this is a call

better than new clothes, better than a full belly, better than a hammock nap...is a fresh perspective...and that's what i'm seeking.
i'm recruiting you all to turn me onto something...a book, a song, a speech, a picture, a movie, an idea...anything that will challenge me to see things differently.

bring it,

thorns

a sad realization and some leftovers

first comes the sad realization regarding my most recent post...

after some review, i very clearly see the "hey-you-kids-get-out-of-my-yardishness" (to borrow a phrase from Rob) of the post and am thoroughly disgusted at how much of a miserable old fart i must have recently become. the kicker is that, despite knowing how much my post makes me come across as the stuck-in-the-past/all-of-today's-music-sounds-the-same-to-me musical curmudgeon, i still hold fast to my beliefs...thus further solidifying my ever increasing distance from "hip." going out immediately to buy orthopedic shoes and pants with elastic waistbands.

and now the leftovers...

sometimes i see things that strike me as funny or peculiar or noteworthy and i somehow record them for later reference here and, for lack of a substantive post based on their own merits, they're leftovers. the first of such is a funny new site i stumbled across which is great for wasting a bit of time. check out totallylookslike.com to see pictures of people who, as the name would suggest, totally look like someone or something else. if you see a pair who belong on this site, make the correlation and send it in and they'll likely post it. i've compiled some highlights:

continuing with the surplus...i was in blockbuster the other day and happened across these: the one on the right is about a girl who is basically forced into indentured servitude by the police and wields a yo-yo with a martial-arts flair to fight crime and the one on the left...well...what else is there to say?

and my last bit of detritus is a new way i've found to recycle my old media and get media that i want for very cheap. it's called swaptree and the site offers the service of cataloging items that you have and items that you want and then matching the two users to arrange a trade. the only thing you pay is the cost to ship your old stuff to whoever the user is that wants it. the site even provides an interface through which you can print trackable shipping labels if you have a credit card and a printer capable of labels. i know there are other online services of the ilk (please let me know if you know about any of them) but this one is very easy to use and i've had great results so far.

stay tuned for the next collection of castaways from the island of misfit blog ideas.

always looking for future flotsam,

~thorns

as good as it gets

to piggy-back on bullet point #9 of my "music = life" post: "the joy of finding and listening to a long-lost record/cd/tape...," i'd like to wax rhapsodic about recently doing just that. in the process of a little seasonal storage-unit jockeying, i ran across a cache of old cassettes and have spent the past few days bathing myself in the reminiscent joy of some of the best music ever made.

now i know everyone doesn't share my taste in music and that there will be some strong dissent, but it's my contention that mainstream radio was at it's most exciting in the early to mid '90's. while it's true that artists who released major, unquestionably influential albums during the 80's (the cure, REM, violent femmes, the smiths, the pixies, u2, the police, radiohead, sonic youth, etc.) paved the way for bands of the following decades, the speed of musical progress and the envelope-pushing breakthrough artists of the early-mid 90's had not been seen before and has not been touched since.

i was a young teen during that time and developing my own musical appetites and, driven by a lack of money to buy new music on my own, i'd record hours of radio for later consumption. it was one of these tapes that i recently unearthed and when i listen to it, i still feel a little jolt of electrical excitement that i felt back then. in one 90 minute sampling of "104.7 "The Buzz" - Richmond's New Rock Alternative!," (now, tragically, an Urban Gospel station) i'm treated to tracks by the cranberries, folk implosion, lisa loeb, soundgarden, bush, pearl jam, nirvana, stone temple pilots, nine inch nails, and the lemonheads. for real, folks, how much more exciting can mainstream radio get than that?

the 90's also brought us some of the best in hate-the-world-suicide-rock like "bullet with butterfly wings" by the smashing pumpkins. how can you ignore lyrics like "the world is a vampire" and the enduring anthemic line, "despite all my rage, i am still just a rat in a cage":

too juicy a lyric not to include here is another pumpkins gem from the song "zero"

"emptiness is loneliness, and
loneliness is cleanliness, and
cleanliness is godliness, and
god is empty just like me
intoxicated with the madness,
i'm in love with my sadness"

while the radio was bursting with new life, the music video was starting it's rise to ultimate popularity and artists were finding new ways to express their music. enter: (the wonderfully disturbing) "sober" by tool:

brings a tear to the eye. dysfunctional perfection.

