to catch for sometime, Cutthroat Shamrock. Their brand of music, acoustic Irish folk-punk, has always sounded intriguing and I wasn't disappointed. Replete with mohawks, lots of buttons, and impressive beards to go along with acoustic guitars, a stand-up bass and bongos, these guys really rocked. I'll have to catch them again sometime.

We worked our way to within about twenty-five yards of the stage during the opening set and were in a pretty good spot by the time the Presidents came on (I'm actually not a big fan of acronyms at all). At this point I refer back to the title of this post. Seriously- where did all these teenage-looking kids with bottomless packs of Marlboros come from? I normally don't mind being around smokers all that much because they are usually courteous enough to blow it away from other people, but in a crowded elbow-to-elbow concert situation that's just not possible. What was really annoying, though, was how much the people around us just would not stay still. After the first song starts is not the time to fight your way out of the crowd to go get a beer and then come back trailing eight new friends, all of whom top 6'5". Assholes.

That's a concert, though, and I can deal with it. The flailing arms and lit cigarettes tend to cause a bit more claustrophobia, however, for the barely five-foot set. I was about fed up with the face-full of hair I kept getting from the girl in front of me anyway when Courtney said she needed to get out of there. I needed no convincing.

We would have liked to have taken Wigshop kingpin C.K. up on his offer to let us join him in his second-floor offices above the square at that point, but there was no way anyone would have heard us shouting up at that point had we even been able to get over that way. Thanks anyway, C.K., and congratulations on the sweet location there.

Instead, we fought our way away from the stage and back to where there was room to breathe and that breath was occasionally smoke-free. Only occasionally. And there we were able to enjoy the show like the old farts that we apparently have become.

The Presidents rocked out pretty good. They are a tight little Seattle three-piece that seems to really appreciate the opportunity to play music for people. They spared not a single jump-kick or windmill in entertaining what was a very supportive and energetic, if emphysema-doomed, crowd. Good show. And it was heavy on the 1995, as one would expect. Actually, the lead singer, in introducing the song "Lump" said, "This next song was a big hit for us back in 1870." They clearly had a sense of humor about themselves.

Enter the madness.

Performance art, right? One of those guys that just stands really still.

Cutthroat Shamrock. The bass player is wearing a Rancid t-shirt and the drummer looks like Billy Gibbons if ZZ Top had come of age at CBGB instead of in Texas roadhouses.

In case you can't read it, the sign in the window says "The man who lives here is loony." I just always wanted a picture of it.

What my lady is up against in crowds. I told her to just punch Sasquatch in the kidneys, but she wouldn't do it.

Los Presidentes de los Estados Unidos de America. This is where we started out.

This is where we ended up.

This kid was feeling the rock. We should all be so fortunate. Anybody see "Air Guitar Nation?" Here's your champion, 2018.

We could be really clever and start calling her Joyce DeWitt

Is there a better way to dust a dracaena than with a damp rag, leaf by enormous leaf? That bitch Janet*, champion dust collector (Living Room North End division), took forever to clean off yesterday. Plus, she’s about as tall as Courtney now and has grown top heavy (ahem, insert Courtney joke here, possibly referring to bra size, but without crossing the line), so I spent even more time trying to stake her up with an unused curtain rod and some twine to no avail. She’s going to need a heavier pot. No, dude, not some heavier pot, a heavier pot. She’s falling over.

And now I’m blogging about my house plants. Yes, I am at home on a Thursday afternoon dreaming of formerly dusty dracaenas because I am once again unemployed. All that Bejeweled and Zuma I was playing at that last job could only mean one thing: they did not need my temporary services after all. It just took them two weeks to figure it out. You should know that I left there Friday holding the IT Depot scoring records in not only Bejeweled and Zuma, but online Skee-Ball as well. I tend to leave my mark.

Due to pressing matters like dirty indoor greenery and my general aversion to the kind of work you can get paid for, I have opted not to contact the temp agency this week. I needed some time off anyway to do some spring cleaning, real job hunting (can anyone tell me how to do this?), catch up on your blogs, and take my walk in the woods. It’s that last part that someone needs to pay me for, because it’s what I’m best at.

Anyshway, it’s a beautiful day, so hopefully between giving our grubby apartment a springtime enema and looking for people who will give me money for doing things, I can get outside and breathe some more pollen and smog. At the very least, this fine weather portends a perfect evening in which to go see one of the finest novelty rock acts of the 1990s for absolute free down on Market Square. Anyone out there appreciate large quantities of peaches as much as I do? Millions of them, even?

*We’re not in the habit of naming our house plants. I think Janet is the cultivar name or something.

Valderi, valdera!

