http://www.arkansasrockers.com/profiles Recently updated profiles from ArkansasRockers.com en-us "Guys I’ve Worked With" is some funny shit. I’m inspired to dig up some repressed memories of my own restaurant days. ————— I’ve been apprehended by quite a few more cops than I’ve outrun. They are definitely winning. The only time I fooled one was a night when I was speeding down Old Wire, and one saw me and wheeled around to chase me. I sped up, then made the predictable move of making a right turn (the quarry always turn right) into a neighborhood I didn’t know too well. I found myself trapped at the end of a cul-de-sac, so I pulled into someone’s driveway and turned off the lights and ignition and just ducked down. The cops finally came upon my car, but they never got out, they just shined a spotlight there for a minute, then left. I laid there a while longer, knowing I was either caught or not caught, so best to just relax and put this handful of pennies in my mouth. They came creeping back by, shined the light again, and I guess assumed that was my house and that I had been inside the whole time. Then they drove to Pete’s Place and ate some gross food and I resumed my evening of seeing Mojo Nixon at JR’s. ————— Clay, thank you! 2T — I’ve been rescuing turtles from the road all spring. The only one I saw that big was near one of the bike trails. When I stopped the car I thought he was stuck trying to get up a curb, but he’d already been dead a while from a car. Poor old guy. ————— Once, in a movie, a man saw his face in the mirror and punched the mirror. It made for a great visual metaphor. In a subsequent scene the man is seen with a simple strip of rag wrapped around his hand, presumably none the worse for the wear. Another movie and another and another copied this scene until it became fairly commonplace. Pretty soon real men were punching real mirrors. This looked kind of awesome for a second, and though the men garnered the attention and a brief something-like-love from their frightened girlfriends (who had seen these same movies and so had somewhat of a context for the torment their boyfriends must be undergoing), they had also destroyed tendons vital to the use of that hand. If the women had not seen these movies, they broke off the relationship immediately. ————— Yesterday was Henry’s 6th birthday party, a Star Wars-themed affair. On every occasion where he happens to receive gifts, I keep expecting this time will be the time where it becomes about material things, and he, like most children, will start to expect more and more stuff, tearing through the gift-wrap, appreciating none of it and even complaining. But as it turned out, he was just thrilled to have all his friends together in one place. He ran up and greeted and hugged each one as they arrived, he blushed and smiled when they sang the birthday song. It makes a man’s heart proud. I spent the evening assembling Lego ships.   Prescription: Pasta salad (al dente) with vegetables, olive oil and kalamata olives, one wheat brew, nap. ————— We were supposed to get a new A/C and furnace installed this morning, but rain has put a damper on things. ————— Entertainments of Late   This new Jack White album is good shit. If you like to complain about problems you have only yourself to blame for, you shouldn’t have a problem getting into it. I got the Shins too, but haven’t really given it a whirl yet. Music is cheap now! Remember when they used to gouge you, like $17 for a new CD? Now they’re all $9.99. So I got a couple. Sadly, I haven’t been much of a reader these days. A lot of audio books on long evening runs, so maybe that sort of counts. There’s some kind of seasonal pattern that goes on, where I tend to watch a shitload of movies and TV in the spring. Any old thing having to do with a person’s rationale for doing something a certain way must have some psychological/historical explanation, so I wonder what stupid reason I have for selecting certain types of entertainment for certain times of year. Jeremiah Johnson with Robert Redford: Five stars! Everyone’s got to see this one. Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method: Three stars Mad Men, whatever season this is: Five Stars The Killing, season two: Two Stars House of the Devil: Four Stars, as far as horror movies go Forks over Knives, documentary: Four Stars Alfred Hitchcock Presents, streamable now on Netflix: Five Stars War Horse: Three Stars. I expected to like this more, but it just didn’t come together somehow. The weird way they lit the thing, especially in the beginning, to resemble those old live-action Disney movies like Pete’s Dragon didn’t sit right with me, for one thing. Justified (only on Season two): Four Stars       And kindly accept my apologies, that this is what’s going on these days.     ————— I. So, Thomas Kinkaid gets to heaven. Saint Peter looks up from a funny talk he’s having with some cohorts, chuckles and says, "Hey Thomas, where’re your fucking paintbrushes?" The men laugh awkwardly as Thomas winces in the bright light, still somehow hungover. He looks down at his feet. Peter says, "I’m just joking, you prick. Get in there. You knew we wouldn’t let you in here with your goddamn paintbrushes." II. Levon Helm gets to heaven. Saint Peter white-outs the "e" at the end of Kinkaid’s name on the register so perhaps Helm will think it’s somebody else, for Peter is asham-ed of admitting him, but Helm sees through the ruse. Still, he says nothing of the matter and signs his own name just beneath Kinkaid’s, Dick Clark having been sent to hell. "Is this Arkansas?" says Levon Helm, earnestly but a bit befuddled. Peter says, "No, but it is located directly above Arkansas? No, but it’s the next best thing? No, but we offer the earthly pleasure of corn liquor? I dunno, I never was much of a songwriter myself."   http://www.arkansasrockers.com/chads Ian Curtis 7/15/1956 - 5/18/1980. Shane: That is the best Rochester story I've ever heard. Rochester sucks. I guess we are doing birthday lunches at work again. I'm on pizza overload. Work has been nuts today. Go Pacers. Why are the Lakers and Clippers playing back to back games Saturday and Sunday while Miami and Indiana have off until Sunday? If the Spurs win game three, do you think Pops will rest his starters for game four? Going skateboarding tonight. It's warm and not windy out. All this pizza is making me fat. Vert Is Dead = Alan Petersen.   http://www.arkansasrockers.com/justingoetz   The new mandate is to be alive at least one to two times per day.   http://www.arkansasrockers.com/PLACEHOLDER   It may be an odd validation of the quality of John Harmon's boots, but if you ever find yourself laying in the grass with him on a sunny, Sunday afternoon, take notice of his insanely uncaloused feet.  Like a baby's foot, only man-sized and slender.   The softest feet that I ever seen on a human being capable of walking.     *** John, I’ve been really curious about that movie but haven’t heard anything about it.  Thanks for the suggestion - I’ma watch it this weekend.  I’m taking my friend (with the upcoming surgery) out for drinks on Saturday night.  I’m thinking that just feeling it out might be best.  On another note, a woman that I met once, when I was on Spring break in Ft. Lauderdale when I was seventeen, recently passed away and left me (!) a small box of personal items (photographs, a piece of Chinese art and a stack of old black-and-white photos).  I am so touched and excited.  I feel like I’ve been handed something important, and more so, am overwhelmed by the notion that we cannot know who and how we touch people as we proceed through life.  Crazy.  Her name was Libby Schlack.    *** Learned today that a good friend has breast cancer and is undergoing a mastectomy next week.  I really want to show her my support but am feeling a little stifled about how to go about it: flowers and a card almost seem kind of ridiculous.  I don’t want to impose and also wonder if she’d just rather not talk about it, but would like to make sure that she understands that I am here to support her in whatever way possible.  Any ideas?     http://www.arkansasrockers.com/miranda "well, she'd better be happy with a man who can't fix anything or lift anything heavy and who has dull kitchen knives"   John: I’ve been in there to get shoe polish once for a 50’s vintage pair of wingtips I love. It’s a husband/wife pair that run the shop and they both looked ancient. The wife took my money and she looked like a stiff wind would break her in half. It seemed like a place where I could get excellent work done though. I’ve had my Mahan’s resoled and said pair of wingtips rebuilt at Clardy’s with good luck. Downside is when I picked up my Mahan’s they had Rush Limbaugh on the radio in the back going pretty loud. I’m going to take my Red Wings to the College boot repair shop on 6th st. one of the guys now part-owner used to work with my roomate at JB Hunt. Knew the owners son from church and would go help at the shop after work and eventually left the JB to become a cobbler.   I’ll buy myself a nice pair of new stockman boots for my birthday. Stockman’s have less of a heel and rounder toe than cowboy boots.   Justin: That’s about what I imagined, I can’t see the Twin’s AAA team being too good.  My uncle went to grad school in Rochester. He lived in this loft apartment and in the first week he lived there someone threw a brick through a window with a note that said "get out whitey" Which I still think is kind of funny.         http://www.arkansasrockers.com/Shaner http://www.arkansasrockers.com/Clem+Snide  Harry M. Harmon, MD:  We hardly knew ye.           http://www.arkansasrockers.com/Mr.+Harmon IMDB just suggested like four seasons of Murder, She Wrote for me.  What aspect of my life has it been watching? Allison -- WTF?  I got Gloria Allred's number if you need it.  