Still Alive

Hey all,
Yes I am still alive...life has been keeping me pretty busy as usual for the last few months so I apologize for the lack of posting that's been going on around here. And now I bring more bad news...I won't be able to post anything else this week as I will be enjoying some much needed R & R up on beautiful Lake Charlevoix for the next five days followed by a couple day stop at the cottage in Houghton Lake. Since I will be camping until Friday and will have no access to internet (or even electricity for that matter) the Drunken Poetry Jam will be barren until Tuesday, September 6th. To atone for the time off I'm going to offer up a couple of full albums for you to download and enjoy in my absence. Hopefully you'll like'em (go out and buy'em if you do, help support the artists!), they're a couple of my favorites. And so on that note I leave you with these...

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain

Sly and the Family Stone - Fresh
password: woj2322

also be sure to check out all of the offerings over at regnyouth archives, this has been one of my most visited sites as of late!

A Blues Primer

1. Most Blues begin with: "Woke up this morning...."

2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you
stick something nasty in the next line like, "I got a good woman,
with the meanest face in town."

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat

it. Then find something that rhymes... sort of: "Got a good woman
with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the
meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher, and she
weigh 500 pound."

4. The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in
a ditch--ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks.
Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most
Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet
aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running.
Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to
die.

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet.
Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough
to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any
place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably
just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are
still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues
in any place that don't get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with
male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg 'cause you were skiing
is not the blues. Breaking your leg 'cause a alligator be chomping
on it is.

9. You can't have no Blues in a office or a shopping mall. The
lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the
dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places for the Blues:
a. Nordstrom's
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you
happen to be a old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?
Yes, if:
a. you older than dirt
b. you blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck.
Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white
folks also got a leg up on the blues.

14. If you ask for water and your darlin' give you gasoline, it's the
Blues.
Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. nasty black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast

15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues
death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way
to die. So are the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely
on a broken-down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during
a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Debbie, and
Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in
Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name Starter Kit:
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.) For
example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Jakeleg Lemon Johnson or Cripple Kiwi
Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not "Kiwi.")

I've Got Something In My Front Pocket For You!

I've got something in my front pocket for you
Why don't you reach down in my pocket and see what it is
Then grab onto it, it's just for you
Give a little squeeze and say, "How do you do?"
There's something in my front pocket, There's something in my front pocket,
There's something in my front pocket!

Riding through the desert on a horse named Earl...

Wow, sorry about the impromptu leave of absence I apparently took over the last couple of weeks...I've been swamped at work and things have been pretty busy outside of work as well. Here's a couple of the things that I've been up to...

Bud Bash 2005 - Houghton Lake, MI

Last weekend I, along with a couple thousand other people, headed up to Houghton Lake for the annual Bud Bash party at the Limberlost bar. The Limberlost is right on the lake shore and during the day roughly 400 or so boats all anchor right out in front of the bar. The atmosphere is "Mardi Gras"-like as drunken revelers party it up losing inhibitions along the way. Knowing that I had a long day ahead of me I held off on starting the drinking until around 1pm. A good time was had by all as we had perfect weather to be outside. The water was warm and the beer was ice cold, what more could you ask for? I put together a little photo collage to help illustrate what it was like there...

Click on the image for the full size version!

Velvet Revolver Concert - Soaring Eagle Casino; Mt. Pleasant, MI

Last night I went to see Velvet Revolver play an outdoor show up at the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mt. Pleasant, MI. I had gotten tickets for free from a guy at work and figured it would be worth the drive just to see Slash play some guitar. I gotta admit, I'm not a big fan of Scott Weiland but I suppose STP did have a couple of good albums back in the day. So after work the wife & I headed up there for an 8pm show. The concert didn't get going until around 8:45pm (luckily, no opening act) and quite honestly it started out a little shaky. They started with a couple of the lesser known tracks from their Contraband album and Weiland's vocals were pretty out of whack (not to mention that the sound mix had the vocals barely audible for the first few songs). Once they started playing "Fall to Pieces", and the crowd had time to down a couple of beers, things went a little smoother. As expected a couple of Stone Temple Pilot's numbers were in the mix, "Dead and Bloated" turned out pretty good and was the song that got the crowd really into the show. They also did a pretty good job on "Sex Type Thing". Of course a few GNR numbers were on hand as well. Somewhere around the middle of the show the band played "It's So Easy" from the Appetite for Destruction album which had everyone singing along. The only other GNR song didn't come until the encore where they played "Mr. Brownstone", pretty fitting song for Weiland given all his personal problems with Heroin. The encore actually started out pretty sweet with Slash taking the stage with a double-neck guitar to perform a cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here". This really got the audience fired up and we were all singing along of course. I tried to use my cell phone to record this part of the show, the results were eh, mixed. Parts of the recordings are filled with the high pitched screams of a couple of girls right in front of us but occasionally you can hear parts of the song fairly well. It's broken up into three parts due to the 60 sec. limitation for voice memo's on my phone. I also tried to snap a few pics with the cameraphone but they didn't turn out so well either. Anyways, you can click on each picture to download the mp3 files for Velvet Revolver's encore performance of "Wish You Were Here".

BudBash Party Lake Mardi Gras Beads Boat Michigan Houghton Lake Debauchery Concert Music Velvet Revolver Slash STP Stone Temple Pilots GNR Guns 'N Roses Rock Pink FloydCasino Mt. Pleasant McBoozo