The Severed Cortex

I shouldn't really refer to this as Day One in Hawaii because most of this day was spent on a plane. I thought I would have the brilliant idea of staying up really, really late the night before, catch a few hours sleep on the plane, then be ready to attack the 5 hour time difference when we arrive. Didn't work. I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning (a very early 9:30 p.m. in Maui), and woke up at 4:00 a.m. That's still yesterday where we are going.
I grab some of that sweet free parking at Abe Lincoln Regional Airport and Waffle House, and after a quick run through security we were ready to start the trip. I have to say that flying in and out of Springfield is a breeze. We were an hour early and we really could have waited until 30 minutes before the flight left. I will know next time.
The flight to O'Hare was easy and we had plenty of time to eat breakfast; albeit at Chili's. Hey, it will make a turd. (spoiler alert: it did later). The 9 hour flight out of O'Hare was not something I was looking forward to and neither was Nancy. She was dreading it because I'm an asshole to travel with. (It's well documented). I would like to point out for the record that it was I who was the better traveler this time.
I've never flown on a 777 before. In fact, the last large Boeing I flew was a red-eye from L.A. to New York, although I did disembark in St. Louis. They actually landed the thing too. I didn't have to pull a D.B. Cooper. That flight was pre-empted by bourbon and muscle relaxers and I slept the whole way. Otherwise I wouldn't have dealt with it as well. This 777 is bigger. Two seats on the sides and five in the middle. I was dead center of the plane but it turned out to not be that bad. Despite the name coach/economy, there is enough room for a 6 footer like me. (6'5" if you count the afro).
Nine hours is hella long though. To put that in perspective that's the same as:

• 27 innings of meat pitching baseball
• 8000+ back to back runs of Tim Wilkerson's LRS funny car
• Back to back to back NFL games (without overtime)
• Two rounds of golf on a crowded Sunday at a premier course with 18+ handicappers
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy plus the original Porky's
• one-half of a cricket match

It also has all the excitement of watching soccer too. Luckily the iPod was up to the task. I watched a movie on it and listened to a bunch of music. Nancy abused her iPod too. I could have flown to New Zealand before it would have crapped out on me and at this point I would have done it too. By hour six Nancy wanted off the plane.
So my staying up late thing didn't work. I took an Ambien and maybe caught an hour of sleep via a dozen cat naps. That's with a neck pillow too, which I highly recommend you invest in.
We land in Maui, find our luggage, and grab a rental car. It's a Pontiac G6, which is slightly better than a Yugo, but not in styling. And of course we are starving. I brought the GPS with us and it found us a little bar called Beach Bums in the harbor at Maalaea, roughly halfway between West Maui and the South Shore. Our waitress (waiter?) reminded me of Teena Brandon, but she (he?) was outstanding. A couple of Kona Longboards and some local barbeque cured the hunger. The BBQ was great but it gave me wicked heartburn later.
Thirty minutes after eating we are checked into the Sheraton with our ocean view room. Lovely. We take a stroll on the beach, grab some margaritas poolside, and promptly realize that we are absolutely beat. We fall asleep at 8:00 p.m. Maui time and it is still light outside.

Some pics, which are massive in size. If you don't have a broadband connection don't bother.
We Arrive
Drew Drinks Beer
The Late Lunch View (the guy who rode the bike on the left wore Numero Uno colors)
Margaritas (find the gnat on the side of my cup)
My Soon To Be Facebook Profile Pic
Footprints In The Sand
The View On The Other Side of the Room

Link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aloha

Link: http://www.state.il.us/court/AppellateCourt/OralCal/4thDist_PDF/0509.pdf

Let's hope she wins this one. Otherwise, if you are stopped in your car talking to someone, then pull away, police may pull you over for no apparent reason at all. All they have to do is claim the area you are in is a high crime area. In this case, it was next door to a Wal-Mart.

Several months ago my good friend Nancy pointed out that Cracker was coming to the Duck Room.

Me: I think I've seen them enough already.
N: But they're your favorite band!

Favorite band? Well ... not quite. I will admit they are probably in the top 10. Camper van Beethoven on the other hand, is in the Top 3. Expressed in the form of a SAT question, Firehose is to Minutemen as Cracker is to Camper van Beethoven. There's less death in the right hand side of that equation and a whole lot more smart ass. Thus, my appeal of Cracker. Or David Lowery I should say. Lowery has been writing wry little pop songs for more than 25 plus years now, and based on the latest Cracker release, the well of wry songs has not dried up. Based on my first two spins of the latest CD, the well of 'Drew's like for Cracker' hasn't dried up either.

