Holy
crap in a Bundt pan...
Due to the
recent well-publicized shortage of
amateur websites produced by assholes who consider themselves to be
clever, I
have been called into action. My name is Jeff Kay, and I’m an
Ugly American living
on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, near Scranton, PA. And I’m here to
serve, baby.
The
State of My Fat Ass A journal of
sorts, updated every once in a while.
--
Steve told me about this weeks ago, and I failed to pass it along. He
said he was driving home, from somewhere north of here (I can't keep
track of all his excursions), and came upon something unusual.
He was on a well-traveled stretch of road, not an interstate but one of
those blue highways that reportedly take you the through
"real America." And suddenly there were people everywhere.
He said that folks were lined up on both sides of the road, some
standing and some sitting in lawn chairs. The crowds grew larger as he
continued driving, and he wondered if a parade was scheduled to come
through. But it sure was a strange time of day for a parade....
He noticed that some people had gas grills with them, and were cooking
up burgers and hotdogs. Everyone was smiling, and a few were passing
footballs and throwing Frisbees around. And this went on for miles.
The shit?
The curiosity eventually got the better of him, and he pulled over to
investigate. And it turned out to be an annual event, something the
locals look forward to all year: the NASCAR trailers were coming
through!
No joke. There was a race in New York somewhere that weekend, and the
trailers that transport the cars always use that stretch of road on
their way back home, and this has triggered an unofficial holiday. Folks
turn out by the hundreds to watch.... the trailers go by.
And as Steve stood there, they started rolling through! A big cheer went
up, and everyone started making that pumping motion with their right
arms, urging the drivers to blow their air horns.
Most answered this request, and it made the crowd cheer even louder. And
after it was all over, at least for that particular group of trailers,
grown men were seen hugging and high-fiving each other, with just a
hint of tears in their eyes.
Man, I wish I could've been there with him.
-- Remember that fancy-pants new Amazon
store I told you about last week? Well, it turned out to be kinda lame.
When they "invited" me to take part in the beta test, I was
excited. I thought they were offering up some templates with which I
could quickly build a mini-Amazon, stocked only with items that have
received the Surf Report seal of approval, and which I could embed into
TheWVSR.
But it was much less than that. Check it out here.
Basically they allow you to highlight nine products (nine!), and
everything else is just regular old Amazon searches. I thought I'd be
able to build a CD store, a DVD store, etc. Yes, it's a classic case of
good idea, poor execution....
I haven't given them my feedback yet, but lots of other folks have. I
checked out the discussion board for Amazon associates yesterday, and
people are not happy. Oh, they're bitching. Maybe Amazon will listen? I
just don't know.
In any case, please continue to use our links when you're doing your
online shopping. It'll cost you nothing extra, and we'll get a tiny
sliver of whatever you spend. It's an easy and painless way to support
our ridiculous endeavors here. And, for what it's worth, I appreciate
it.
-- Somebody linked to this
yesterday in the comments, and I thought it was excellent. It's a song,
supposedly leaked from a not-yet-released Weird Al CD, called "Ridin'
Dirty (White & Nerdy)." Here's
some info on it, and these
are the lyrics. Good stuff.
-- And speaking of music, I recently watched a
documentary about the Minutemen. It's a good flick, and you
should check it out if you're so inclined.
To be quite truthful about it though, I never was a huge fan of the
band. Oh, I had my copy of Double
Nickels On The Dime, as required by the hipster handbook,
section seven item six, but I never really warmed to it. There seemed to
be too much going on at once, too much jumping around; I'd always feel
like screaming, "FOCUS, goddammit!!" It was like punk rock for
people who were good at math. Or something.
But I liked the idea of the Minutemen, and I always respected D.
Boon and Mike Watt. They were suburban kids just bursting with ideas and
passion, and they created something that will outlast us all. So, that's
pretty cool, and I hoist an adult beverage in their honor.
Plus.... I saw them in concert exactly two weeks before D. Boon was
killed. They opened for REM in Winston-Salem, literally days after I
moved out of my parents' house, and into the WV version of the Land of
Opportunity: North Carolina. I didn't know anyone in my new hometown, so
I went to the show alone. It was at a high school auditorium (no shit),
and the tickets were printed on construction paper.
Through the magic of the internet, I found the exact date of the show
and REM's playlist:
8 December 1985 - Reynolds Auditorium, Reynolds High School,
Winston-Salem, NC
support: The Minutemen
set: Feeling Gravitys Pull / Harborcoat / Crazy / Maps And Legends /
Shaking Through / Driver 8 / Good Advices / Sitting Still / So. Central
Rain / Swan Swan H / Can't Get There From Here / Seven Chinese Brothers
/ Auctioneer (Another Engine) / Old Man Kensey / Pretty Persuasion /
Life And How To Live It encore 1: Gardening At Night / 9-9 /
Windout / The Counting Song / Second Guessing / (Don't Go Back To)
Rockville encore 2: Tired Of Singing Trouble / Little America /
See No Evil notes: Mike Watt guests on See No Evil
I remember being back at home in Dunbar for Christmas, and a news report
came on MTV that said D. Boon had been killed in an auto accident in
Arizona. The bottom almost fell out of my ass. I'd just seen him, all
fat and jumping around, a few days before!
So that leads us to the question of the day.... What dead people have
you seen in concert? Presumably these would be shows that happened before
the person died, but whatever. I also saw Kurt Cobain and that's about
all I can come up with, right off the top of my tiny Duke
head.
--
Steve told me about this weeks ago, and I failed to pass it along. He
said he was driving home, from somewhere north of here (I can't keep
track of all his excursions), and came upon something unusual. 