Proper Education

Today marks the first day of "The Police... a week long countdown to a sublime musical journey". This Saturday Kent and I (and the Barley) are going to see The Police at the Gorge. A countdown marked with daily Police trivia, non-stop music and of course a paper chain.
Growing up if there was an event of any real magnitude, there was ALWAYS a paper chain to count it down.
This is a practice I would like to hand down to the Barley. That, and commemorating important days in music/rock history as soon as The Barley is capable of abstract thought.
The following is a list of some of the holidays to be instituted (and corresponding discussion topics) heralded by the paper chain.

-November 17th, Jeff Buckley's birthday
Discussion topics: Evils of liquor overdose, the unique qualities of a telecaster, short career-big influence in today's music.
Celebration style: Listen to Live at Sine, have a who can sing higher contest.

-February 7th, The Beatles land in America
Discussion topics: George, John, Paul and Ringo's separate influences, the bands evolution from head bops to beards, Helter Skelter- first heavy metal song?
Celebration style: Listen to Abbey Road, Eat Yorkshire pudding, play "name that singing Beatle".

-April 5th, The Clash releases first Album
Discussion topics: The birth of punk rock, The changing London social scene, why a drug-free band is a smart band.
Celebration style: Listen to London calling, make our own shirts (Like Joe Strummer), play Rockbands The Clash set list.

-August 10th The Police became a trio
Discussion topics: Pioneering reggae in mainstream rock, why teamwork is important, and why solo songwriting hurts feelings and breaks up rock legends
Celebration style: Make our own Police cover music video using cordless electrics and everyday objects for drums. (another topic of discussion, why drummers can't help but look stupid in 80's music videos)

The list continues with celebrations for Sigur Ros, Django Reinhardt, BB King, and Brian Eno.
Here's to a well-rounded Barley! Cheers!

Captivity makes me Peevish...

However, seeing as I am 4 months pregnant and feeling 4 strokes under par basically always, I often find myself at home in my favorite Sherlock Holmes-ish chair drinking things like cran-bluberry juice instead of what I really want, reading about what size the baby is in reference to fruits and household objects, and eating toast.
Some people might be silly enough to think I have it 'made'. However these same people clearly don't know me very well, or have never known the tedium that is unemployment.
I am not saying that I myself am unemployed, I just told you, I drink juice, eat toast, and split cells all day. You can make a fine living I am told creating humans. However, I do have a career to fall back on as an artist. Small bits of paper on mostly white canvas is my specialty. Also, committing to design projects for people who you never hear from again. I do this particularly well.
Kent thinks a blog will help curb the adverse effects of my captivity and as an added bonus make me a less private person. We will see.

To start, I am carrying a person in my uterus called "The Barley". Many wonder at this, but I have a knack for creating nicknames (from scratch) that stick, whether you want them to or not.
Someday when my child is graduating from college it will turn to me with sageness and ask me why I have called him/her a hardy cereal for all these years. And I will reply with my typical sageness "that it is because I first fell in love with you when you were just the size of a Barley". We'll embrace and it will be caught on video.
But anyone else who asks will get the answer that it was the size of a Barley when it started stripping away my health and forced me into blogging.

Also a note! If you intend to peek in on my writing on a regular basis you will notice a couple of things that I would rather tell you about first so that I can have a sort of "I told you so" satisfaction. I have decent grammar, but not flawless and don't intend to make it flawless for fear of losing it's "conversational quality". If you are looking for brilliant writing without error go to kentwalter.com. Also I use "quotes" and (these guys) incessantly, and many of these ... dot dot dots.