So, in typical Drew fashion, I forget about the date of the Cracker show. Nancy reminds me and I hem and haw about going. The truth is I wasn't overly excited about Cracker because I got wind that one of my new favorite bands, Living Things, was playing a show earlier in the week in their hometown Saint Louis. Two shows in one week was out of the question and I was dead set on Living Things. But on that Monday, it didn't pan out. Lucky for me I didn't drive the 2 hours. I found out later that Living Things played only a hour long, 10 song set. Hardly worth the drive. Cracker on the other hand was worth the drive, especially after getting a little psyched on the latest CD.

The following email occurred: Sh*t changes. I'm in for Cracker
Nancy said she would get the tickets. She waited until the day of the show and when she got to Blueberry Hill there was only one ticket left. But, knowing how this works, she asked if anyone from the band management was there. The tour manager was and ten minutes later, as is typical for Nancy, she gets her name on the guest list.
And if she weren't charmed enough, she scores a parking spot right in front of Blueberry Hill when we arrive for the show. Of course she had to pull a U-turn in the middle of Delmar to get it, but on a Friday night at 8:00 pm in University City, we had the patrician parking spot. Without the VIP price tag. No self respecting U. City cop was going to be checking meters in the rain.

We showed up in time for doors to open, but I was starving. Burgers and some beers were up first. Our waitress was not very surly like good old Blueberry Hill wait staff but they did make us wait for at least 30 minutes for the burgers. After washing down charred mammal flesh with a couple of Stella's, we were ready to catch the tail end of the opening band.

Flash back to lunch that afternoon with two of my co-workers.

T & M: So, who opens for Cracker?
Me: Backyard Tire Fire
T & M: Oh yeah!
Me: You've heard of them?
T & M: Nope.

Cracker is to alt country what Backyard Tire Fire is to country. I think that means Backyard Tire Fire is alt country but there's also a chance I could be confusing this with the logic of the side-angle-side theorem for triangles. Backyard Tire Fire is definitely alt country as demonstrated by the lead singer's Dekalb hat. We caught three of their originals and they were mediocre at best. Actually, I didn't really listen to them all that close. I was transfixed on the band itself. The lead singer, lead guitar player, and bass player looked exactly alike. I mean exactly. Baseball hats and beard stubble and a couple too many doughnuts and full flavored beers made them seem like those fraternity brothers who pledged but never made it back for that second year of college. It was kinda creepy thinking they might be the universe's first all clone band. Luckily, thoughts of a Dolly the Sheep tribute band got sidetracked when the band welcomed out Cracker guitarist Johnny Hickman to play along. Maybe I'm biased but I think Johnny Hickman is the most underrated guitar player around. David Lowery may be front and center but Johnny Hickman truly makes the Cracker sound. Midway through the second song with Johnny, Nancy had this musing.
Why does the band sound so much better all in a sudden?
She was right. Johnny added as much as the band's five players combined. He played one more song with the band to close the set and together they ripped a very nice version of Warren Zevon's Lawyers, Guns and Money.

You'd think after 11 releases, Cracker would be playing larger venues and have their own roadies. They do not. We watched them set up their own equipment and tune their own guitars. Old school. Lowery primarily plays an Ibanez Jet King 1, but he tuned up a Jet King 3 too. Twenty minutes later the band kicked off their 2009 tour with three straight from the new album, leading with the first single Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out With Me. Sal's bass head developed issues and after a couple minutes of adjustment, the show started back with a batch of old songs. Throughout the night the band rattled off minor hit after minor hit and interspersed them with a track off the new record. The crowd sang along, including me. They didn't finish until two hours later. Lowery sang strong throughout and Johnny Hickman didn't miss a note. And as always he looked like he was having fun, which is a large part of the Cracker appeal in a live setting. Sal Maida on bass and Frank Funaro on drums were as steady as the last time I caught the band in the Duck Room. This time around Kenny Margolis, who I find to be a dead ringer for a young Harry Dean Stanton, was back on keyboards and various other percussion-y things. He played a spastic tambourine and a complementary accordion, but he did not play wood block. The bastard.

