Daughter and her husband took time out from getting their new house in order to buy me a most excellent birthday gift. In addition to giving me a bottle of Maker’s Mark Bourbon, my regular brand, they also went a little wild and gave me a bottle of Basil Hayden’s Small Batch Bourbon. I have been sipping it (neat, of course) since the weekend as my “End-of-the-Day-Calmer-Downer.”

Although it is a bit pricey for regular consumption, it sure is nice to receive as a gift. It is most flavorful, and downright smooooooooth. The professional reviewers agree, as do the regular bourbon drinkers who have tried it.

Damned fine whiskey, that. To the bourbon drinkers out there, I recommend that you put it on your Christmas list, as I’m sure you’ll enjoy it more than another sweater, and size is not an issue. 750mL will fit just fine.

Update: I would like to thank everyone for the birthday wishes. However, lest I mislead, I want to mention that my birthday was actually Saturday, October 16, and I spent it here with a group of hard drinking, heavy smoking, loud talking, gorilla-stompin’ party animals fine folks. I actually even remember some of it, including the part where everyone sang “Happy Birthday,” even though some of them may not remember singing it. It was, after all, a day that was capped off by copious amounts of deadly Georgia “wine” cocktails.

I had visited daughter this past weekend, and they (she and husband) gave me my excellent gift at that time. I only got to posting about at after I enjoyed about 1/3 of the bottle.

Thanks again. Helluva gift, helluva birthday, y’all.

Wanna know “Why liberals, leftists, Democrats, hippies, peaceniks, commies, socialists, educators, union members, hollywood idiots, the mainstream media, terrorists, tree huggers, feminazis, and you should vote for George W. Bush?”

The Patriette will tell you.

I suppose it started about a zillion years ago when I was in kindergarten. The teacher handed out various rhythm instruments (e.g. claves, maracas, tambourines), which included one drum. The idea was that we would form up and do a little parade around the classroom. I got the drum.

I have been told (and I also vaguely recall) that all the other kids randomly whacked, clacked and banged their instruments, but I grabbed the sticks and played a rudimentary march lick. After that, I always got the drum for these little “parades.” The next time my mother had occasion to come to the school, the teacher said, “You should really buy this kid a drum.”

Following the teacher’s advice, my parents bought me what could only be described as a toy drum. I fooled around with it, but I was too young to take it very seriously, and I never sought or received lessons. However, they tell me that for years thereafter I tapped on everything in sight in time to whatever music I was listening too, and I was always listening to music. It was also during this time (about age 7 or 8) that my dad taught me a few chords on the guitar, which provided the foundation for learning a bit more about playing guitar from guitar players I played drums with in bands in later years (but that’s fodder for another post).

I got de-railed for a few years when, after listening to Myron Floren (a famous accordion player who was a regular on the Lawrence Welk Show) do his stuff, my mother (with a Polish maiden name) decided that I should take accordion lessons. I spent the next four or five years (at least it seemed that long) trying to convince my parents and myself that I liked playing the farookin’ accordion, all the while “drumming” in my mind and on any horizontal surface I could find while music was playing.

For quite some time, my “drum” was a plastic box in which my mother stored her bingo markers, and my “sticks” were two 12 inch rulers. I recall drumming my ass off on that box to songs like Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” and “Something Else” and countless other songs that appeared on the albums (i.e. those big, black, vinyl things) that I eagerly bought with my spending money.

More than anything, I wanted to play real drums. I wrote letters to drum manufacturers, requesting their catalogs (this was the pre-computer dark ages), and when they arrived, I would spend hours gazing at the drum sets, imagining that I might some day actually get to play a set of real drums. When I wasn’t catalog gazing I was taking buses into Newark to hang around the drum departments of the half dozen or so music stores that were in a particular area of the city at the time. “Yo, kid. If you can’t afford them, don’t touch ‘em.” I wanted to play a set of drums so bad I could taste it. Furthermore, I just KNEW that I could play those damned things, having played them in my head for years. It was sort of a Zen thing, I suppose.

After a while, I had scored some real drumsticks, enabling me to ditch the rulers. I had gotten them from a friend of mine, who was actually taking drum lessons, but to my ear, he never really got it. Then, one day, I took a deep breath and asked my mother if it would be OK if I bought a snare drum, for starters. “It’s only one drum, mom, and I’ll use my own money.” She agreed, perhaps hoping that by letting me have a drum, the drum thing would soon become stale and fade away.

I had had my eye on a cheap Pearl snare drum (Pearl made low-end, cheap drums back then) that was within financial striking distance of the few bucks I had saved. Once I had saved enough money to finally buy the drum, I took the bus with a buddy into Newark to finally buy it – a real drum. After I picked out the drum, the salesman said, “Of course, you want a stand.”

Damn! I had completely forgotten that I needed a stand. The problem was that I didn’t have enough money for the stand. It sounds silly now, but back then, at about age 15, I was crushed by the seeming unfairness of it all. I had spent what seemed like forever imagining myself playing that drum. Now, here I was, standing in the store with the drum in my hand, and I didn’t have enough money for the damned stand.

Fortunately, my buddy came to the rescue. Between the extra few dollars I had (including my bus fare home) and the few bucks he had (including his bus fare home), I was able to buy the drum and the stand. Neither of having any money for the bus, we walked the several miles home carrying my new drum. I never forgot him for that.

