In the "You Can't Make this Shit Up" Department...
My agency is moving from the 5th floor of this building to the 9th floor early next year. We have been in this building 25 plus years and in the space we are in now - equally that long. The move is long overdue.
Here is the clincher, in designing the office space and assigning space to employees (oh about 50 of us total)- they "FORGOT" me and another lady.
How do you "forget" an employee? Particularly two employees who have both worked for the agency over 25 years each!! Doesn't someone have a phone list? Can you spell INCOMPETENCE any quicker than I did?
What a hoot! Word has spread across the agency like wildfire and I keep getting e mails and phone calls about it. We just smile, shake our head and say "hey, you can't make this shit up!"
Yes, I do have an office. Yes, I had to fight to get a decent one. Oh let's just forget I am on the Management team in an office with just 9 total managers. HA! Too funny!
Hey, anyone out there?
I have been without internet at home for over a week. It is killing me ya'll. To add insult to injur
y, my computer has been on a slow decline for several months. It looks something like this these days. I was thinking I would have to bury it but Michael says nooooo, it just needs something reloaded and that will take him, oh say 15 or 16 hours. Hmmm?
Now as much as I love Michael I am beginning to understand the tales of women who were married to plumbers and had plumbing issues, women whose significant others who were car mechanics and there own vehicles hobbled along..you get the picture? Michael is a computer guru, wizard, king for christ sakes!! Yet, I have hobbled along with a decrepit system for months now. Sigghhh. I will leave this weekend for a two week training stint in Dallas, maybe oh maybe it will be working when I return!! Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Holy Moses!!
Hey, in Colorado,
Moses asks God how to vote on minimum wage. What advertising low will we sink to next?
Phobia, who knew?
Apparently, I am claustrophobic. I would never have guessed it. I know I do not like being a huge crowd of people where I cannot control which way I am going BUT I have never freaked out in a huge crowd of people.
It took this jewel here to the right to teach me that I am, embarassingly, claustrophobic. The MRI, the purveyor of the "buried alive" feeling.
The machine that made me say "OUT, GET ME OUT NOW!". (Sheepishly and red faced I admit it). I was crying and I thought my heart would explode! What a strange sensation. I now have respect for folks with phobias, how frightening, at the time you experience it. ARRGGH. At least they think they got some good shots that can be read. They also told me that if I ever needed to have another that I needed to tell them I should be sedated. I think they should have sedated me yesterday, I think the first clue would have been the first time they slid me into that death chamber and I immediately said "take me back out". Live and learn. Thankfully, I lived. HA
Blues, The Final Installment
Busy week, so I was unable to complete my blues festival report. Saturday night was the final night. I, finally, made it over to the media tent to get a backstage media pass. That pass puts you halfway backstage and directly in front of the stage, making for some aweseom pics. Except for when you and various other folks trying to help you, mess up the settings on your camera and all your pictures suck!!
J. D. and I headed down to Cherry Street and Main Stage, leavi
ng everyone at the camp site saying they would catch up later. We ran into
Trainreck on Cherry Street. Awesome two piece blues band from Texas. I chatted with "Washboard" Washington a bit and he gave me their newest CD, I will have to play some of it on the show this week. We have caught them at The Press Box a couple of times. One night, it was pure juke jointish, we had our beers, sat at the domino table and played dominoes with Ben & Amy and listened to Trainreck live. It was so fun!
A friend of ours,
Michael Burks was playing main stage at 7pm and receiving an award before his set. I wanted to be sure and get some pictures of it. I could not get Michael or any of the campsite folks on the phone so they could come get media passes so I had to foray backstage without them (much to their chagrin later). JD got me an artist pass from Michael, which meant full acess to the backstage area (and free beer). Bobbie was using a wheelchair and I talked her into sitting on stage while Michael performed (she would have gotten swamped in the crowd and she needed to be able to see her sweetie's set). So I stayed on stage with Bobbie and took pics from the side. I ran into
Anson Funderburgh and was thrilled to see him there. Anson's band has played the festival for 20 years but
Sam Myers died this year and they had decided not to come. I told Anson I was so glad to see him and could not believe that they would not be there this year. He told me he had not planned to, with Sam passing, but that he had never missed it and decided someone would let him play, hopefully Michael (which he did, of course).
For some reason, I cannot get the remaining pics to upload - so just know that the festival was great! We had an amazing time and the weather was perfect. Look forward to next year's festival!!