In fourth grade music class, the teacher would always take a request at the end of the period for any song we wanted to sing from the textbook. My best friend and I practically monopolized the entire school-year's worth of requests by repeatedly, and with much groaning and eye-rolling from our classmates, demanding yet another rendition of The Happy Wanderer, every time. We freakin' loved that song because of its hilarious and oh-so-fun-to-sing chorus. I don't recall if anyone else in the room enjoyed our repetitive shenanigans, but we sure as heck did. Fourth grade is definitely when I developed my sense of humor. What I have of one, at least.

And so, almost twenty years later (holy shit!), I whistled that tune this very morning as I pounded down the Shining Creek trail, my knapsack on my back. Having satisfied the "temporary" part of my latest temp job, I believe I made the right decision in setting aside the whole "work" thing (so overrated) for a day or two and loading up my backpack (I'd never call it a knapsack) for a jaunt in the woods.

Of course I took pictures. Lots of 'em. Here are a few.

I-40 en route.

I don't know what this is, except it comes from a tree.

Water. It falls. Downhill. (gravity).

I gained around 3,000 feet going up and actually hiked from summer backwards to early spring. The trailhead was dense and green, further up the trees were just leafing out (seen here) and the trees near the top were still bare.

I knew someone would give me shit if I didn't get a picture of a dumbass flower. So here's a white trillium. Eww.

Your happy wanderer at the top of Shining Rock in the heart of the Shining Rock Wilderness. By the way, the "wilderness" designation also apparently means no signs or other trail markings, making it much easier to get lost and stay that way. Cool.


The view.


A few hours later atop Cold Mountain looking back toward Shining Rock. Yup, that Cold Mountain. I had set up camp near the high point just right of my right sleeve.


The ridge I followed between Shining Rock and Cold Mountain, from the latter.


Looks like a pointing finger, right?

The sun setting over the forbidding wall of clouds advancing from the west. I was sure it was going to rain during the night, but it never did.

I was glad I picked a spot in the trees because it was really windy all night. Campsites with views are nice, but not getting blown off the mountain is better.

Did I take too many pictures of myself?

Cozied up in the tent. It didn't get very cold, but it was still a sleeping bag night.

I carried a pad of paper all the way up there and figured I should write something in it before I turned out the light. You know, in case I died.

Morning.

Poser.

The trail through a tangle of rhododendron. It wasn't actually that dark.

There's just no way to end a lengthy photo-post other than with a pile of poop and his best friend, the snail. Seriously, anybody know what it came from? I'm thinking some sort of large cat. Like maybe a liger. A wild North Carolina Liger.

I hug trees

Alright, I promised myself and the vastness of the world wide web that I'd write this post this week, even though at the time I thought it would be my only postable material for the rest of the week and then, lo and behold, dinner happened on Thursday. But a promise is a promise. And now it is 9:20 p.m. on Saturday, so I better get to it if I want to avoid the wrath of my judgmental readership. Oh, I don't mean all of you, just maybe Julie and Jacob.

So here, finally ('cause I know you have all been holding your collective breath on this), are my Five Things I Did to Celebrate Earth Day (which was on April 22nd, almost a month ago.)

1. Nothing.

Aw, shit. This isn't gonna work, is it?! Turns out, I don't much care about Earth Day, at least not personally. Sure, I care about it as far as it gives us an excuse to talk about environmental issues, but for me it was otherwise just another Tuesday. But, so as not to send you home with an empty stomach, here are (and I totally stole this whole idea from Allie, who tagged me with this in the first place) Five Things I Do Everyday Because I Have No Reason Not To.

(Also, I may be drinking right now, so bear with me. If I get a little insistent, well, that's my real personality coming through.)

1. I do not dry my hands with paper towels. Ever. This is a relatively new thing for me, but I don't know why it took me so long to come around to it. My inspiration for this came from No Impact Man. It's the same crazy reasoning I use for not using a clothes dryer: turns out that stuff wants to be dry anyway, whether you employ artificial means or not. I don't use paper towels to dry my hands at work or in public restrooms and yet they somehow end up dry within about one minute anyway. Magic. Just wave your hands around like an idiot for a few seconds and you're good to go. Unless you're Aquaman or Ariel, living happily under the sea, in which case wet is good.

2. I don't buy things. I think this is probably the most important thing I don't do, and maybe my only redeeming quality as a human being. Crunchy Chicken had a Buy Nothing Challenge for the month of April and I forgot about it until almost May, but when I thought about it I had unwittingly risen to the challenge anyway. Aside from food, gas and occasional toiletries (which I believe were exempt from the challenge for obvious reasons), I don't buy things. What else is there anyway? I pretty much have everything I need already. If everyone were like me, our economy would revert to the stone age, which may not be a bad thing.

3. Still not using bags at the grocery store. For that matter, I'm trying to cut back on my purchases and use of anything plastic. Plastic baaaaad.

