Today was a rather hectic day at work, between video crappola and a staff-wide meeting with the new President of our organization. So, upon returning to my office after lunch, I decided to open up WinAmp and throw on some tunes. Mind you, I tend to listen to entire albums at a time…no “random” for me. My tastes are far too eclectic to throw my entire music collection on random — I’d end up having a seizure or dying of shock when the tracks roll from Enigma to Slipknot (it’s happened…not the seizures…but the transition…it was jarring to say the least).

First up was Jane’s Addiction. I hadn’t listened to them in a while, so I loaded up Ritual de lo Habitual and started rocking out. About 3/4 of the way through the album, for some ungodly reason, I decided to look at the date the album came out.

If you’re anything like me, you like to wake up to music. Not just any music, but music that makes you want to get up…and not to smash your alarm clock. I’m talking music that rocks — music that makes you want to slide out of bed and dance. Stuff that’s going to put me in a damned good mood first thing in the morning (which is good considering I’m not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination).

So, to help everyone out with that morning boost, here’s a list of six songs that just get me going in the morning (or damned near anytime) — guaranteed wake up and smile tunes.

Yes, I’m finally getting to what I promised the other night: stories of my drunken escapades with my previous band. Like I said: if you spend almost 11 years with the same band, you’re bound to have some crazy road stories. This is the first of many.

So, on this particular night, my band is playing in San Antonio at a little place called Sam’s Burger Joint…which happens to be a rather large, two building complex with a burger joint in one building and a show club in the other.

We show up at about 5pm (we like to show up early in order to do a proper soundcheck…I mean…you have to be professional if you want to get anywhere, right?) and there’s already people there…bikers on old school choppers, greasers, rednecks, hep cats with 50’s hot rods…the whole 9 yards. Me, being the dumbass that I am, decide that I wanted to ride my motorcycle (a 1980 Yamaha XJ650…imagine a Harley with a sport bike engine) to the gig and back home the next day. I showed up right behind the band van.

Of course, I had packed a bag with the next day’s clothes and put it in the back of the van, but we’ll get to that later.

We get loaded in, do soundcheck, have a couple beers and everything’s cool. The club gives us the address and info on the motel they put us in. (One of the great things about being a semi-popular band is that clubs will pay for your hotel rooms. NICE!) So, we decide to head to the motel, buy some beer on the way, chill out, have a few brews and get changed before we come back. No problem there. We do just that.

Now, before telling you the short story about playing at the club, I’ll describe my attire. Mind you, I have a penchant for wearing kinda freaky and/or offensive stuff on stage. I mean, my favorite shirt to wear on stage is a simple little black thing with “Do me a favor and FUCK OFF.” on the front in small, white letters. Nobody ever said I was subtle.

On this particular night, I was in a mood. So, I was wearing…get this…black, velour pants (very comfy and they have that awesome “let me touch those” factor…but they look kinda gay sometimes), my black, leather Harley boots (look like combats, but with Harley stuff all over them)…and to put the cherry on the cake…a black and red hockey jersey from the Satan’s Cheerleaders. This jersey is a full hockey jersey with, in white print…

Front: Goats 666 (Goats on top in an arch and 666 underneath)
Sleeves: pentagrams on each sleeve…also with 666 below them
Back: a HUGE pentagram with cheerleader silhouettes around it, Goats 666 and a whole bunch of stuff about the SCs and where they come from (Austin, TX, to be exact).

Also, remember that I’m basically in the Bible Belt. Texas can be rather religious…or at least seriously adverse to “Devil worshipers.” Remember all this, because there will be a quiz later.

So, I show up to the gig, dressed in the above outfit, ready to rock my ass off…and I start drinking. We have two opening bands (we’re the headliners). By the time we get on stage…

…I’m shit faced.

…I’m going to go postal.

Well, not really, but it makes a good post headline. ;)

Yes, it’s been a very merry, if somewhat odd, Texpundit Christmas.

BTW, this post’s alternate title is “Happiness…is a warm…burger.” After this last week, I’d settle for a gun, but I’m not legally permitted to have one, so I digress.