Blues, Part two
This is Trish & I, at the campsite, after gorging ourselves with my Jambalaya. We all had a great time sitting around waiting for Jon Justice Band to perform.
Michael loaded up their equipment and hauled them to the Emerging Artists stage so they could set up
This is Jon Justice performing. He is awesome and his band sounded great!
Bill brought back a "souvenir" from our late night at the festival on Friday. A smoked turkey le
g. He left it on the table outside in the container and the next morning we had a colony of flies, ewwwwwwww and THANKS bubby! We kept those flies despite spraying, etc.
On Saturday more folks showed up and we just hung out enjoying the conversation, sights and food.
Charlotte Taylor dropped in on us. We did not get to see her band perform because they started early on Thursday before we even got to the festival.
I did get to complete a fantasy on Saturday - I rode a Harley! This nice fella, Winston, took me down Highway 49, around by the bridge over the Mississippi and back. It was uber cool. You meet the friendliest folks at the festival each year.
More to come!
Arkansas Blues & Heritage
Whoo, we recovered from our weekend at the Arkansas Blues & Heritage Festival in Helena, AR.
We arrived on Thursday evening and set up camp at Johnny's, right on Hwy 49B. We were not expecting anyone except for J. D. on Thursday night. We were settling in and a big ass bus pulled in and parked in front of us. YIKES, our great view of HWY 49 - gone.
It was the
Jon Justice Band from Cincinatti. They were great fun and whacky - fueled by much alcohol. We had great fun with them. Michael and I took Jon and his dad, Papa Gino to Michael Burks campsite for dinner that night. Jon was blown away at meeting Michael, eating his food and THE ULTIMATE - getting to see and touch three of Michael's guitars, including his Flying V. Jon kept thanking me over and over, which was so not necessary. We had a lot in common, Patron, Patron, Patron. HA! We enjoyed meeting Derek, Scotty, Nathan, et al.. a great group of guys. We caught their performance on Friday night and they were awesome. If you are ever near where they are playing - go see them. Great cd - Jon gave us several copies.
Friday folks starting arriving. Craig & Trish, Bill, Shirley & Chad, Chris, Brian - we had a good crowd at the camp site. The weather was absolutely perfect!
Friday, Michael and I went down to the festival to see what was happening. We saw some street acts, Mudbone was there, of course. He shows up every year playing his blistering music on the street. Last year they finally put him on stage.
Michael and I moved on and found "The Blues Brothers", okay, they were statues. We popped our bag of home made pork rinds in Belushi's arms and I snapped a quick picture, how totally tourist of us. Yes, that is the cool beer sweater Carolyn made for Michael keeping his beer cool. We ran into Babs from the Hot Springs Blues Society, who tells us she is headed to Australia for 7 weeks to "do whatever the hell I want." Go Babs!
We split up when he wanted to head back to camp and I wanted to hit main stage to find a couple of folks I knew. I located Craig & Trish and sat with them for a bit. We watched Sam Carr & The Delta Jukes, Paul Delay Band and a tiny bit of Pinetop Perkins & Bob Margolin. I needed to head back to camp since I was hosting dinner. I have to bring my Jambalaya to the festival every year (come to think of it, I have to bring it everywhere). I knew we were going to have a bunch of folks at camp waiting to be fed.
I Will Take Creepy Pedophiles for $200 Alex
Hmmm, now
this is a disturbing list.
Oh My Word, Nekkid Art!!
A
teacher was fired for taking her class on a school sponsored field trip to an art museum. Apparently, some of the 5th grade students saw a nude portrait. (Not the David, pictured to the left, as that is in Florence, Italy but probably something similar) Say it ain't so Ethel, not nekkid art at an art museum?
So what have we learned from this lesson folks? Nude Art BAD, EVIL and SINFUL.....
Would you rather your kid see art that has nudity in it or this ---> because if they are watching tv they are seeing this stuff on the right.
Go figure huh?
(thanks to John for the info on this piece of ridiculousness)
I Got The Blues, almost!
Countdown to the
Arkansas Blues & Heritage Festival (formerly the King Biscuit Blues Festival).
Tomorrow, we load up the camper and head on out. I have been attending the festival since 1987 when it was a tiny festival, on the levee by the Mississippi River in Helena, AR. The stage was small and in front of the old train depot, which is now the
Delta Cultural Center. It is now the largest, free blues festival attracting over 100,000 folks each year.