the 90's ushered in a new kind of music and a new breed of musicians that seemed edgier, angrier, and less pretentious than the drivel that floods the mainstream airwaves these days. until alternative rises again to dominate the fm frequencies, satellite radio and my homemade archives will have to keep the tunes flowing.

other very honorable mentions i'd hate not to be represented here: pavement, rancid, third eye blind, hole, live, oasis, alice in chains, jane's addiction, collective soul, weezer, rage against the machine, and tons of others!

still rockin' out,

~thorns

when it's in your bones

if you don't regularly equate music with life then this post probably won't resonate quite as strongly as with those of you who do but, whatever the depth of your relationship with music, it's universally undeniable that notes, chords, harmonies, and melodies enrich our lives in ways *few other things can.

i'd like to take a minute just to celebrate some of the experiences that i'm sure every true music-lover can relate to:

- sitting in your car after reaching destination to catch the end of a song on the radio
- deeply lamenting the warbly death of a favorite cassette
- spending hours carefully assembling the perfect mixed tape (or cd)
- listening to the carefully assembled tape that someone mixed just for you
- reveling in the staticky radio frequency battle station have when you're driving out of the range of one and entering the range of the other
- buying a back-up copy of a favorite or rare cd/record (just in case)
- hearing a song that you're sure must have been written for you and only you
- listening through headphones and devouring the intricacies you miss (fingers sliding down strings, coughs, inadvertently deadened notes, laughs) with more diffuse speakers
- the joy of finding and listening to a long-lost record/cd/tape and intuitively knowing exactly what song comes next
- the music making you cry
- hearing new music for the first time
- the extreme joy of finding the long-lost selection you though was gone forever
- putting obscure sound clips (like snippits from german language tutorial cd's or lines from movie scores/soundtracks) on mixes
- hearing a song and remembering precisely every detail of a place/time/person/thing you experienced when that song was playing
- learning the REAL lyrics and realizing what a dolt you've been for years :-)
- knowing the whole album. every word. every note. every breath. every pause. every crackle. everything.
- pulling over or slowing down because your radio reception is fading and you know you'll be in a dead spot soon but you REALLY want to hear the song
- singing along...loudly (if you can't sing well, sing loud!)
- waiting for days with a blank tape in the recorder waiting to hear the first notes of a song so you can sprint to the stereo and hit the record button
- finding a great used CD
- the arrival of a long awaited album
- traveling much longer to get to a show than the show actually lasted
- learning a new tune/lick/riff/technique
- being caught obliviously ROCKING OUT in your car by another motorist and the awkward smile that follows
- being in awe of a performer's killer abilities
- lusting after an instrument you can't yet afford
- hearing a cover version and fucking HATING it
- hearing a cover and loving it
- "discovering" a life-changing band or song

and the mother of them all....

- LIVE MUSIC!

(my belief...and trust me, it's been sorely tested, is that any live music is better than no live music...at least they're trying)

those are just a few of the MANY reasons why music = life and are things we music-lovers share across time and space. if you also agree that music = life, please share some of the other experiences that you believe all of us music slaves share.

in the meantime,

~thorns is rocking out thoroughly!

*the PG version of the "few other things" noted above: freshly ground almond butter, campfires, and my grandmother's fried apples and biscuits

a beginning

although it was never so technically labeled when i was growing up in rural virginia, hiking has always been my therapeutic modality of choice. walking, hiking, trekking, or exploring, as i thought of it as a child, has always reached me on simultaneously visceral and ethereal planes. the way i've come to relate to the outdoors and the sustenance i derive from that interaction surpasses the romanticized and often farcical notion of "communing with nature" and is more an opportunity to reflect on and be intimate with things and processes much bigger than me.

when i'm gazing out at a mountain vista, listening to waves lap a shoreline, or watching a forest's arms close around me, i look on the moment like a snapshot. at first i see a fixed and fleeting point in time, a picture of a state of being. then, that photograph dissolves and i begin to take in the thousands of smaller and more complex photographs that contribute to the bigger picture. it's when i see the WHOLE scene in front of me and then realize that that scene is ALWAYS taking place that i am strangely and strongly grounded and contemporaneously uprooted.
i feel so small because that scene, that process, is going to happen with or without me...but i'm at the same time magnified because i'm IN the scene NOW...i'm a PART of it...i'm part of the perpetual, the unstoppable. it's in those swirling moments of synchronous significance and insignificance that my head clears and my own doors to myself open and i can truly reflect.
this week, my meditative hiking practice evolved to a new level as i hiked for longer, higher, and harder than ever before. this past wednesday, we hiked pike's peak. pike's peak is america's most visited mountain and second in the world only to mt. fuji in japan. we made our ascent via the barr trail, a 12.6 mile hiking trail from the base (6,600 feet) to the summit at 14,110 feet. our arduous journey began at 3:30 a.m. and we hiked for roughly seven hours before finally reaching the summit. as we made our way up the nearly 13 mile trail, there were definitely spasms of frantic dehydrated delirium but also were there plenty of moments of clarity where we could be alone with our thoughts...a hike to be remembered to be sure.

