I know I'm going to St. Simon's for my first stop..and I'm not sure how long I'll be gone...I've got some cash and plenty of money in my bank accounts...I'm thinking first stop in St. Simons to get some good family time from my nephew, then either on to Key West or maybe up to Charleston. But perhaps on over to New Orleans..not sure yet..,damn that oil change thing, or I'd be gone now..getting into Glynn county abut 8am...damn not keeping up with that..lesson to you kids..keep up with car maintenance so you can go when you gotta get gone..

Okay, so I think I'm about to pull a rock star freak out of Led Zeppelin proportions. It's almost 3am and I've just decided I'm blowing out of here asap to the beach. Unfortunately, I have to wait until the am so I can get my oil changed..maybe I'll bake some cookies in the interim....Damn! If I didn't have the whole oil change thing hanging over me, I'd be the perfect country song..

Okay, my cell phone is finally shitting the bed. It's a Motorola Razr, and I've never liked it, and am really disappointed because this is the first bad experience I've had with Motorola. I swear by their two way radios (even after one tried to commit suicide by jumping off the eighty foot grid in my theater..), so I'm very sad about it.

I'm now looking at some LG phones (i'm with Verizon, so it has to be a Verizon compatible phone). If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears (pun intended). In fact, after a few more drinks, I'll probably wind up buying a new one online.

I try very hard to not be one of those asshole "drive everywhere" shitheads, so this evening I walked over to the grocery store. It's only 3 blocks from my house, and it took less time to walk there than it probably would have taken had I driven the wagon over there. The little furry crap and vomit machines were out of catfood, so I figured it was paramount that I get over there and back as quickly as possible. I swear to Baby Jesus and Jello Biafra they looked like they were going to eat my eyeballs when I got home. When I die cold and alone, there will be nothing noble about how my cats deal with it. There will be no plaintive meowing to alert the neighbors of my demise. After about 4.7 hours of no feedings, they will simply proceed to eat me, starting with my eyeballs (the juiciest part, you know..).

Today was rather low key at the Sound Factory. I put together one round-base microphone stand to loan to another company, ate pizza with the two other employees who had decided to bless the company with their presence, and generally surfed the internet all day. I didn't even find anything new out there. I'm fairly sure that I've finished the internet. Done. Reached the end of it, seen everything there is to see out there. And oh yeah, we got a block of pre-sale tickets to the Police. Yeah, we're awesome. Sometimes this crappy, thankless industry pays off in really serious cool points.

Today was such a jack-off day, that I was reminded of when I was just out of college and worked in the local used record store. This was in 1994, and when I say "record" store, I mean we sold old, vintage, used and hard to find vinyl. Needless to say, in Macon, GA, this place didn't last very long. Most of my shifts consisted of me showing up for work looking like the self appointed rock snob goddess that I thought I was, sitting around smoking cigarettes (in the store, mind you), looking cool, sneering at the few customers we had (who were usually looking for Eagles vinyl..blech! How uncool..), listening to Blondie, Jim Carroll Band,The Clash, and Weather Report (?) on the turntable, fixing my make-up and hanging out with my musician boyfriend who would usually stop by to help me out in the sneering at customers department (hey...that took alot of energy). I made about five dollars an hour and was worth every penny if you count music snob as a qualification. And I'm pretty sure that, instead of clothes, I wore costumes. Purple and orange plaid hotpants. Magenta babydoll dresses with floral tights and Doc Martin mary-janes. Glitter eyeshadow. Black crocheted tight-ass bellbottoms that were see-thru with 4 inch platforms and tube tops. I think my "look" was a feminine David Bowie with an Athens and Seattle edge. I'm sure I was a freak. My roommate at the time worked for a department store, so she was always having to wear these demure little dresses and pants. I'm sure we were a pair. I wish I could get away with dressing like I don't give a shit what anyone thinks, but these days, I'm more concerned with the sturdiness of my work apparel. Also, I don't weigh a buck 'o five anymore. Not by any stretch...

Anyone out there have a job in the past where you got "carte blanc" on your dress and/or behavior at work?

Today was okay as work days go for the most part. Myself and the other guy in shop finished putting together the rig for the international broadcast most of the morning, and it felt like we were in a huge game of three dimensional Tetris. Move one road box over here, just move another road box over there so that you can finally move the intended road box over to the loading dock area. Thank Baby Jesus and Henry Rollins for all those days I skipped class to engage in Tetris tournaments with Tara. I knew that shit would come in handy some day...I did, however, realize that most of what I do for a living is move big, heavy things from one location to another.. At this rate, I'd probably rock the casbah working for a moving company..