The pre-festival activities just about kill me though. I worked all day in Memphis, drove home, went shopping, got home at midnight and started cooking. I have to pack, get the camper ready, run more errands tomorrow and have it all ready by 1pm. ACKKKK. I am feeling a bit stressed. Of course, Michael is cool as a cucumber. He moves at one speed, granny slow. He never gets frazzled and never gets in a hurry - which so totally puts me over the edge!
I have to make my famous jambalaya tomorrow for I cannot attend the festival without it. I made Country Breakfast Pies tonight. I will make Baked Oatmeal in the morning. ARRGHHH. I cannot wait to get there, get set up and have a shot of Tequila.
Check out the
line up this year. Proud to see Miss Charlotte Taylor & Gypsy Rain are playing main stage Thursday. My two picks for Thursday are Johnny Sansone and Tab Benoit. If I have to narrow it down, it will be Tab Benoit. Friday gets into full swing. Chris, Chad, Bill, Trish, Craig and more all arrive. They will miss the party Thursday night - their loss. We pick up more folks (Matt, Stacy, Bob, Angie etc..) on Saturday. Wooohoo! They are not forecasting any rain, although it always rains at the "biscuit".
My Friday choices are Pinetop Perkins ( I mean come on, Pinetop is TOPS), Billy Gibson Band and Willis "Big Eyes" Smith. As is typical, I am drawn more to the smaller stages - rather than main stages. Saturday I want to see Larry Garner, Lil Ed & The Blues Imperials (who I was supposed to interview on Friday until they found out I would be there at the festival), Robert Lockwood, Jr, Michael Burks (Michael is receiving an achievement award!) and the Fabulous Thunderbirds or Super Chicken. I really like Super Chicken and get tickled thinking about taking Virginia to see him at Sticky Fingerz and him making that rooster sound and saying "Don't shoot my chicken" all night long. It drove her nuts after about the 5th time.
For your edification - Helena, AR is in the Delta and on the Mississippi River. Highway 49 runs out of Helena across the Mississippi and hits Highway 61 in Mississippi. Helena is economically depressed, as are many delta towns, and is depressing to be in on any other weekend of the year (except Bikes & Blues). Let's hope I do not have to babysit any drunks, do not have to make a run to the ER or that it rains so much so that it is all just mud (been there and done all of that). I cannot wait to get my annual BBQ Bologna sandwich from Chuck's and walk around Cherry Street munching on the finest delicacy ever and listening to the great music!
Boy Oh BOY
or, how bout that boy? As the GOP muckety-mucks scramble to cover their butts in the wake of the Foley Folleys - I wonder will Americans notice the "misstatements" that have resulted.
Hastert "misstated" on the Rush Sleezeball show that GOP big shots told Foley to resign on Friday, then later said it was a "misstatement" when called on that "fact". Hastert denied being told about the creepy e mails Foley was sending, then had to backtrack and say he may have been told. They claim that they told Foley to leave the pages alone and were done with it. Hmmm, this all occurred around the time that Foley donated over $100,000.00 to the cause. Great timing. Surely it was not a payoff?
How is it that folks from the Page Alumni Association are saying that they have been warning pages since 2001 that Foley seemed to gravitate toward the young male pages, yet no one "knew" there might be a problem.
Bottom line, in my eyes, is that this creepy man clothed himself in the bible thumping, right wing flying, republican mantra and cashed in on the "evangelical" base to get elected time and time again - all the while pulling the hood over all their eyes and engaging in wholly inappropriate behavior for years. An interesting turn of events.
So he checks into rehab,
gosh isn't that a tired response to a problem? Were I an alcoholic, I would be ticked off that he is giving alcoholics a bad name. Alcoholism does not make you a creepy potential sex offender.
So now he says he is gay,
ya think? Again, were I gay I would be ticked off for this creep giving gays a bad name. Being gay does not make you a creepy potential sex offender.
Oh wait, he was also abused between the ages of 13 - 15 by a "clergyman",
I guess that could have happened but isn't this a convenient defense? What next? "I suffer from bi-polar disorder rendering me incapable of distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate behavior?" We can only sit back and watch the melee as Foley and his camp scramble to offer excuses and stir up sympathy for this creepy potential sex offender. I also sit back and watch, with much amusement, as the rest of the GOP perpetrators in this scandal flounder around trying to save their jobs. A circus it is.