I'm not kidding. I don't know shit about quantum mechanics but I watched Nova once because the dad of lead singer of the eels was nuts with smart. http://www.arkansasrockers.com/Mitch http://www.arkansasrockers.com/allison   Actual Quote from Jaguar during Catholic Mass: "dont eat those little crackers, they put something in them that lowers your intelligence" Quote of a lifetime: “Some people fight life. not me. I fuck the shit out of it” aaron a.j. lovell III “Everybody knows its bad to push a good thing too far, and a darned sight worse to shove a worse thing farther; so right here I’ll drive a stake down and put a ground wire.” Geo E. Ohr, world renowned potter, aka the Mississippi Mud Dauber http://www.arkansasrockers.com/squidlad   One of my favorite pictures of my Granny.          http://www.arkansasrockers.com/autumn http://www.arkansasrockers.com/johnmark miranda, i think it’s best to just let your friend know that you are there for her if she needs you.  i think a cool potted flower is nice too (that’s what i’d want)!   1/2 of my garden is slowly dying, and i’m having a hard time giving it up.  i’m getting excited about digging up our potatoes.  one of our chickens, little gertie, dug one up and it’s pretty big.  this is my first time growing potatoes, and it’s been interesting.   i'm glad clay keeps this site going.  it's cool being able to keep up with what everyones doing.  I'd like to ditto Harmon's idea and say KEEP ON WRITING!!!   http://www.arkansasrockers.com/hannah whew! i was worried there for a minute. glad this little world is back. yay arkansas and turtles. love.           http://www.arkansasrockers.com/cara thanks clay! http://www.arkansasrockers.com/drwells Clay Simmons!  Woot Woot!   April 1st,  2012  9:30 am...  Came across this "dinosaur"  on the bike trail.  I think he wanted to battle.                     http://www.arkansasrockers.com/2t Yay. http://www.arkansasrockers.com/cletustboone                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       I                           hello http://www.arkansasrockers.com/AiLien   http://www.arkansasrockers.com/martymar http://www.arkansasrockers.com/big+momma   In case you didnt get my text: Im looking to buy:  Saxophone  Bass Guit  Kick Drum High Hat No, Im not starting a 1-man-band called "Holland Oats".     Yes, I am starting an instant oatmeal brand. http://www.arkansasrockers.com/Zach+Holland Having a hard time picturing Marty with an eight month baby belly. WOW! Congrats, guys! Pork!   AD: Reading Born to Run. I have some questions for you about stride/biomechanics. I'll email you some trip pics, soon. Sorry it's taken me so long.                                                         http://www.arkansasrockers.com/smiller Cara C I would be very interested in checking out some recipes for your huzzbands bitters! Send me your land address and I will write you a letter! <hollyatunfussyfooddotcom) I am a bitters fanatic. There can never be too much in my cocktails. I drink bitters and seltzer at home, with grapefruit juice. Bitter is a flavor I think we have unlearned appreciation for. Like broccoli raab, mustard greens. Our grandparents (whether Italian or Southern) ate them on purpose through traditional knowledge that they are great for your health. Three cheers for a varied diet! IPA shouldn’t be the only bitter thing we eat/drink! ****************** Andrew, it’s all relative. My roommate for the last five years is a palliative care nurse specializing in Oncology. So basically she helps people die while they puke, hallucinate and sometimes crap on her. Yet, she finds cleaning the bits of food out of the kitchen sink drain after washing dishes to be the most disgusting thing. It makes her gag.  She also can’t scoop the cat litter box. Pretty crazy.    ***************************** Hmmmmm, let’s see. What is going on? Well, I just got back from vacation. It was my first opportunity to experience an "all inclusive resort" and I will say that I do not think I need to do that again. I am more of a rough vacationer.  I just need a decent hotel, pension or equivalent. No hostels. I did that for the last time in Brazil in 2008 and I’m officially too old for that shit. I just need a clean bathroom and clean sheets. No bell boys or unlimited sweet, watery cocktails. The resort experience includes a food trough (which they call a buffet) where food quality is very spotty. I was able to find a few Dominican dishes among the poorly made American/Western breakfast offerings.  I subsisted mostly on bread, delicious cheesy puree of yuca, Dominican sausage and yogurt for the entire trip as the majority of the rest of the food was embarrasingly bad. Not the fault of the cooks. It’s the fault of tourists who feel uncomfortable with the surely more delicious local cuisine, and would prefer really terrible versions of "french toast" instead. Plantains in the DR are amazingly delicious. You wouldn’t think brief shipping across the ocean would effect the flavor that much, but closer to the farm they are freaking heavenly. Mangoes too. The beach is beautiful, but it was windy every day with really choppy water so both my diving and snorkeling excursions were canceled. That was a big bummer, as I had planned for months on some awesome reef diving.  