What good is a drum without a cymbal? That was my next purchase. My mother must have finally recognized that any dreams she may have had of my being the next Myron Floren were out the window, so she told me that I could sell my accordion and use the money to put toward a bass drum. I enthusiastically accepted her offer. A couple birthday and Christmas gifts from relatives provided me with an honest-to-goodness, albeit it cheap, basic set of blue sparkle, Pearl drums (for you drummers — bass, snare, 8×12 tom, hi-hats, a 20” ride cymbal and a 16’ crash cymbal, all Zildjians).

I played the shit out of those drums along with records blasting on a Mondo Motorola record player that had a power tube in it the size of a damned cucumber. Hours at a time, I’d play, with my parents somehow tolerating it all. Maybe they had noticed that, after a while, groups of folks would hang out on the sidewalk outside the house listening to me play along with the then-popular stuff (the Ventures, Viscounts, Johnny and the Hurricanes, Duane Eddy, and other early 60’s rock and roll tunes) as well as classic Gene Krupa and Cozy Cole drum solos.

I guess word got around, because, before I knew it, a couple local guitar guys asked me to play in their band. That marked the beginning of twenty-five years worth of playing in various bands (except for two years, courtesy of Uncle Sam), and playing occasionally to this day.

By virtue of spending so much time with guitar players through the years, I managed to learn to play a bit of guitar, and bass guitar, which I also do to this day.

However, I have often said that I play drums better than I do anything else. It’s a Zen thing.

I continue to be surprised by some of the attributes of the blogosphere. On Sunday, as usual, I headed over to the American Legion Post to hang out with the Usual Suspects. Ken, my bodyguard and Anal Cruise Director was not in attendance, as he was home with a nasty cold. Obviously he hadn’t properly sterilized his innards with Georgia “wine”.

However, a minute or two after I occupied my usual seat at the bar, Dave, another of the Usual Suspects, said, “So, how is Kelley’s boy doing?” I was initially stumped by the question. Kelley? What Kelley do we both know? I then realized that Dave was asking about Kelley of Suburban Blight and that he was referring to her post about her boy’s recent bout with a malady that resulted in his hospitalization and more than a few tense moments for Kelley.

I told him that, at that point, the little guy seemed to be improving (he’s fine now), but I spent the next few minutes thinking about how much larger the cyber-neighborhood is than we often realize.

I like it.

This is the Village Voice picture Velociman referred to.

Brought to you by the Sensitive Left.

Today I finally picked up the photos I took at the Blogtoberfest with the disposable camera I bought in Helen. The film had 27 exposures, and I think I remember taking about 10 pictures. The next thing I knew (after a bit of Georgia “wine”), the little window on the top of the camera showed “0”. As such, I had no idea what the hell was on that film.

After picking the prints at CVS, I flipped on the interior light in the car so I could see what I (or someone else, for all I know) thought worthy of a photograph. Truth be told, I was hoping for one or two pictures that would permit me to exact a bit of revenge or a bit of beer money in the form of a payoff for not posting them.

They are the shittiest pictures I have ever seen.

I definitely cannot quit my day gig to be a photographer. Even before the Georgia “wine,” (albeit on Saturday morning, when I was still a little ragged around the edges), my finger found its way to the front of the farookin’ lens of the camera, leaving me with pictures of the center of Helen, Georgia along with my middle finger.

It was downhill from there. The post-dinner, drunken brawl cocktail party, indoor pictures are all a lovely battleship gray, because I (or someone else, for all I know) failed to press the little button on the front of the camera to turn on Mr. Flash.

I was particularly disappointed to see that the only picture of V-man I have (other than the one capturing his Whitey Ford delivery of a half a damned sponge ball) is a photo of the left half of his face, which would be the half that looks like Al Gore. Bummer.

I do, however, have pictures of the other guy getting a pedicure (and a manicure), but others have already posted virtually the same pictures.

Tomorrow I will flip through them again to see whether any are worth scanning and posting, but I doubt it, dammit.

Therefore, next year, in addition to bringing Ken, my bodyguard, I might also have to bring a photographer who drinks nothing stronger than water and whose assignment it will be to get the goods on this guy.

Ansel Adams I am not.

A California Blogger, tallglassofmilk, voted early in California, which turned out to be a good thing, because it was then that she learned that someone had registered her as a democrat at an address where she has never lived. She reports that the person in the Los Angeles Registrar’s Office was not particularly interested in getting to the bottom of the fraud, but rather seemed only interested in whether the Blogger had voted.

The “good news” is that she was advised that if on Election Day someone shows up and tries to vote under her name, the person will be arrested. I certainly hope so.

Folks, if our faith in the system is to survive, this crap has got to stop. I would favor a federal law stiffening the penalties for voter fraud (e.g. by making jail time a certainty) and vigorous enforcement of the law.

I know. Each side will complain that the other side is not enforcing the law, but we had best remember that it is the System and our faith in that holds this country together, and that is more important than anything, including which guy gets elected.

When the Man Comes Around
Watch and listen. (Download may take a few, but it’s worth it.)

N.B. Bush haters Kerry supporters, save yourself the download time. There’s nothing for you here.

Via SondraK

Kate’s dad passed away Wednesday. Katespot is a regular read of many Garden Staters. You might want to stop by to share a kind word or two.

OK, so I made a little mistake.

“Thanks” to Evilwhiteguy who laid in wait to take this picture and also to Rob, who was also enough of a rat bastard to post it.

I’ll see both of you shithooks next year.