The Rolling Stones -- "Soul Survivor" (1972)

When you're flying your flags

All my confidence sags,

You got me packing my bags

When I was a teenager, many of my friends and I each had a favorite band. 

We all agreed that the Beatles were the best, but it wasn't considered good form to pick the Beatles as your favorite band – that was sort of cheating.  You needed a more personal favorite group to champion in discussions and debates with your fellow music fans.  Once you picked a favorite, they "belonged" to you.

One of my friends identified Herman's Hermits as his favorite.  That didn't work out very well for him in the long run. 

I picked the Rolling Stones – a much better choice, if I do say so myself.  The partisans of the Who, and the Kinks, and the Beach Boys, and the Doors, and many other groups could also claim that their guys were the best, but I could make a good case for the Rolling Stones.

The Rolling Stones posing in front
 of the Forth Bridge in Scotland 

The first Stones album I owned was December's Children, their fifth American studio album, which was released in late 1965 (when I was 13.)  About half its cuts weren't Jagger/Richards compositions, and it also included a couple of live cover.  It wasn't really an album as much as it was a collection of songs.

In early 1966, the Stones released their first compilation album -- Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass).  It had all their early hit singles, including "Satisfaction," "Get Off Of My Cloud," "19th Nervous Breakdown," and so on.

I didn't buy the next studio album, Aftermath – I'm not sure why. But I did get the next 10 studio albums (Between the Buttons, Their Satanic Majesties Request, Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St., Goats Head Soup, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, Black and Blue, and Some Girls).

I think the Stones peaked with Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed. Most people would say that Exile on Main St. was the Stones' last great album. It had some very good songs, but I thought it was very uneven.

The "Exile on Main St." album

There are several songs on Exile that I never warmed up to – including the first single from the album, "Tumblin' Dice." I was very puzzled when I started hearing that song on the radio. It didn't do anything for me, and I couldn't for the life of me see why they picked it to release as a single. (Spin magazine ranked it as the third-best rock single of all time, which I don't get at all.)

Exile on Main St. was released in May 1972 – just as my sophomore year in college was ending – and it was certainly one of the most-played albums on my campus the next two years. "Soul Survivor" is the last song on this double album (which had 18 tracks altogether) and it's one of my favorites from Exile.

"Soul Survivor" uses a sailing voyage as a metaphor for a one-sided relationship. The "waters is rough" [sic] and "the sailing is tough" for the singer, who is "running right on the rocks." His lover "ain't giving [him] no quarter," and he'd "rather drink sea water" than finish out the voyage – because she's "gonna be the death of me."

It's hard to imagine Mick Jagger's confidence flagging, or picture him "packing his bags" and surrendering without a fight, but that's what the song lyrics say.

(There's one particularly interesting line in this song: "I got the bell-bottom blues."  I have to think it's a reference to the well-known Derek and the Dominoes song of the same name, which had been released a year or two earlier.)

I said above that I was pretty pleased with my choice of the Rolling Stones as my favorite group way back in 1965 or so. I'm not sure about that choice now. You can't deny the greatness of the LPs from the late 1960s, but I think the world could have done without their last six or eight studio albums.

Mick Jagger today

I don't know exactly what it is that bothers me so much about seeing my favorite bands from the 1960s and 1970s still playing the same old songs to crowds of bald, fat baby boomers. The Rolling Stones are more guilty of that crime than just about anyone.

What do I expect them to do? Stop playing the old songs? (But the old songs are their best ones – better that they keep flogging "Jumpin' Jack Flash" than the newer crap.) Just disappear?  (If they still enjoy playing and are still capable of putting on a good show, shouldn't I admire them for continuing to perform rather than just staying at home and counting their millions?)

I don't know. My reaction isn't particularly reasonable.

There is another thing that bothers me about the Stones: Mick Jagger.

Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman were a great rhythm section – they mostly kept their mouths shut and just played. Keith Richards is Keith Richards – he never put on airs.

But there's something about Mick Jagger that strikes me as phony. I suspect he was always something of a poseur.

Jagger was from a solidly middle-class family, and attended the London School of Economics and Political Science – one of the most selective universities in the UK.

Does that automatically disqualify him from being an authentic blues/rock singer and songwriter?  Not really, but I still have a hard time believing that Jagger was the real thing. I bought his act hook, line, and sinker for many years, but I don't buy it any more. He's a little too cool for school. 

Click here to listen to "Soul Survivor."

