spring broke

I think that the cities of Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Daytona Beach, FL, St. Pauley’s Island and the rest ought to sue the school systems for using the phrase “Spring Break”. The school’s version is the exact opposite of partying with beautiful women, getting arrested for public drunkenness and screaming your head off for your favorite wet T-shirt contestant. The week out of school should actually be named “Spring Inconvenience” or even better how about “Spring Torture” for the parents. I took off a couple of days to hang out with Nathan and I just wanted to kill myself. He’s that new breed of kid that wants to sit in front of the TV with his Guitar Hero game on, trying to conquer a Metallica song. Wow! I see him wasting time inside when it’s so beautiful outside and it just blows my mind. When I was his age I would do anything to be outside instead of in, even rake leaves!
Whatevah! Anyway, I gave in and stayed inside long enough to watch a movie yesterday. I was flipping around and landed on this thing called “Festival Express”. What caught my attention was The Band playing live in front of a few thousand folks. Don’t know if you’ve seen it, but the movie was about (two hours long…bwah ha ha!! Funny as a scrutch, Rich!) when The Band, Janis Joplin, The Flying Burrito Bros., The Grateful Dead, Sha Na Na, Buddy Guy (whose drummer REALLY sucked!) and a few others travelled on a train across southern Canada, played some festivals and partied their asses off. The shows were days apart so they stayed up and played music together 24/7. Of course, drugs and alcohol were involved, but the music never seemed to suffer (well, any worse than they played sober). Some of the stage performances were great but a lot of’m really sucked. My favorite moment was watching Richard Manuel singing “I Shall Be Released”. I love that song anyway. Like I say Buddy Guy’s drummer sucked but he was pretty damn fantastic his own personal self. Janis, now here’s where we might have a problem. She was a dynamic performer, no doubt. But she managed to find and sing that perfect half step just below every note. You know the one I’m talkin’ about. The one that drives you bat shit crazy?
I can’t imagine being in her band and listening to her sing every night. I also couldn’t imagine being the bass player (was it Phil Lesh?) in The Grateful Dead. They would play the meat of the song and then jam for an hour on it. He would have to just lock in and play the same thing over and over and over….brutal!
But by far the best part of the movie was shot on the train, and you could tell that’s where the musicians were having the most fun. They even ran out of alcohol and had to pull over in Saskatoon or somewhere, and by damn if there won’t a liquor store right there by the tracks! They all pitched in and bought more (about $800 worth) and continued on their merry (and I do mean MERRY!) way. The train crashed and everyone was killed. (Not really, I’m just tired of talking about it)
In the evening, we watched a movie called “Stardust” with Robert DiNero and Michelle Phiefer. I really thought it was kinda OK. It was the best of one of them medieval time travel fantasy teenage love stories I’ve seen. None of it made a damn bit of sense which was what I liked about it, well that and the hottie love interest.
That movie left such a warm and fuzzy feeling in the cockles of my heart that thought I might be up for another. OK, so let’s watch the next one, “Lara Croft: Tit Lady”. I mean, that was it! “The star of the show ladies and gentlemen!: Angelina’s tits!” They were in every scene, they couldn’t help it. I can hear the director now, “OK as the sword is coming towards her head let’s shoot it from the angle below her tits” or “Angie, can run with more bounce! Loosen that bra up, baby!” Jeez! That should tell ya that there wasn’t much of a story there. So did me waking up in the middle of it and going to bed.
Today I’m going outside and I’m gonna stay there!