I'm not really sure why Cracker chose Saint Louis as the kick off point of their tour. Far away from the maddening crowd and a good place to try out the set list perhaps, but it appeared some of the maddening crowd managed to still show up. About halfway through the show I thought to myself that Cracker could be one of those bands that has a bunch of freaks following them (like the Dead) as I witnessed a waif dancing and singing embarrassingly strange in front of us. It appears that they already have. Freaks or not, I'm glad I caught the show. It's always fun hanging out with my friend Nancy and I think we caught the band at a good time.

Link: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4169318&categoryid=2459788

One of those rare people who transcended more than just sports. This was a guy who played the college game when I started college and during that time I was paying attention to a lot of college sports. He may not have been a Hall of Fame NBA player but I'll bet of those guys he played with who are Hall of Famers, all will say he was that and more. I love jazz, hate smooth jazz, and therefore am not a fan of Waymon's music, but the mere fact that his legacy is much more than basketball makes me want to listen to his music a little more. 44 years old is way too young to die.

Link: http://www.stltoday.com/newsobits

If you never see Paul Prudhomme's face again then my theory that Dom Deluise and Paul Prudhomme are the same person has to be true. Just like my Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson are the same person theory is true.

Link: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/gamecenter/recap/MLB_20090502_ANA@NYY

Matt Palmer, who graduated from Caruthersville High School many years after me, got the start against the Yankees in the new Yankee Stadium yesterday and handcuffed the all star lineup. At 30 years old he is certainly no prospect any more, but tagged with the journeyman label or not, he is certainly making the most of an opportunity. That opportunity (indirectly) comes at the expense of the untimely death of Nick Adenhart.
As near as anyone can figure, Palmer is the first major league sports guy to hail from Caruthersville. Branch Rickey's farm system consisted of the Caruthersville Pilots, and there were players from that team that played for the St. Louis Cardinals, but it appears none were actually from Caruthersville. Nearby Wardell, a 'town' of less than 500 people, boasted 1980's speedster Jeff Stone who played for the Phillies, but that's the closest anyone from Pemiscot County has come. That list will have a new name starting this fall when Missouri cornerback William Moore, who hails from nearby Hayti, was drafted in the 2nd round by the Atlanta Falcons.
Congratulations to Matt. Pitchers tend to peak at age 30 and maybe the opportunity that he has dreamed about will continue throughout 2009. I hope he continues to pitch well and earns himself a fat 2 year deal next year.

Link: http://www.wedgiegirls.com

This combines two of my favorite things. Girls and juvenile behavior. I expect to see in the near future indianburngirls.com, dutchrubgirls.com, noogiegirls.com, armfroggirls.com, pinkbellygirls.com, and of course the always controversial swirliegirls.com. This is probably not safe for work and even though it contains nothing but girls and their panties, it somehow manages to not be erotic at all. Not like swirliegirls.com would be.

April has found Robert and I hanging out quite a bit.

Haircut and the Zoo

I still haven't given up on getting my haircut in St. Louis. I know that's a silly thing but finding someone who is totally cool and cuts your hair the way you like it is hard to find. When you do find them it is tough to let go. And since she also cuts Nancy's hair and Nancy feels the same way, I don't feel so bad about hanging on to Pegg, even if that means driving 2 hours to get my hair cut. Yes, I know. Ridiculous.
April started with a haircut and I picked Robert up on the way. Robert's mom asked me if Pegg could cut Robert's hair too. I wasn't sure if she even knew how, but it turned out that Pegg kind of knew. She cut my chia pet hair first and despite Robert's reluctance to let her cut his, I insisted and she squared him up. After that we headed over to Blueberry Hill to eat burgers. I'm pretty sure Robert and I have been there before but he was amazed at all the old jukeboxes. I have no idea why.
I really didn't have a plan past getting a haircut and something to eat and we accomplished that. The day was so nice that it would have been a waste to spend it inside. It had been over a year since I visited the zoo and it just seemed like the perfect day for it. I floated this past Robert. As usual he didn't care so the zoo it was. Like I said, it was the perfect day for it, as witnessed by the 3.6 million other people in Forest Park. I pulled in the top lot of the Art Museum and got a parking spot immediately. Pure luck. Most people were stuck in traffic for a long time and I pull up just as someone is pulling out. Sweet.
Robert and I hoofed it over to the zoo and started the adventure. Bears, penguins, puffins, chimps, prarie dogs, sea lions, snake house (where we spend a lot of time making sure we find all the snakes in every aquarium), monkey house (Nancy can I have a lemur?), big cats, and finally ending up at the Children's Zoo. That was over 3 hours after we arrived. Robert wanted to go to the Children's Zoo so I forked over the extra couple of bucks. He tried to pet the guinea pigs but they were having no part of it. He did go in by himself and brush the goats, being ever so careful and brushing as many as he could. It was, well, sweet. He is really a very sweet boy and he always shows compassion for others. I hope he continues that.
It took us over 30 minutes to get out of the park and Robert was asleep long before we got out of the traffic.