Here's a link you can use to buy it from Amazon:

System of a Down -- "Chic 'n' Stu" (2002)

What a splendid pie,

Pizza, pizza pie,

Every minute, every second,

Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy

Pepperoni and green peppers

Mushrooms, olive, chives

Introduction

It's almost the end of 2010, and I wanted to give my readers a very special post to mark the occasion.  

This post is no doubt the most narcissistic one I've ever done.  (That's no mean feat, given the posts that have come before it.)  

My original plan for this blog was to identify and discuss good songs that few people knew about.  I planned to talk about how I became acquainted with those songs, or what was going on in my life when those songs were released.  But the emphasis was going to be on the music.

This post turns that noble concept on its head.  Instead of starting with a worthwhile piece of music and putting it in some sort of historical or personal context, I'm starting with a song that is not really worthy of much discussion -- except for the fact that it provides a springboard for a detailed exploration of a seriously trivial aspect of my life.  

I think those of you who read until the end will agree that the degree of self-absorption here is rather breathtaking.

I love System of a Down, but this is not one of their more interesting songs.  (It shouldn't have taken the SOAD boys more than about five minutes to write -- nothing very complex or subtle here, that's for sure.)  The only reason I'm presenting it is that my format requires it.  I have to have a song with 2 or 3 lines that I connect to my topic in some fashion.  And the topic today is . . . pizza and me.  Or to put it more accurately (even at the risk of offending the grammarians among us), me and pizza.

That's right, boys and girls.  We're going to start with the first pizza I remember eating, visit the pizza places I most often patronized in college, law school, and in the cities I've lived in since then -- all the way up to the pizza I had earlier this week.  

I wouldn't say that pizza is my favorite food.  But I am confident that there is no food I've eaten more often over the course of my life (excluding Dr. Pepper, which is not food, strictly speaking).  

And, after all, what is more significant?  What a man says?  Or what that man does?  To quote the immortal Mark Twain, "Actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often."  I think we can all agree on that.  

In any event, I'm not going to say "do as I say, not as I do," as my parents used to say when I pointed out inconsistencies between certain instructions they issued to me and their own actions.  (Their response to me?  To quote my favorite line in all of literature -- taken from The Young Immigrunts, by the immortal Ring Lardner: "Shut up," he explained.)

Before we get to my first pizza, it is incumbent upon me to discuss "Chic 'n' Stu," the song from which the lines quoted above are taken.

Chick Hearn

The title of "Chic 'n' Stu" is a reference to legendary Los Angeles Lakers play-by-play man Chick Hearn and Stu Lentz, who was Hearn's color commentator for many years.  Hearn broadcast 3338 consecutive Lakers games, a streak that began in 1965 and ended in 2001 (at the age of 85) when he had heart surgery.  He is credited with inventing a number of now-common basketball terms, including "slam dunk," "air ball," and "no harm, no foul."  

The first few lines of this song paraphrase what Hearn said when the Lakers had a game in the bag:  "The game's in the refrigerator, the door is closed, the light is out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard, and the Jell-O's jigglin'."

The song supposedly was conceived when some or all of the band's members were watching a Lakers game on television and were struck by all the persuasive and enticing commercials during the broadcast -- hence the lines in the song about "Advertising causes need" and "Advertising's got you on the run" -- especially a pizza commercial that inspired them to order a pizza with pepperoni, green peppers, mushrooms, olives, and chives.

You're probably asking yourself, "Chives -- on a pizza?"  This is Los Angeles, where they invented barbecued chicken pizza, so anything is possible.  But I've never seen chives listed among the toppings at a carryout pizza joint.

This is not the only SOAD song with sports references, by the way.  "Old School Hollywood" (which is on Mezmerize) is about SOAD member Daron Malakian's experience playing in a celebrity baseball game with Tony Danza (among others).

Enough of this.  In the words of the immortal Toby Keith, "I wanna talk about me."

My First Time

The first time I ever ate pizza was at the Pizza Hut (possibly a Pizza Inn) located in the Bel-Aire Shopping Center at 20th and Rangeline in Joplin, Missouri.  I would have said I was in 8th or 9th grade, but on further reflection I think it must have been after I had a driver's license.  (I don't recall parents being involved, so I presume that either my companion or I drove there.)  

1970s-style Pizza Hut restaurant

I was with my good friend, Bob, who was much more sophisticated than I was -- he probably had eaten more authentic pizza in larger cities.  I readily acceded to his suggestion that we order a mushroom pizza, although I doubt that I had ever willfully consumed a mushroom prior to that.  (I remember that the mushrooms were sliced, canned mushrooms -- probably all that was available in Joplin in those days.)  