All was fantabulous up until about 5.45 when I decided it was time to close up the loading dock door so we could all say goodnight. The chain on the roll up door had jumped the track...for the 3rd time in less than a week. Now, I can't leave the warehouse with a wide open loading dock door for the night (especially since there's been a huge increase in crime in the area..be still my beating heart..), so all we could do was get one of the guys to ride up on the forklift (I know, please keep OSHA away from my shop) and try to repair it after we determined that an emergency visit from the Overhead Door Company would set us back somewhere around $770. Not good...Overhead Door Company will be called first thing in the morning. I'm tired of worrying about whether or not the loading dock door is going to be an open beacon for criminals every day just about closing time (plus fixing that damn door cuts into my drinking and watching Miami Ink time..).

Peace out and closed doors to you all...Im gonna go eat some ice cream..

So some assclown took it upon themself to break into my car last night. It looks like I forgot to lock one of the doors, so they just let themselves in. They emptied my glove box, making a huge mess all over the passenger side floor. Then they obviously got in the trunk and stole a bunch of clothes that were already destined for Goodwill. Now, these clothes were already on their way out of my life, but it pisses me off because THEY TOOK SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T BELONG TO THEM! They obviously went through my building's trashcans, dumping trash all over the driveway, so I had to clean that up as well. The weird thing is that there was probably five dollars in change in the ashtray and some tools in my trunk and glove box, and they didn't take any of that. Maybe they slept in there last night. Who knows? I'm just glad that I didn't walk outside to take a smoke late night and stumble on them, or maybe I wish I had. I would have yelled really loud. And anyone who knows me, knows I can be really loud. I'm also glad they didn't break a window. That shit's expensive.

So the heat of the summer is upon us here in the Deep South. I'm having to water my tomatoes twice a day just to keep them from wilting away. I planted some watermelon today, and I'm just hoping that I didn't start too late on them. But we get pretty long summers here (duh!) so I'll probably be okay. I've also never tried to grow them in a container before, so we'll see how it goes.

You gotta love Atlanta in the summer. You're nowhere near open water, other than the Chattahoochee River, but I'm not swimming in that. The air just kind of hangs over the city, all smoggy and nasty, and the trash really starts to stink. And the wildfires in south Georgia haven't helped the air quality at all (although I think most of those have been put out now. I was beginning to think Sherman was returning. I was hoping he'd burn Buckhead.). Why the hell would I go to New York with all of this right at my fingertips! So I was contemplating heading up to Moonshine Country for the weekend to visit Uncle Redneck and Aunt Goodtimes. They live way up in the northwest Georgia mountains and it's always a good ten degrees cooler up there, plus they're right on the Little River just upstream from DeSoto Falls. It's truly beautiful up there, especially right now when all the rhododendrons are blooming and you can sit on top of the boat house having a drink at sunset with the river breeze washing over you. But the trade off is that you have spend the weekend with Uncle Redneck and Aunt Goodtimes. Saturday would have gone something like this:

2pm: Arrive at the riverhouse.
2.05pm: After many hugs, unload car.
2.10pm: Begin drinking beer.
2.20pm: Begin drinking second beer and smoking fifth cigarette.
3.30pm: Put on bathing suit and pack cooler to walk down to the roof of the boathouse.
3.45pm: After navigating down 72 steps at a 45 degree angle downward, arrive at boathouse.
3.46pm: Climb up 17 rungs of ladder to top of boathouse, trying not to drop the cooler in the river.
3.50pm: Aunt Goodtimes begins drinking vodka and Co-cola. Uncle Redneck has been drinking since 11am, so nothing really changes for him.
4.07pm: Get bitten by the world's largest mosquito. Realize I'm not in possession of any bug repellent. Neither are Aunt and Uncle. Decide to tough it out since the sunset will be really nice.
4.23pm: Move on over to drinking bourbon. What the hell, it's the weekend, right?
4.24pm: Get bitten by even larger mosquito.
4.26pm: Uncle Redneck decides that he's had enough of the mosquitoes and the only way to deal with it is to jump off the boathouse into the river.
5pm: Uncle Redneck is still flopping around in the river like The Great Georgia Manatee. Due to his distance, Aunt Goodtimes and I are finally able to chat and have a reasonably good time. She's not drunk yet, nor am I. The Great Georgia Manatee is another story.
5.15pm: A pair of canoes appear on the river. Uncle Redneck tells them that his name is Zeke Woodall (a famous nudist from around those parts) and to "get the hell away from his property".
5.46pm: Georgia Fish and Game rangers show up. Uncle Redneck is still flomping around in the water (which fortunately has sobered him up just a little bit). They tell us that they've gotten a report of "a nekkid man" and that The Great Georgia Manatee can't be in the river without a floatation device. Uncle Redneck asks them if they'll give him a boat ride 7 1/2 feet to the dock since he'd be breaking the law to swim over there. They make him swim.

