Yoga Man Needs a Steak

Maggie: I did the yoga class today.

Colt: Oh yeah. How was it?

Maggie: It was good, I liked the new teacher. He was really good at helping me with my form.

Colt: It was a man?

Maggie: That's why I said "he." You would have hated him.

Colt: Why?

Maggie: He said things like "Point your heart towards the earth with this pose."

Colt: hmmm

Maggie:You would have ripped up his "Man Card" huh?

Colt: If any girl has drug her boyfriend/husband there before against his will...that "Man Card" is long gone.

*Please note that doing yoga or teaching does not result in automatic suspension of a "Man Card" but saying things like "let your inner self bond with the trees"(for example) will require action by a committee of men.

Literary Genius is

By Colt

I recently did something that I have never done before on facebook. I requested someone that I have never met, or even have a loose connection to. I added one of my favorite authors. Its his actual facebook page, and not a fan page used to promote an upcoming book tour or article in some magazine I am never going to read. I was a little bit nervous at first that it was going to be a page set up by just another fan that was far from the truth, but after having befriended one of my personal library keystones for a couple of weeks I am convinced its really him.

This is not what this post is about. This recent "friending" got me thinking what would some of my favorite authors use as there status updates if they were alive and/or had a cable modem? Here are some of my musings

Ernest Hemmingway is on a boat

Jules Verene told you so.

Kurt Vonnegut is being monitored by the government through this thing.(He sounds a lot like Brad Plothow)

J.D. Salinger hopes you like this status update as much as the last one

Joseph Conrad is watching Apocalypse Now for the millionth time

Thomas Pynchon is taking his blog private.

Charles Dickens is mad as hell about something he heard on NPR this morning

Jane Austen wants to know who let Mary Shelley get a hold of Pride and Prejudice?

Percy Shelley is attending a rally to support Climate Control, and then off to see "Drag Me to Hell" with Mary.

Shakespeare is emailing Gwyneth Paltrow...again

George Orwell told you so

Harriett Beecher Stowe YES WE CAN!!!

F. Scott Fitzgerald remember when I posted an hour ago I was never drinking again? I may or may not be mixing Tanqueray with a Hi-C Ecto Cooler right now.

James Joyce Bicycle Pump. Gravel Road. Hard Luck Showers.

William Butler-Yeats is listening to the new U2 CD before heading out to dinner with BONO! So, freaking excited!!!

Henry David Thoreau is sitting under a tree (updated via BlackBerry)

Really?

Maggie:There is a movie I really want to see.

Colt:Oh! That reminds me I just rented one from the library I have wanted to see for a couple of years now. It was a big Sundance hit I never got around to seeing

Maggie:What is it?

Colt:Brick.

Maggie: Never heard of it.

Colt: Yes you have, I told you about it when it came out. It has the kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun in it.

Maggie: Shut up...the movie I want to see has Joseph Gordon-Levitt in it too.

Colt: That's just beyond freaking weird.

Maggie:I know what are the odds we both want to see a movie with him in it.

Colt: What are the odds of someone knowing his name?

Where Everybody Knew My Name Part 1: Eden Music Paradise Lost

By Colt

There have been many places that influenced the person that I have become today. I think that we all have restaurants, bars, stores, and friends houses that felt like home. Places that not only brought out different parts of our personalities, but helped shape and mold them. I am doing something new with the blog and I am writing a series of posts based around those places. It will be ongoing and in specific timeline. I am going to start with a place that I can never go back because it is gone. It was killed by Target, Best Buy and Itunes. It was Eden Music.

Eden Music was first located in a shopping center on Bluff Street in St George, it later moved to Tabernacle before ultimately becoming another victim of the St George population's love all things corporate. The first album I bought there was a used copy of House of Pain's debut album. This was because I had heard the song a lot on the radio, and watched the video on MTV. This was the main reason behind most the music I bought. I didn't really care where I got, I cared that it was used and therefore cheaper. As I grew older and started to care more about what I listened to Eden became more important.

It was run by someone who became my friend, Adam Mast. Adam took the time to get to know what I liked. He knew I liked movies and would always recommend the best stuff that was being made by independent film makers. He took the time to get know my musical tastes, and over time got to where I would by anything he suggested without listening to it first. He recommended albums that have become my some of my standard rotations on my Ipod. The Magic Numbers, Wilco, Eels, Uncle Tupelo, Super Fury Animals, Blanche, The Shins, and The Vandals are some of my favorite bands that I would never have heard of had I done my shopping at Best Buy. It was at Eden that I bought my first two Elvis Costello records(North and When I Was Cruel). It was at Eden I first heard American Idiot and thus started my belief that Green Day was one of the very very few transcendent bands of my generation. With out Eden Music and Adam I would most likely still be listening to what ever was on the radio, and would never have developed my vast appreciation for all types of music.

Eden was not just a place to buy music though, it was a place to chill and meet new people. You didn't have to buy anything to just hang out and talk music or movies. Who ever was hanging around the counter that day were your new friends. If I had an hour or two to kill before my shift at the Pizza Factory began, I just stopped into Eden till it was time to go.

When I came back to St George from Washington DC one of the first places I went was Eden and that is when Adam told me the store was closing. There was just no longer any room for the small independent music store in the crowded market. He told me that since he had decided to close up shop all of his regulars and stopped in to hear the news. I got in my truck and put the copy of Don McLean's American Pie and listened to those sad lyrics that perfectly fit the soundtrack of my life at that moment:

I met a girl who sang the blues and I asked her for some happy news but she just smiled and turned away I went down to the sacred store where I'd heard the music years before but the man there said the music wouldn't play ...the day the music died.