4. Driving like gasoline ain't free. Because it's not. Accelerate slowly, leave a lot of space between you and the car ahead, drift to red lights, keep your cruising speed down, take corners really, scary fast, ignore speed bumps - these all help conserve gas, and that's good for everyone. I wish this entry could instead be "Not driving at all," but that isn't realistic at this point. We do what we can with what we have. By the way: don't believe the hype - gas is still really, really cheap and this is a poor person telling you this. I can drive 500 miles in a pickup truck for $60. In what bizarro dimension is that expensive? I used to do it for 25. That's insanity.

5. I give a shit. Every decision I make is informed with the idea that waste is bad (and I'm talkin' sin on par with homosexuality to a conservative Republican; like, top-tier offense) and that there is a right and wrong way to get through our short lives on this planet. I'm not saying I do everything right, because that would be an outrageously delusional lie. What I'm saying is that at least I'm trying, and I try harder every day. I don't know why, exactly, since if pressed I would admit that nothing really matters, but I do it anyway, as much a compulsion as anything else.

Ta Daaaa!

I'd like a pack of Virginia Slims with a side of olives, please

When Courtney and I are feeling lazy or the fridge is empty, we frequently make the run down the hill to Wendy's, where we indulge in mass-marketed fried delights. Except we don't really run, we drive, and we always bring it back and eat it on the coffee/dinner table in front of reruns on the TV.

I've always been ashamed of our regular patronage of fast food restaurants, not because I give a crap about what you think about me stuffing my face with delicious spicy chicken sandwiches, but because I feel bad about all the independent local restaurants that could really use our business and probably make better food anyway while we're dropping $10 on the same tasty junk you can get anywhere in America.

Enter the Speedmart Deli. Until recently known as the Smoky Mountain Deli, it's just a couple hundred yards further than that pigtailed redhead, and for months I've been making the case for trying out what some say is the best Greek fare in Knoxville. Only problem is, it's in a gas station. Courtney has a long standing prohibition against eating food from gas stations, so every time I brought up the idea of picking up some gyros from the deli instead of yummy greaseballs from Wendy's, it was promptly shot down.

Not tonight, though. For some reason, we agreed on the gas station. It’s a small station/convenience store, and I was curious to see how they fit the deli inside as we stepped around the guy smoking out front under the awning rather close to the gas pumps. Next to the counter where you pay for your fill-up and pick up a carton of your favorite brand of menthols is another counter that I assume is the deli. I say I assume because it had a menu board hanging over it but there was not a single food item in sight, aside from the racks of chips and beef jerky behind us and a few pre-made salads in a display case. The guy guarding the cigarettes divined our intentions and yelled out the backdoor, apparently trying to find the person responsible for the hummus and tzatziki.

Feeling that my lady wasn’t too keen on the menu choices and not feeling too inspired myself, our course reversal was decided when the guy who’d been smoking on the curb out front came in through the back and started tying on an apron. As Courtney pointed out, the dude did wash his hands, but I grabbed a to-go menu and we made our escape.

So it was that we came to feast on sandwiches and Biggie fries from the greatest idea Dave Thomas ever had.

And that is the story of dinner.

Guilt-ridden but well-traveled

Today, kids, I set a new personal and office record in Zuma: 111,000 points. That’s right: my new job requires even less of me than the last one. I’m still trying to decide if I should be blogging there or if it’s worth risking someone else finding my blog since the computers are shared, but I sure have developed my free online gaming skills. I also hold the office Skee-Ball record. I’m the shit. Bejeweled 2 better watch out.

In other gaming news, the lady and I went out this evening and played a little tennis, something we’ve never done together. There are a couple of courts just down the road that are almost never in use but there were a couple of little kids running around on them when we got there and wanted to play with us. That’s kind of tough since they didn’t have rackets, but we let them serve as ballgirls instead. Win-win, right? Courtney did let one of them take a few swings before they had to go. Neither one of us is overly skilled in racket sports, but it was nice to get out in the sun for a bit.

This past weekend, we made it our fifth weekend in a row spent in the great thirsty state of Georgia. That gets old. This weekend will be spent somewhere less than three hours away, damnit. Or at least somewhere other than Georgia. I hear Knoxville’s nice.

In other news, I just steeped the first pitcher of tea of the year, destined to be iced, of course. And with that sentence, I believe this is the most mundane post I’ve ever written. I would like to assure you, dear readers who by your presence have apparently not given up on me entirely yet, that I intend to get my blogging back on track. This very week, in fact, I pledge to finally deliver on the meme Allie tagged me with explaining five ways I honored Earth Day…a month ago. I’m telling you this now so that I have extra incentive to actually follow through. I’m also going to figure out some sort of contest soon so that I can pass on the book I won in one of Allie’s contests. Any ideas will be appreciated.

There, now there are two things I absolutely have to do or else The Prettiest Denny’s Waitress will also be the most shameful and disingenuous. Hold me to it.

And I continue to apologize and feel like a failure for not commenting on your blogs like I once did. This will also change. I should probably be looking for a job, too.