Instead I went to the mall and spent money on silly souvenirs, practiced as much Spanich as possible with the resort staff and every cashier or waiter that I came across. That part was fun. I did surprisingly well with the language, and got great service because of it (that plus giving generous tips in local currency). I had a good time with my step mom. It was our first time to really talk much in person since my Dad died last summer so that was good. She is new in my life (only a few years with my Dad) but is now permanent family so we’re figuring out how to be one without him. I think it will work out. We got drunk on proper margaritas (finally) at the mall then spent too much money at the Swarovski store. Oops.  It was nice to be off work, but I’m ready for another trip soon. Def coming to AR late summer, maybe even NZ in fall.  Next summer is our 8 day ladies tour de france (with myself, roommate and two other girl friends) which we are all saving money for currently. It promises to be the trip of a lifetime.) That’s all.    http://www.arkansasrockers.com/hollyann Hiya, sexy people! The "Fine 'n' Dandy" cocktail 2 parts gin 1 part triple sec or other orange liqueur 1 part fresh squeezed lemon juice healthy fat dash of bitters Shake with ice and pour it all into a glass or strain it into a martini glass, garnish with lemon or lime wedge or whatever you want. This is a beautiful cocktail for beautiful people. It's also a full on pandemic attack against the liver.       ****************************************************************************************************************************************** Harmon, I logged in at arkansasrockers last night and was quietly catching up when my boyfriend glanced over from his laptop and saw your hat post. "Holy Shit!" he yelled, and quickly logged into his ebay account where he showed me the latest auction he’s been watching: "Stetson ‘Open Road’, Silverbelly, 4X, 2 3/4" brim, 4" crown". The funny thing is, I didn’t know he was hat-shopping at all and he didn’t know that my brother wears a hat, let alone THAT HAT. I then read out loud your reasoning behind that hat and he was grateful to have his theories confirmed. "I must meet this man, immediately," he said. Then this morning I saw I missed a call from you last night. Which is all my way of telling you we’ll be in LA soon.   *********************************************************************************************************************************************** I just found this on craigslist: "Hello, I am willing to pay $60 for this. I am big on visual metaphors. I make extensive use of them in my films. I am researching visual metaphors that suit my short film. Please reply if you love visual metaphors and you have either used in your work or have extensive exposure to them (via reading or working with others who did). If I like your thinking, I will continue to use your services in future." Now, this could be 1) real, or 2) a fake, written by some kind of Ted L. Nancy fan. Either way, it is hilarious, and I thought it might be fun to list our favorite visual metaphors! My favorite is the train going in the tunnel to signify sex. Actually that’s the only one I can think of right now, but I can’t remember which movie that was in, Naked Gun? There was a whole onslaught of visual metaphors, if I remember correctly.     Autumn! Thank you for reviving some Billie Jean Phillips talk. I’ve been obsessed with that case since it happened, though I hadn’t remembered the "sexual jet ski" metaphor until now. (Really, what IS that? I want one.) I grew up in Washington County and have been interested in crime and mysteries and conspiracies since I can remember, so having Madison County right next door has always been great for me. I remember driving through Huntsville during the 90s and seeing the billboard that Phillips’ family paid for, with a tip hot-line and a blurry photo of Billie Jean with bleached hair.  She was screwing everybody, including the county prosecutor, at the time of her murder, so pretty much everyone had a motive. Her young son found her beaten to death, and I always thought how creepy it was that he walked out of the house and told his dad, "Mommy fell when she was painting."  I also loved hearing about Ralph Baker when I was little, a lawless redneck sheriff running marijuana conspiracies all over the same backroads that we drove to get to swimming holes. I liked those "Ralph Cares" bumper stickers on old pickups and cars around town, it made me feel like I was in on something corrupt like you would find in a Third World kleptocracy. I was thrilled beyond belief when Ralph died suspiciously strapped into his car at a low water crossing. There is a book called "When Money Grew on Trees" that was written and vanity-published by Ralph’s (alleged) former drug-running partner (name?) that describes all the rascally shit they were up to for decades in Madison County. A couple of years ago the author of that book apparently stabbed himself to death while in police custody in the security room at the Wal-Mart Supercenter on MLK Blvd. They had arrested him for shoplifting. Funny thing is, the police themselves gave the statement to the Times that he had stabbed himself to death while in police custody, apparently in