The other detail I remember vividly is that I burned the hell out of the roof of my mouth.

Once I lost my pizza virginity, so to speak, it became a regular part of my diet.  On Friday night's after Parkwood football or basketball games, we often went to the Ken's Pizza (a regional chain) at 32nd and Main.  

I also remember wearing a double-breasted navy blazer and tie when I took a date (I won't embarrass her by mentioning her name) to a pizza place on North Rangeline one Saturday night.

All You Can Eat 

When I moved off campus my junior year of college, I went weekly to an all-you-can-eat pizza and salad buffet at a Pizza Inn (possibly a Pizza Hut) on Bissonnet Street in suburban Houston, Texas.  

I'm guessing the buffet cost $2.99 -- maybe $3.99.  In those days, I was kind of finicky when it came to pizza toppings -- I liked ground beef and cheese and not a lot else.  But the buffet was open from 11:30 am to 2 pm, as I recall, so I had plenty of time to wait for a ground beef pizza to show up on the buffet table.  (I usually took a book to occupy myself.)

I didn't grow up with much money, so I always got my money's worth at any all-you-can-eat opportunity.  As a result, I would fall asleep on my sofa within minutes of arriving back at my apartment.

I remember going to a slightly fancier non-chain pizza place with my college girlfriend on occasion -- I forget the name.  I think the main drawing point of the place was that they had beer and (more importantly) that they would sell some of that beer to us.  

"Here, To Go?  Ten Minute."

There was a Greek pizza and sub shop called "Three Aces Pizza" just a block or two from the Harvard Law School dormitories.  A favorite law school trivia question was which ace was missing from the Three Aces sign.

The staff at Three Aces -- I think they were all brothers, or at least cousins -- were men of few words.  Here are those few words:

1.  "Salt, pepper?"  (This was used only when you ordered a grinder -- which was the local argot for a sub.)

2.  "Here, to go?"

3.  "10 minute."  (No matter what you ordered or when, it was always promised to be ready for pickup in 10 minutes.) 

Three Aces closed in 2009.  I've heard two explanations for the closure.  One was that Harvard, which was their landlord, wanted the land (which was directly adjacent to the law school campus) for expansion.  The other was that some sort of toxic waste issue resulting from the way the neighboring dry cleaner got rid of its used dry-cleaning chemicals. 

I brought home a pizza from Three Aces at least once a week for my three years of law school.  During winter exam week, when there was usually snow up to your ass in Cambridge, I might go there 6 or 7 nights in a row.  (My lunches were usually Oscar Mayer all-beef bologna sandwiches -- with cheese, of course -- or homemade chicken noodle soup.  On weekends I would splurge and make Kraft macaroni and cheese.)

One of the perks of working on the law school newspaper was that we got free pizza and beer on the nights that we put the paper together.  We used to order from Three Aces.  But my last year on the paper, some of the younger whippersnappers insisted we try out a new alternative/healthy pizza place.   They sold whole-wheat pizza with broccoli as a topping -- I kid you not.  What hath God wrought?

I Could See Him at All Times

I lived in a number of neighborhoods in "Our Nation's Capital" and its suburbs since moving here in 1977.  

My favorite pizza carryout of all time was Vesuvio's, which was located on Connecticut Avenue near Dupont Circle.  Even after I got married and my wife and I moved far away from Dupont Circle, I would hit Vesuvio's whenever we were asked to dog-sit and cat-sit when my in-laws (who lived near Vesuvio's) were on vacation.  

One Saturday night during one of these pet-sitting visits, my wife was out and I was left behind with our very young son.  I ordered a pizza from Vesuvio's, but they didn't deliver.  So I had to buckle Nick into his car seat, drive a few blocks to Connecticut Avenue, and find a parking place -- not easy to do on a Saturday night in Dupont Circle.

I decided to take a chance and leave my car in a no-parking spot right in front of Vesuvio's, figuring I could run in, quickly pay for the pizza, and get back to my car before anything bad happened.  

I didn't want to have to unhook Nick from his car seat and drag him in with me.  Carrying a large pizza box and a squirming baby at the same time would have been most inconvenient.  So I left him in the car.

Would you have stolen this baby?

I know, I know -- I probably shouldn't have done it.  But I did lock the car.  And I could see the car at all times while I was in the restaurant -- he was never out of my sight.  