it's epic (at least epic at this stage of our hikerhood) treks like this that challenge us and bolster our ambition to eventually get back to the east coast to do the 2,175 mile Appalachian Trail. the history and mystical allure of the Trail, the opportunity to test one's fortitude, and the chance to be part of something so personal yet so universal has long made the AT an aspiration of ours. in the pursuit of that dream, we've chosen to look on our pikes peak ascent as a commencement....our training has begun.

~thorns

public transportation be damned

with the price of gas at record highs, more and more people are turning to greyhound for their long distance transportation needs....not me....and, as this news report indicates, here's why:



that's a BIG wtf!

~thorns

"less strictly constitutional and more strictly awesome"

the onion strikes again!


Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

as cartman would say, that's "hella cool!"

~thorns

to my out, proud, grammatically challenged friend

i'm not quite a social butterfly so i've only made a few friends here in colorado. an even fewer number of them have risen to a level which ranks having their number stored in my phone. this is only important because i recently got a text message from a number that was NOT in my familiar contact list and that i've never seen before. the message seemed heartfelt and was of such interest that i thought you all should know exactly what my anonymous text-friend shared with me:

"your important to me, so i wanted you to be the first to know. i'm a lesbian, always have been."

and with that....my mystery texter vanished like a feathered dandelion frond in the wind. i'm honored that my clandestine friend thinks so highly of me and would confide such a deeply personal revelation...via text.

thank you, mystery friend. thank you.

~thorns

frosty thought

"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

(link)

what to do, what to do

i have a dillema and i'm hoping y'all can help me decide what to do. this past week, we went to a local farmers market in search of some locally produced fruits and vegetables. tangent --> as i'll explain in a future post (unplug yourself: part two), it's important to buy locally. buying locally supports the small farmer, contributes to the regional economy, and cuts down on the amount of fossil fuels consumed during the production/transportation of whatever it is you purchase. digressing...anyway....

i was desperately searching for local peaches and found them at only one of the few dozen booths that crowded the weekly market in woodland park, co. as i stood in line waiting my turn, i heard the proprietor (which i use very loosely here) haggling with a gentleman in front of me. the man asked the vendor very politely how many apricots constitute a "basket" and then asked the price. the man was in his 80's, dressed in a plaid button-down shirt, flat-brimmed cap, and navy blue work pants, and he gave the impression that he perhaps once grew his own produce but has now been reduced to scouring local markets for his 'taters-n-greens.

the vendor, a teenage female clad in a sloppy t-shirt with her slick hair pulled back into an angry knot on the back of her head, told him how many peaches he'd be getting for 5 dollars. the man asked if she'd be willing to take 3 dollars since the apricots were small and the girl indignantly told him that they had the only local apricots at the market so she COULD charge whatever she wanted and that he was lucky it was only 5 dollars. the man was clearly taken aback and stood silent for a moment while the teen moved down the line to insult other customers. another buyer came to his aid and bargained for $3.50, the girl countered with $4.00 after making some other smart-ass comment, and the deal was made.

i was shocked at the disrespect and decided that i didn't need peaches enough to patronize that irreverent bitch so we left with the fresh tomatoes and onions we'd gotten from another booth and moseyed on down the road. several days later, at a weekly market in old colorado city, we again went in search of peaches. i scanned the booths and finally saw a "Colorado Peaches!" sign and got in line for my first fresh peaches of the year. i'd stood there for several seconds and then realized that the vendor was the same girl from woodland park. i begrudgingly bought my peaches and, though they are decent peaches, i feel a tinge of burning hatred every time i eat one.

the dilemma:
do i continue to give money to people who are obviously missing the spirit of local markethood in my quest to do the green thing (and satisfy my need for peaches) or do i stand up for courtesy, compassion, and just-plain-decency and spend my peach allowance at a chain store for produce that more than likely is not locally raised?

missing my grandpa's peaches,
~thorns