The March

Most of you have already seen the pictures of Robert and I marching together. He's the one not wearing high heel shoes. We didn't want to run down Saturday morning and pick him up, drag him to the parade, then take him home. Instead I took a half day off on Friday, worked in the yard, then headed to pick him up in time for a rush hour showing of Monsters vs. Aliens. He picked monsters to win, I was left with aliens. I even tried to trick him into trading with me but he wasn't budging. We scarfed down a lot of buttered popcorn and Reese's pieces. The movie was good, don't get me wrong, but I was hyped up for something really big. It fell somewhat short of that. Still, it is one of the better kid movies I've seen. After the movie Robert wanted to eat Chinese food so we headed to Shangri-La in Edwardsville. Yes, that does seem a little out of the way but I had ulterior motives. The last bit of stuff from the move was still down there in the form of my boat. We were able to go pull it out of the barn just before dark and were on our way. An hour and a half later I've got the boat in the garage and Robert is waking up. We played Guitar Hero until it was time to go to bed.

Roller Skating

Today I actually roller skated. BBBS sponsored a roller skating event in Belleville, which by the way is a hella long way from our house via Alton. We took advantage. We also decided to take Robert's sister, who once again, is having mentor issues. Her previous Big fizzled out and left her hanging. This new one is just not a good match and apparently has issues. And besides, thirteen year old girls have an innate desire to roller skate. At least the ones I knew when I was that age did. Which, by the way, may be the last time I roller skated. I know we rented a skating rink for a lunch hour get together once when I worked at Frick, but I can't remember if I skated or not. I'm thinking I didn't. Which means it has been roughly 30 years since I slapped wheels to my feet.
The first 5 minutes were spent convincing myself it wouldn't hurt if I fell. I almost did fall about 20 times in that 5 minute span but I started to get the hang of it. The next 30 minutes or so were spent wondering if my shins would stop hurting some time within the next 7-10 weeks. I still almost fell a couple of times but despite my gangly exterior I was born with a fair amount of balance. And about an hour into it I'm skating along with this conversation in my head.

Me: Hey, you're skating pretty good.
Me: I know. I'm as surprised as you are.
Me: Maybe I shouldn't get cocky.
Me: Please. Have you forgotten who you are? You are so totally rocking this skating thing.

Kersplat. Within two seconds of feeling cocky I bit the hardwood floor. It hurt only a little or so I kept telling myself. As each minute rolled by I got better and better. Towards the end of the second hour I could skate on one skate, weave through traffic, and get a pretty good head of steam going. I did fall one more time though. A little girl fell right in front of me and my choice was to run her over or fall to avoid squashing her like a grape. I chose the latter and took a dive. My shoulder hurts a little because of it.
Robert skated with inline skates on and did pretty well. He said he only fell twice but after the first 30 minutes he didn't skate near as much as his sister or me. He seemed more interested in air hockey, which we played. Robert's sister is a pretty good skater, but she did fall a lot more. She's far more uncoordinated than the rest of us. Nancy wore roller skates. I'll comment no further on her.
We worked up a pretty good appetite from all that skating. Luckily, one of the thank you's in the gift basket provided from raising the most money last week was four free double steakburgers and milkshakes from Steak 'n Shake. Yes, we want fries with that.
Robert and his sister slept on the way home, roughly two minutes into the 45 minute drive back to Alton.

Link: http://www.brainyhistory.com/daysbirth/birth_april_23.html

Thanks to those who have wished me happy birthday. I feel very lucky to have so many friends.

Just for jollies this morning, I sawed myself in half, counted the rings, and there were only 27. There must have been some sort of mix up at the Dominican birth certificate place.