(editor's note: Never once has Uncle Redneck been actually "nekkid". He just wants strangers to think that he is.)


7pm: Everyone has stumbled up the 72 steps at a 45 degree angle up to the house. Aunt Goodtimes and I change our clothes while Uncle Redneck decides to start the grill. One should always let the drunkest member of the party start the grill.

8.30pm: Unbelievably, the steaks are cooked without a hitch, and we eat heartily. Then move on to more liquor drinks.

9.45pm: The party had degenerated into everyone talking over each other, fighting for headroom in the conversation.

9.57pm: Aunt Goodtimes realizes that she's out of cigarettes. Since everyone is too drunk to drive to the "corner store" (that is at least 7 miles away), she proceeds to smoke all of mine. Thank God I've hidden two packs in my bag.

9.59 pm: Uncle Redneck asks me if I have any weed. I don't.

10.15pm: Aunt Goodtimes gets all nostalgic talking about my late father, her late brother. Decides she needs to call my sister on her cell phone. Fortunately, my sister doesn't answer. She and I spend the next half an hour reminiscing about my dad while Uncle Redneck wanders off in the woods.

10.45pm: Uncle Redneck returns from his "walkabout", announcing that he just needed to "get up and walk and let the womenfolk talk".

11pm: Uncle Redneck decides that we all need to listen to the entire catalog of Atlanta Rhythm Section at 120 decibels.

11.23pm: Sometime during the second verse of "Champagne Jam" Uncle Redneck proceeds to tell the story of how he was at the "Champagne Jam" in Piedmont Park the year my sister was born and how my Daddy named her after an Allman Brothers song. We've all head this story about one hundred and thirteen times.

11.37: During the opening organ chords of "So Into You", Uncle Redneck asks me if I have any "co-caine". I don't. He proceeds to question me closely, "don't everybody down there in At-lanta sniff that stuff?"

I won't bore you any more with how my Saturday night would have turned out. You get the picture. Uncle Redneck would have passed out sometime around 1, and my Aunt and I would have stayed up til sometime around 2.30, just getting drunk.

I'm glad I decided to stay here in Atlanta. There may be people breaking into my car, and the rockstars are pretentious, but at least I won't have a run in with the Fish and Game Commission.

Athfest

Just in case you need a dose of a disaffected hipster giving you guidelines on a pretentious music festival called Athfest..

Look here..

I'm sure that we're all in awe of a psuedo-rock star telling us how mass transit between Atlanta and Athens needs to be.

And, Hey Patterson, I'm sure you were an AWESOME monitor engineer at the 40 Watt..wait, you mean the place where they pay engineers $40 a night and all the Pabst they can drink? Damn! I bet that's attracting some production talent.

Sorry honey, I stopped liking you guys sometime around the time you guys started sucking...oh maybe about the time Rob and Earl left...

Ohhh Blog...

Ohhh blog, how I've neglected you...Apologies to my one reader..I've just been busy doing, well, nothing..working and maintaining the status quo..

Today I spent most of the day fretting about buying new catfood. It seems that the catfood I've been purchasing has been causing my precious little kitties to turn into nuclear bio-warfare shit bombs. Not really sure what the problem is, however at every turn here in the squat there seems to be a pile of kitty diarheah...yuk! Those of you who think that cats are clean pets are grossly mistaken. Liquid shit arsenals are not my ideal pets. So today we've gone back to the nasty, albeit non-diarrhea causing, catfood. Dinky and Lulu seem happy about it.

I'm currently baking cookies. Not sure why, it just seemed like a judicious way to spend my time. And really, who doesn't love Toll-House Cookies?

Peace out and cookie goodness..

-H