Does it surprise you that my wife has never let me forget this?  I realize you don't know my wife, but you must know other wives.  Would it surprise you if any wife let her husband forget this?  It would very much surprise me.

Galaxians

After three years working at Federal Trade Commission headquarters in Washington, I was offered the chance to work temporarily in the FTC's San Francisco office.  My current wife -- she was not my wife or my fiancee then, but rather my POSSL-Q (that was a Census Bureau term -- "persons of opposite sex sharing living quarters") -- booted me out of her apartment at about the same time, so it was off to the city by the bay for me. 

My best friend from law school was working for a firm in San Francisco then, and we were quite the men about town.  When we didn't feel like fending off the attentions of the many eligible young ladies who frequented the Balboa Cafe, Dartmouth Social Club, and other Union Street establishments, we would head for a tiny local pizza joint in our neighborhood.

The main attraction wasn't the pizza, but a coin-operated "Galaxians" video game.  "Galaxians" was popular in 1981 -- just after "Asteroids" and "Space Invaders" and just before "Pac-Man."

Because I worked for the government, I managed to find quite a bit more time to sharpen my skills than my friend did.  It got to where I could play for about half an hour on a single quarter.  At the end of such a session, I would feel like I had just landed on Omaha Beach, or at least ridden a really scary roller-coaster a few times.  I was so overstimulated and twitchy from adrenaline that it would take me hours to calm down enough to go to sleep.

Eventually, the next generation of games started to replace "Galaxians" in the local bars and carryouts.  I never mastered another game -- I just didn't have the heart to start all over again.

"Just Like Cardboard"

Since returning to the Washington area in 1982, I've lived in the suburbs -- not really prime carryout-pizza territory.  

I've gotten in the habit of picking up a pizza every Friday night on my way home from work.  I usually eat half the pizza Friday night, and consume the rest for breakfast over the weekend and on the following Monday and Tuesday.  (Monday and Tuesday are the nights I've had baked salmon, spaghetti, and French-style green beans for over 15 years now.)

I've searched far and wide for a good source for my Friday night pizzas.  For awhile, I was happily patronizing Continental Pizza, a small, family-run operation in Kensington, Maryland, near the Catholic high school that my daughters attended.  I eventually gave up on Continental -- partly because my commuting patterns have changed, and I no longer drive past it on Fridays.

For the past several years, my go-to Friday-night pizza source has been the humble Pizza Hut (delivery and carryout only) in a nearby strip shopping center.  Until recently, I must say that most of the people who worked at this Pizza Hut were completely clueless.  (I can't tell you how many of my orders there have been screwed up.)  

I remained loyal largely because I could always find some kind of online coupon to use there.  About a year ago, the corporate suits at Pizza Hut decided to implement a single-price strategy -- $10 for pretty much any kind of pizza you wanted.  About the same time, my local Pizza Hut got a competent manager who actually remembers my name and makes sure my order is right.

As long as Pizza Hut sticks with the $10 prix fixe policy, I'll never leave them.  Even though my wife says their pizza tastes like cardboard.

Which doesn't prevent her from sneaking a piece of mine most Friday nights.  Which leaves me with no leftover piece of pizza for my Tuesday breakfast.  

Which makes me bitter!

Here's the "Chic 'n' Stu" song, including lyrics:

I'm not going to bother to include the usual links to order the song -- I can't imagine anyone paying for this song.

Patricia Barber -- "Snow" (2008)

Do you think of me in spring?

Do you think of me . . .

At all?

When you listen to this song, listen to the pause just before the last two words -- "Do you think of me -- (pause) -- at all?"  I think that little pause is what makes this song great. 

Last December 31, I wrote a post discussing another song by Patricia Barber -- "The New Year's Eve Song."  (You can read it by clicking here.)  I've planned all along to do a post about another one of her songs before 2010 ended, and thought I knew which one I was going to write about.  But I changed my mind and am writing about "Snow" instead.
 

The Jazz Standard's stage

Patricia appeared at the Jazz Standard club in New York City this weekend -- four nights in a row, two shows each night.  (Her last show is probably ending right about now.)    

I had hoped to be there to hear her in person.  Unfortunately, that didn't going to happen.  But I do look forward to seeing her perform live someday -- hopefully sooner rather than later.

I don't know if "Snow" was on the setlist at the Jazz Standard or not, but I'm guessing it was.  It's one of her best and best-known compositions.