I have tried to find another place that fits me, and knows what I like. None of them have worked. I can't go to Best Buy and get a recommendation for a new band. I worked corporate retail sales I knew I was going try and sell you a Kenmore the minute you walked into Sears's Appliance section. I don't want to be sold on Katy Perry the moment I set foot in your area just because its whats being promoted this week. There is something just a little to 2001:A Space Odyssey about a Mac computer using Itunes to track my play history and recent downloads and then reading my mind to decide who else I would like. As a result I have had to try hard to find stuff I like. Getting recommendations from friends(who I trust) and listening to KUER(local NPR music station). When Eden closed its doors for the final time was the day the my music died.

Bored on the 4th of July?

I wrote a list of Christmas movie favorites in 2008, and I think that a list of patriotic films would be a nice thing to post for those of someplace way to hot to spend the entire day BBQing and playing baseball.

Johnny Tremain

This is a classic Walt Disney live action film. It is also based on one of my favorite books, by Esther Forbes. It shows the story or a young silversmith apprentice in Boston during the days leading up to the British Army's march on Lexington and Concord where the "shot heard round the world" was fired that started the American Revolution.  This film as a lot of heart and is a great way to get younger kids to understand the reason for the fireworks on the 4th day of July each year.

Ben and Me

This is another Disney film, though is in the vein of the classic animated short that brought Walt his initial success and fame.  The story of a mouse, Amos,  who lives with an unknown printer in Philadelphia. This mouse helps this humble printer named Ben to write some of his most important work, and invent his most famous inventions.  He even takes a ride on a kite during a rather stormy day in eastern Pennsylvania.  This cartoon is one of the first things I remember teaching me about Ben Franklin, our founding fathers, and founding rodents for that matter.  This yet again another great film for younger kids, and younger hearts.

Saving Private Ryan

The opening scene of this film shows us an elderly grandfather figure walking with his family who obviously do not understand the how hallowed the ground they are walking on  during their family vacation is. This is a commentary on how many of us do not understand the history that made us who we are today.  The furtherance of the story shows us the sacrifice that one troop made to save one man and his family whom none of them know.  This is an apt parallel to the sacrifices that so many men and women make in the armed forces for us who do they have never met.

Born on the 4th of July

Oliver Stone is possibly the only director who could have made a movie that both rips the United States Vietnam policy to shreds, and yet still make me love my country more by the end of it. I like this film because it shows that patriotism is not merely waving a flag, it is in the way we treat our veterans, and the way we challenge ourselves to think

The American President

The American President is your 4th of July love story. It asks what were to happen if our single president were to fall in love? Written by Aaron Sorkin ,who wrote my favorite show The West Wing, and directed by Carl Reiner it also attacks the politics of personal destruction.  This film is great if for no other reason than the end speech where fictional President Andrew Sheppard defends his women, his liberal politics, and attacks "swift boat" style politics.

Forrest Gump

This one may seem a stretch for some, but for me this is a quintessential American story.  It chronicles the latter half of 20th century through the eyes of a very simple man, who is often unaware of the importance of the events that transpire around him. *WARNING BUSH BASH FOLLOWING* This movie kind of reminds me of what George Bush would have been like if he had been poor and never met Carl Rove, and not Anakin Skywalkering it.

The Fog of War

This is a documentary and I wanted to put at least one on this list, and this is the one that I selected.  It is essentially a conversation with Robert McNamara who was the Secretary of Defense for both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.  The Vietnam War was often called "McNamara's War," because of his heavy influence in the most controversial military campaign in US history(up till the present).  The conversation in this film has McNamara give us 11 life lessons he learned from being one the 1960s most controversial figures.  This film is fits with the 4th because it shows us that though we have made many mistakes as a nation, we can forge ahead. It also reminds us that we can always change course.  

Mr Smith Goes to Washington

I was done then I had to write this one last recommendation.  With the last name Smith and dreams of going to serving in Congress this is one of my favorite movies.  It shows the power that one man can have in the system. It is one Frank Capra's finest films, and Jimmy Stewart's best performances. It is hardly possible to have a movie make you feel prouder to be an American. 

  

Clapton is God

Its been said before, it will be said again...Clapton is God. I have been a Clapton fan for a long time. The first album I bought was a double disc CD of a live concert at the Royal Albert Hall. But, actually seeing the man live was truly a religious experience, and the saying that was first written on a London Underground wall in the mid 1960s was made manifest to me. To watch fingers slide up and down the neck of a black and white Fender-Stratocaster like no man could possibly do was one of the captivating events in my entire concert resume.

However, there were two sure fire signs that I have been reading way to much Chuck Klosterman. that I made two very strange off the wall observations. The first was that I spent a good portion of the night watching the crowd. I was shocked at who was really into this concert. It was not the aging "Baby Boomers" it was the 20 to 30 something "Hipsters" who were standing and cheering. One hipster , who came dressed as Elvis Costello circa the Armed Forces album, was dancing like blues infused Frankenstein most of the show. The hipsters love was not the shocking fact. The shocker was how sedate the Boomers were for most of the show. I would have expected this crowd to react similarly to other 50+ crowds I have seen at other shows, but they were all extremely mellow(and there was not contact high to be found). I think this lends greater credence to my argument that there is void of GREAT rock bands in my generation.

The second odd observation I had was Eric Clapton is still wearing a watch. I don't know many people who still wear a watch. I understand it is more convenient that a cell phone when you are on stage, but I would want as little weight as possible if my hand were sliding up and down the fret bars that fast. I think it lends to his classic stature though, as someone who is from a different time, a time when rock n' roll was relevant, and people knew there was a God on stage not keeping gays from getting married in California.

PS One more Klosterman like observation Eric Clapton looks a lot like House, and vice versa.