Many more thoughts to come, but this:

Five Birmingham Police officers were in the parking lot when two 20-year-old men were shot to death Saturday morning outside Banana Joe’s in Southside.

… is more than a little disturbing to me.  Because Banana Joe’s (what a terrible, terrible name) is within two blocks of my bar.  Because I hear more and more things like this every week.  And because what kind of morons have so little disregard for life (and so much need to prove how manly they are) that they will pull guns after a bar fight with five — FIVE — police officers nearby?

I don’t hold the cops responsible, by the way.  Not in the least.  I do hold the idiot who let the sixteen-year-old into an eighteen-and-up club a little responsible, and the parents (or parental units).  But mostly the weight of all this goes on the people who do these things, and the people who glorify such actions.

And I’m slowly turning into an old person.  Because in my day, when we were gonna pop some caps in someone’s ass over something stupid, we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to do it.

Yup, a meme.  Because I’ve grown utterly uncreative and have nothing of interest to say.

Seriously.

If you want to play:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me” or something of an equally pithy nature.
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature. Be warned!
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions, or there will be trouble.
4. You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.

(In this case, the questions come from my friend Amy Renee)

1.I know you have a lot of artistic endeavors you are involved in, like playing in a band, making movies, etc., but if you could only do one thing for the rest of your life which would you pick and why?

I think that default has been chosen for me — playing music.  I have a track record of doing a few years worth of inspired (if of questionable quality) work in a given field, and then dropping that area for one reason or another.  Movies, photomanipulation, print design… even writing comes and goes.  Granted, I haven’t really created anything musically in years — coming up on a decade now, in fact.  But I can always enjoy playing.  And I’ve got choices within that, as well — bass, guitar, piano, and (one day, goddammit) cello.

2. What’s the single best most fabulous moment you’ve experienced while working at Bailey’s?

Meeting Cynthia.  That’s too easy.

3.What’s the absolute worst situation you’ve been involved in at the bar in which you work?

And on the flip side is this question.  The answer definitely involves violence, usually incited by one of the douchebags we deal with regularly, but (in the past, thankfully) occasionally by another bartender (etc.).  And I’m not gonna name names, since anyone who knows me and my bar can figure this one out (and lawsuits are not fun).  But good lord — doing damage control and having to worry about getting jumped is about my least favorite thing ever, outside of early morning staff meetings.

4.Okay, you’re on an island by all by yourself , but you’ve been given one book, one DVD, and one CD to entertain you for many many years. What book, CD, and DVD would you want?

The book is Illusions (by Richard Bach), although House of Leaves would be a close second (if only because of all the footnotes that I might finally make it through if left alone and bored for many many years).

The DVD is L.A. Story, hands-down (though I would love to have some sort of mega-super special edition if it’s the only thing I can watch over many years).

Why would you make me pick a single CD?  Can I make it a mix CD of my own choosing?  No?  Erm.  Dream Theater’s SCORE? Steve Vai’s SEX AND REAL ILLUSIONS?  Devin Townsend’s BIOMECH?

I can’t do it. How about my iPod?

5. What do you consider your very best quality to be? Do you think other people would agree with your pick?

My calm head?  My suave and debonair approach to life?  No, I think it must be my self-awareness.  Or at least it used to be. Would others agree?  Depends on how well they know me. And their perspective.

Since apparently the other team captain never called ours back to reschedule the game that was called due to stupidity, our soccer season ended today.  In a pretty serious loss, but we’ll glibly gloss right over that.

I figured a few months ago when my friend Andrew asked if I was interested in playing on a team with a bunch of other bartenders and bar regulars, it’d be a good idea because at least I wouldn’t be the only one smoking on the sidelines at halftime.  As the season progressed, though, I realized that I was actually enjoying the game and the people that I play with and against — it’s not nearly as competitive and testosterone-bloated as the games I was playing ten years ago, when I decided that I was too old and not nearly competitive enough to be playing anymore.

Not to mention the fact that I got in better shape faster than I expected.  I still won’t be running a marathon anytime soon, but my endurance came back so that — in spite of a pulled quad muscle that I really shouldn’t have run on today like I did — I lasted about 60 minutes of the 90 without hurting for air (or passing out, or vomiting, etc.).  It’s a good feeling, and I’m hoping to do enough this summer so that when the next season begins (Labor Day, I think), I’ll be ready to play the full 90 at closer to top speed.

It’s good to be back.  As long as I don’t do something to myself that makes me regret not having health insurance…

There’s a truth that funerals should be occasions to celebrate the lives of the deceased. There’s a greater importance, though, in celebrating the lives of those that are still here (or that got left behind, if you prefer). They are the ones that have to carry on, that have to adjust to lives with new holes that may never be filled.

One of my best friends has had to deal with more than his fair share of loss in the past year, and at an age that no one should have to face a single death, much less multiples. And while I grieve for those who have left us, and miss them, it is him that I feel the most for, as I watch him struggle to heal and move on and continue to do what the others cannot: live.

No-Man’s new CD Schoolyard Ghosts happened by coincidence to arrive in my mailbox today, and it couldn’t have been more fitting:

you survived another winter.
you survived where nothing grew.

the days felt cold and never changing,
so you just slept the whole way through.

when you think about the future,
it’s like the past, but hard and small.

an old idea you stole from someone.
a borrowed dream that’s born to fall.

—————————-

take a taxi through the snow
tell them you love them,
don’t let go.

through the tunnel moving slow,
tonight’s there’s nowhere
you won’t go.

you survived yourself.
you survived inside the lost world.
the dreams of love repeat.

subways sing with heated calls –
the g-string sirens walking tall.
summer fires turn winter dreams.
an old romantic’s hotshot schemes.

you survived yourself.
you survived inside the lost world.
the ghosts of harm retreat.

—————————-

sweet surrender to the night.
sweet surrender to the light.
the dreams of love repeat.

Celebrate the lives of those around you today, and celebrate your own life before there are holes of your own that you have to deal with.  And don’t forget to tell the people you love that you do, because every chance to do so might be your last. But don’t dwell on the inevitable; try instead to appreciate the finite.

From Wired (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/calling-on-lamo.html):

Could Lamont “Action” Williams have teamed up with “Women’s Voices Women Vote,” the reportedly pro-Clinton group that has admitted responsibility for the calls? If so, was it part of getting the word out about his candidacy? Has Lamont “Action” Williams been offered a VP slot? Regardless of his involvement, I’m going to take a good hard look at this wrestler candidate. He may have just stolen my heart, and my vote.

Also at NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90114863).

And no, I don’t think Hillary is necessarily behind this, but if her supporters are this bad, then I don’t want to be counted among them.

Devin Townsend is brilliant and mad:

Shut up and think of something more important to say…
‘Sometimes I think that in every straight there’s a gay!’ Something or nothing a whole either way it’s a way,
it’s a way, it’s a way, it’s a way, it’s a way
EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY
it’s a way, it’s a way, it’s a way, it’s a way
EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY

Go buy it now.

In other news, I don’t want to hear anyone tell me I’m a good bassist for at least a week. Thanks to Steven McCullough from the Big Tasties (who should be sitting in with us tonight for a little birthday treat to him), I’ve been listening to the Bill Withers classic Use Me for the past hour. Granted, I’ve never been into soul or funk, and that’s SOOOOOOOOOO to my detriment as a bassist, because gadDAMN! – THIS is a bassline.

And now I hate myself, just for a little while.