It's just coincidence that I first heard "Snow" almost exactly a year ago, on a Friday night while I was driving home from downtown Washington in a heavy snow -- a big-ass snowstorm that dumped about two feet of the white stuff on my neighborhood before it ended a full 24 hours later.  It paralyzed the area for days.  

As "Snow" begins, the singer is asking her lover a series of questions. 

Do you think of me like snow?

Cool, slippery, and white

Do you think of me like jazz?

As hip, as black as night

The tone is rather teasing -- certainly not serious.  The questions become more and more sensual in tone, but it's all still just a game:

Do you think of me like fat?

Irresistible as cream

On your lips, on your hips,

Like chocolate, like a dream?

Eventually the singer stops asking what her lover thinks of her and starts making statements declaring how she thinks of her lover:

I think of you like food

I think of you like wine

I shouldn't lick my fingers

I'm drinking all the time

Things are starting to heat up, but we're still operating from the head (or perhaps the loins) -- not the heart:

I think of you like paint

Flesh tones and pink

The song's lyrics create an atmosphere that is quite palpable.  (Barber uses that word in another one of her songs, and it certainly describes the very sensual imagery that characterizes "Snow.")  The words engage our minds, and perhaps our erogenous zones as well.

It's all very satisfying intellectually, but it doesn't really touch you emotionally, and I don't think it's intended to.  It's just foreplay.

But the singer suddenly tires of the game.  It's all very well to lie in bed and trace your fingertips over your lover's body while you speak of snow, and jazz, and linen, and chocolate, and salt, and wine, and warm sand -- at least until you are no longer able to block out the nagging doubts and the fears that insist on rearing their ugly little heads.

Ultimately, the singer's need to be reassured that she really matters to her lover can't be denied.  She finally asks the question that is really on her mind: 

Do you think of me in spring?
Do you think of me . . .

At all?

That's how the song ends.  That last question goes unanswered -- and that means we all know exactly what the answer is.

I'm emphasizing the tiny pause in the last line of "Snow," but please don't misunderstand me.  The song works not only because of that short moment of hesitation, but also because of everything that comes before it.

Patricia has set the stage perfectly.  And when we least expect it, she delivers the coup de grace.  The cracks in the facade that she has no skillfully concealed from us suddenly become apparent.  I think the singer realizes that the structure isn't going to stand for much longer -- perhaps she has suspected as much for quite some time.

Less is more, and nothing at all (if silence is truly "nothing") can communicate everything.  The pause between the first and second parts of the last line ("Do you think of me . . . at all?") is like the split-second that passes between the exact moment a very thin, very sharp knife blade is inserted into your back and the moment you realize what has happened.  Life was going along in a certain way, but suddenly it hits you that everything is very, very different.

Click here to listen to "Snow."

Click here to buy "Snow" from Amazon.

Moody Blues -- "Nights in White Satin" (1967)

Breath deep the gathering gloom

Watch lights fade from every room

Bedsitter people look back and lament

Another day's useless penny is spent

Impassioned lovers wrestle as one 

Lonely man cries for love and has none

New mother picks up and suckles her son

Senior citizens wish they were young

Coldhearted orb that rules the night

Removes the colors from our sight

Red is gray and yellow, white

But we decide which is right 

And which is an illusion

I am in a rotten mood tonight, and I'm going to take it out on the Moody Blues.  (Of course, they couldn't care less.)

As you may know, the 1967 Moody Blues album, Days of Future Passed, ends with a dramatic reading of the above lines by keyboardist Mike Pinder.  (Drummer Graeme Edge wrote the lines.) 

That album was another one that just about everyone I knew in college owned, and I heard it a lot during those years.  The only rational explanation for its popularity is either stupidity or drugs.  (There was a lot of both of those going around when I was in college.  How else do you explain Cheech and Chong, for example?)

I've titled this post "Nights in White Satin" because there was no separate track listing for these lines on the original LP.  On later compilation albums, this part of that song is listed as a separate track, and titled "Late Lament."

Whether you consider it part of "Nights in White Satin" or as a separate track with the title "Late Lament," it is perhaps the biggest load of crap ever recorded.  

 

(As a free bonus, here's the most famous scene from "Five Easy Pieces" -- what a great movie.)

 

These lines are nonsense.  They are an embarrassment.  Every single one of you who took these lines seriously -- and please note I'm saying "you" and not "us" because I swear to you this crap never fooled me -- should hang your head in shame.