handcuffs. I hadn’t thought about that in awhile. In other news… This exchange happened last night, as I was driving my mother and stepdad home from the Chinese buffet on MLK: Me: So earlier today I snapped and I was rude to this Christian fundie guy who was trying to give me a pamphlet about how the homosexual conspiracy is trying to recruit teenagers into being homosexual and all kinds of crap. He came up to my car window as I was trying to pull out of the bank, and when I saw what he had in his hand, I put my hand up to block him and said, "I REALLY can’t handle your brand of bullshit right now," and I drove away. John: Oh, don’t let those guys get to you, they’re all over, you just have to let it go… Camilla: Or you could be more Buddhist about it and just roll up your window when you see them coming. You’ll have to be that way in the city because you don’t know who could be violent and start punching you through the window. Me: Yes, I know all those things, I get it, I’ve lived in cities before and around crazy street people and I know the fundies are just trying to figure things out in their crazy heads like the rest of us and I get that, but I just couldn’t take that shit today and I snapped. It was not how I normally react. I just get mad, because the anti-gay Christians spend more time thinking and talking about gay stuff and butt-fucking than anyone I know, and it’s curious. John: You’re right! They do talk about it all the time! Kinda makes you wonder who wants to buttfuck more… Me: Exactly. And you know how you always think about the best zinger comeback like 30 seconds too late? I thought I should have said, "You should put down the goddam Leviticus and be a little more Christ-like, don’t you think?" John: No, you should have said, "Aww, I buttfuck all the time, it’s not so bad." ***********************************************************************************************************     "She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot." –Mark Twain  "Passive suffering is not a good subject for literature." –Matthew Arnold?  ************************************************************************************************************* My mother and I just had this conversation: Camilla: *sigh* I just keep thinking about all of the micro-tragedies in the bird world. Me: What…are you talking about? C: Well, I just saw this big chunk of ice fall off a tree outside and I was thinking, ‘What if there was a little bird perched on the branch below?’ It would be like a miniature version of J.B. Hunt. (thoughtful pause) Except there wouldn’t be any tiny ambulance to come roaring up with little bird EMTs to put the little guy on a wee stretcher and rush him off to the hospital. Me: Wow. C: What would the bird hospital be called? Suet Memorial? Me: Kinda flat. C: Peckerwood General Hospital? Me: I’m pretty sure that’s racist. C: (defensively) What does Peckerwood mean? Me: I can’t remember if it’s a black guy or a white guy. It’s on that Richard Pryor sketch. C: It’s gotta mean a white guy, so then it’s not racist. Me: *sigh*  Whatever.   **************************************************************************************************************************** Are we talking about wacky grandma names? I don’t get on here very much. Mine were Grandmama and Granddad until that young upstart Alana came along and changed them to Mammy and Dad-Dad. But I think Leigh Wood takes the cake with Bee-Bob and Daddy Rat. http://www.arkansasrockers.com/tinybadger Hi. Hello. Hi.   It's been awhile Rockers!   Allison- I go back and forth every day on doing well, great, and then less than awesome.  Hang in there! It's never easy for anyone. It's finals week, and I've got way too much shit to do and even less of it done. Looking forward to the summer; work, swim, work, swim, baby niece, work, vacay, swim, photos, work.  - Ketchup just wasn’t ready to face his future of possible abandonment.  – Phyllis is home now! We (heart) Head(s)!         http://www.arkansasrockers.com/which+ways+is+up%3F http://www.arkansasrockers.com/ettiem allison: i'm sending you positive thoughts and warm, embracing hugs...the kind where you can feel that the person giving them just cares. i've needed them before. i'm e-sending them to you now.   going to st. louis next month for a wedding. it's my first time. anyone been there and can direct me to a nice lunch place? it'll be all i really have time for, i think.   have you ever been driving and you're struck with a memory that you didn't know you remembered and you're left wondering "did that really happen?" that's happened to me several times over the past two weeks. i guess my memory is starting to come back in droves.   old age: more medications. good times! http://www.arkansasrockers.com/ilikequittingandrejoining Glad to be home. http://www.arkansasrockers.com/krick http://www.arkansasrockers.com/stacy I cant remember the last time I updated this. When I moved back? 2010? Good to see a lot of the of the same names. Hannah!!! You do exist on the internet, after all. Hi everybody else!   http://www.arkansasrockers.com/mollyd