I just got back from KSB and finished my dinner. The Memphis King burger is the ultimate of all burgers…and that’s why I finished it and only half the fries. My GOD, I’m f’n stuffed! So, I shall sit back, relax and catch everyone up on my pathetic excuse for a life. :P

This Christmas was odd…if only for the fact that we had everyone in the immediate family in attendance. My BIL (brother-in-law) works for an offshore drilling (yes, OIL *ZOMG!!!111!*) company and used to work on one of the largest drilling ships in the world. He took us on a tour of it a few years ago (it was “company and family tour the boat day” or something) and I have to say…holy SHIT it was impressive. The drillers themselves sit in what is akin to a server room…if you only account the temperature of the place. We toured in the middle of summer (this is a south Texas summer, I remind you) and when we got to the drillers’ room, I was praying for a sweater. It was fucking COLD! The were sitting in the sci-fi captain’s chairs with touch screens and joysticks. It was crazy!

Anyway, the gist of the boat is that it has two fully operational drill derricks. One does the exploratory drilling while the other is getting set up for the next job. This is *extremely* efficient in that their downtime is next to nil. The current derrick gets done drilling the well, does a completion or caps it off and then moves on to the next well. By the time they get there, the other derrick is already ready to go…so they GO. Like I said, next to nil downtime. The ships have already paid for themselves.

ANYway…the BIL’s schedule got juggled so that he could finally be home for Christmas this year…which is a first in, like, six years. Needless to say, we were all ecstatic.

One thing I must stress, though: it doesn’t matter how much your family loves each other and how well you get along…10 days is too long to be essentially trapped in one domicile…especially if you’re used to living right next to the Metro and going wherever you want, whenever you want.

Yes…I will indulge in a bit of hyperbole here…but tonight was the best night EVAR!

I went out with some friends tonight to celebrate the 55th anniversary of The Texan. It’s a little bar in the middle of CC that has been around forEVER. Today, they had a writeup in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times (the paper that broke the Cheney-shoots-his-friend-in-the-face-story) about the anniversary (see writeup link above)…and the owner of the bar gave my old band (Matt Hole & the Hot Rod Gang — see my “Cool Links” section to hear us) props as the band that opened the bar up to the local music scene. To have a bar owner say that WE were the guys to make the scene happen…Hell, I’m beaming like a 1,000,000 watt flashlight. :)

I’ve had this song stuck in my head for days now, so I looked up the clip on YouTube. Now I’m sad and miss the Muppets. I’m a dork.

Enjoy!

I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m a Libertarian. That said: I hope the Dems take back the House tomorrow. Even though they suck as bad as the Republicans, we need SOME kind of check against the “let it ride” Republican Congress and White House. One note to Democrats, though: don’t kid yourselves if it does happen. The Democrats won’t do any better…but at least Bush won’t get every little Constitution-raping bill rubber stamped through Congress. Sometimes, gridlock can be a good thing.

Enigma’s new album, A Posteriori, is a very solid, laid back album. Great for work listening. In fact, I’m listening to it right now.

On that same vein, Neko Case’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is a masterpiece of folksy, alt.country goodness. It’s a little more subdued than her previous efforts and will definitely appeal to people who don’t really like alt.country. And, her voice is as fantastic as ever. Incidentally, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is queued up directly after Enigma’s new one in my WinAmp playlist.

Why the hell does video take so damned long to render? My second (dedicated video) machine here at work is a maxxed-out beast…and it’s still taking forever to render these videos for upload to Google Video. I’ll be so glad when affordable parallel processing comes to the desktop.

Scratch my thought from last night about possibly dating the girl in the office. After thinking about it, there’s no way in Hell I’m going to get involved with an intraoffice relationship. When the inevitable breakup happens, all it does is make everyone around you uncomfortable. To paraphrase: “it’ll all end in tears.”

Why am I alone? I’m not ugly. I’m not OLD. I love women. I’m a *stout* guy. I give 180% to any relationship I’m in. I make good money. Why do I get thrown away like a tissue at the end of the night?

Do arab DJs misinterpret our songs? “Sheik, sheik, sheik…sheik, sheik, sheik…Sheik Djibouti…sheik djibouti….” … ?