My sophomore-year roommate had this record, and whenever this part came on, he would stand up and mouth the words dramatically, like he was Sir Laurence Olivier doing Hamlet or Othello or whatever -- "Breathe deep," etc., etc., etc. 

He was insufferably annoying, as all my other friends told me he would be -- I should have listened.  I should have known the first time I saw him do his little dramatic reading of these lines.

Lines like "New mother picks up and suckles her son/Senior citizens wish they were young" are just banal.  But what are we to make of this gibberish?

Red is gray, and yellow [is] white

But we decide which is right 

And which is an illusion

You've got to be kidding me.  

So why am I in such a bad mood?  Glad you asked.  (What's that you say?  You didn't ask?  I DON'T CARE.  Just shut up and listen!)

It started at work today.  I spent all day dealing with annoying clients and other lawyers.  I would have said "annoying lawyers," but lawyers are always annoying so that would have been redundant.  Now that I think of it, clients are always annoying, too, so "annoying clients" is equally redundant.

This man is my professional role model:

 

 

If the practice of law did not involve clients and other lawyers, it would be a great profession.  But it almost always does involve clients and other lawyers.  So it SUCKS! 

After work, I had been assigned to referee a girls' high-school varsity basketball game.  I usually enjoy refereeing, but my hot French girlfriend had said earlier in the week that she might be available for dinner that night, so I told her I had a game but would happily cancel it. 

But she said not to do that because her work assignment might go late, and she might be too tired to go out to dinner, and then I would have given back my refereeing assignment for no reason.  This is typical.  We talk a lot about going out, but almost never do.  (Admittedly, the fact that I am married has something to do with that.)

Of course, her job ended earlier than expected, and she was all happy and full of energy and probably would have been wonderful company and very nice to me -- although you can never count on that, believe me -- but by the time I knew all that, it was too late to bail out of my basketball assignment.  (If you call up an hour before a game and say you can't do it, you better be in the emergency room or jail -- do that a couple of times, and you might never get another game assignment.)

Tweet!!!

So I went to the game, and it was just horrible.  The game was between two very small private schools, and you have never seen uglier basketball in your life.  My daughters' middle-school team would have easily beaten either of these teams.

Tuesday I refereed a game involving a DC Catholic girls' school that takes basketball quite seriously -- their team is ranked #15 in the whole DMV (that stands for DC and suburban Maryland and Virginia) and I can't even imagine how badly that team would have beaten either of the teams in my game tonight.   

The score was 12-2 midway through the 2nd quarter, and only 12-7 at the half.  Of course, the coaches and parents were yelling at my refereeing partner and I like this train wreck of a game was our fault. 

These complaints about our non-calls inspired my partner to start calling everything -- I think we had a stretch once with traveling calls on five consecutive possessions.  (I was afraid one of the girls he kept calling traveling on was going to burst out in tears -- after he whistled her a few times, she was absolutely paralyzed with fear whenever she touched the ball.)

Naturally, the only successful 3-point attempt in the entire game came with one second left, and sent the game into overtime.  No one could score in the first overtime period, so we had to play a second overtime.  Madre de Dios, it was awful.  Although not as awful as watching my roommate mouth the words to that Moody Blues song.

The good news is that my youngest child -- who made his high-school varsity team as a sophomore -- has his first game tomorrow.  And I may have a business trip to New York City this weekend, in which case I can see a very talented jazz pianist/singer I have blogged about before (and will blog about again), who just happens to be playing there this weekend -- and I might even persuade my hot French girlfriend to go with me, since she introduced me to this singer (whom she loves) and might decide that its worth putting up with me for the weekend to hear her perform.

Of course, my son probably won't play much (if at all) -- and his team's opponent is one of the area's traditional powers who will no doubt crush them.  And the French girlfriend will no doubt back out at the last minute (after I have bought tickets to hear the singer) and I will end up in just as pissy a mood tomorrow night as I was tonight.  

Welcome to my world, boys and girls.  The main message I'm hearing these days is "You'll suck on it and you'll like it."  Red is gray, and yellow, white.  But we decide which is right -- and which is an illusion!  Capisce?
 

This is being written after my nightly glass of Barefoot merlot ($10.99 a magnum and worth every penny) -- doctor's orders, of course -- which usually puts me in a wonderful mood.

I read the other day that the Courtney Cox character in "Cougar Town" (which I've never seen) also limits herself to one glass of red wine each day.  But she has a 44-ounce wineglass!  Anyone know where can I buy one of those bad boys?

Paris Hilton with big-ass wine glass

Here's the song: