Today i read with much sadness about the passing the man who gave us the
Les Paul guitar, Les Paul who passed away at age 94. Rock n roll as
you know it today wouldn't be the same had Les not invented the LP which
many many guitarist have used. Kinda like of a end of a era eh?
Now onward to this side of the fence.
This
weekend marks an era of sorts. Of course 40 years ago it was Woodstock
that became the cultural event of the lifetime, three days of peace and
love and music and monsoon storms. It would have been fun to take part
of Woodstock but I only 8 years old and I'm sure had we gone, we
probably would have to park our cars about 10 miles out and walk there.
And I'm sure we would have taken the brown acid and ended up getting
sick too but at least we could have watched The Who and on the day goin
back home having Jimi Hendrix waking us up to The Star Sprangled Banner.
This
weekend comes the 30th HS reunion of Marion High School, the wacky
class of 1979. Which seems like a long time ago but it still feels like
yesterday that I walked down the grass of Thomas Park Field, trying to
hold on to my cap and picking up my diploma. It's amazing that in my
four years of hell we call high school that I go back every five or ten
years and we all try to remember the good things and the bad things as
well. I don't think I've learned all that much during our times, some
of the teachers tried but most of them really didn't give a flying fuck
about us and I got more d minus grades in the last two semesters from
worthless teachers than I could care. The only big highlight was taking
over Bangs Bejeckia English class to basically make a bad attempt to
become high school senior class president. Kinda reminds me of those
old Lyndon LaRouche infocommericals he did way back then. I may have
gotten two votes but I didn't become class anything the next year. High
school to me was a joke of peer pressuring, trying to avoid drugs,
trying to make some basketball team as a reserve and quitting since i
didn't like to do exercises and basically never fitting in at any
particular spot except for going to the record store afterwards and
taking comfort in that. And only going out for dates twice in four
years. Thank God I wasn't the class of 1980, then i would have to
contend with a couple of them girls who practically drive me to the
point of being gay. But nevertheless I do have plenty of friends from
my HS school years to which I still keep in contact with (one plays in
our band) and I simply go to these things just to let the high snooty
fucks that us poor white trash from the other side of the tracks are
still alive and doing fine thank you very much. Plus there's a chance
that I will see my very good friend Mark Prouty for the first time since
1979. And I'm sure Steve Fry will be there too, he's always been a
hoot and I managed to see him at the John Wayne 100th Birthday Bash two
years ago. Anything is possible and I'm sure we'll hear the usual
stories of classmates being proud parents and Grandparents now (i can't
fathom that now we have grandpas and grandmas in my class) but in terms
of myself I'm still amazed of the fact that I've stayed the most same
since graduation, not by choice but rather habit. So my Friday and
Saturday nights will be caught up in that.
Also this weekend will
showcase my 10th year of being on the net. It was Aug 16 that I
finally went to Computer Renassanice and picked up a POS used computer
for the use of music research and of course seeing the wild side of the
net. Unfortuly, the computer had too much junk on the harddrive, it
kept crashing and a year later I finally had enough and then brought a
Gateway for more fun and games. Formatted with the state of the art ME,
the fucking thing would disconnect me from IM conversations and I lost
many a blog due to that. I can't believe it's been 10 years of me being
on the computer, giving y'all a window to the world of what makes my
world go around. I think the reason why time flew by so fast was of me
being on the net about 10 to 12 hours a day, seeing what Secondspin had
for used cds, bidding on EBAY and redoing my drumset every other month
and hosting the friday night chat in The Roost and becoming somewhat of a
cult artist with my rants and raving and what was playing in my player.
The
Crabb Top Ten of the week started on a whim but bascially goes back to
1993 when I would put up my 10 favorite CDs to get while working part
part part time at Relics. Basically my job was watching the register
while Jerry Scott went for a pee but most of the time I was the dood
leaning over the cd section talking tunes with Jerry or Erin or Carol or
Bruce. I still remain good friends with Bruce and sometimes go up to
Siegels to BS with him but it's a pawnshop and he's usually looking
ready to kill somebody so i don't stay long. And Erin and I go back to
1990 and I think she closed her My Space site but she can be found on
Twitter or Blogspot so we keep in touch. She owns Alter Ego the Comic
Book Store of Marion Iowa. But the Crabb Top Ten Songs remained a
everyweek part of netland since 2003 which has been the longest lasting
venture that I've done outside of The Townedgers but whereas thats been
on hitaus, i've not run out of blog ideas and continue to blog on. Some
ppl actually do read them. But for ten years of day to day internet
life, everything nowadays comes from the net and the net's not going
away anytime soon. I've met and made a few friends, love and lost on
the net and continue to probe the net for the long lost single or cd
that yet to be found. And still get creeped out by those Match.com ads,
(cue Rockwell-Somebody Watching Me) to which Match.com must be
sponsering these blogs anymore. I wouldn't say that the internet has
made me a celeberity (it hasn't and usualy don't for old cranks pushing
50) but i do have a closet cult following out there. The blogs I write
come from what i feel and somedays they can be quite entertaining. I'm
sure someday I'll go back and try to compile the best of them before My
Space closes down but the archives are waiting to be discovered if one
gets too bored with watching You Tube.
I like to think that it's a
wonderful life and who knows. Think I have come a long way from the
angry rants of the year of the Flood and this year when my depression
came back in june. The one thing I found out is that the drugs really
don't work and basically the ideal presciption was 10 days in Arizona
although that got cut short by back spams and too many monsoons. But
even with a grumpy back I did managed the trip and go to Lake Havasu
City and seen the freaks and get a chuckle and then going back to
Phoenix. But I've blogged many observations because I know if I don't I
will forget it the next day. I think there's many stories yet to be
told and ten years really isn't that long of time if you think about it,
living in a BZ world. I know time didn't fly so by when I didn't have
the net.
So here I am typing on a desk with piles of paper just
about covering the screen and piles of cds and albums scattered about
waiting to be played. Life i lead isn't perfect but I think I'm
comfortible to what I become. Somedays I need to seperate The Crabb
from my real persona, sometimes The Crabb is bigger than R Smith
himself. I'm not sure what the future will brings and for the first
time in a long time I think things might be brighter. And perhaps
despite my disgust for those match.com ads, I believe that love can be
found on the net and that's where it will lead. Somehow this part of
the year seems to bring on a new era of sorts. Who knows, maybe we can
live again, perhaps to love again.
The future remains unwritten.
And
finally on Saturday, My Mom turns 65. She called up last week and said
had Grandma Ambrose would lived she would be 92 years old. Grandma
passed away in the darkest of eras 1975 (Grandpa Smith would passed four
month later). I remember spending summer vacation over in Lincoln
visiting my grandparents although they were not together, we never saw
Mr. Ambrose (to this day i cannot call him my grandpa since we had no
contact with each other but he passed away about a year ago) but i spend
a week at Grandma then over on Decatur Street in Lincoln for Grandpa.
Grandma Smith died in 1964 so i faintly remember her, but Grandma
Ambrose was the most coolest and Grandpa Smith we spent many afternoons
listening to the Cubs and hearing Grandpa Smith cuss out the Radio. But
Momma turns 65 this saturday, and Thank God she's still living. We
never know how much we miss somebody till their dead and gone. Happy
birthday Ma, Crabb luvs ya.
