jimmypribble.com/blog

Yesterday afternoon, as our work day was winding down, Alex and I sat in our office talking about music. We were talking about how much we liked The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel. And, as is our way towards the end of the day, we broke out with an impromptu version of the song while I tapped out the beat on my leg and Alex took the lead vocal. Sometimes, he will pick up his guitar and we’ll really get cracking on a song. The rest of the office must think we are mad, but they are tolerant of the “arts corner” and the three of us packed into an office with loud talk, laughter, occasional swearing, and music (both live and recorded) pouring out most of the time. This is punctuated by brief periods of repose, when we retreat into our headphones and stare into our phalanx of monitors while Photoshopping background slides for the weekend service. Then we’re as quiet as…(ahem) church mice.

Anyway, when we got to one particular part of The Boxer, I declared that there wasn’t enough whistling and humming in music these days. I guess I was dreaming of the past and by way of citation, I offer the SOTD - Jealous Guy by John Lennon. A simple, truthful, and beautiful song. If you are older than me, you might listen to John Lennon’s original; if you are younger, you might like Elliot Smith’s version. For me, musically (and emotionally) land-locked in the 80’s, it has to be the Roxy Music cover from 1981, made in tribute to John Lennon after his murder and sung by one of my musical (and sartorial) idols - Bryan Ferry. Just look at that beautiful pastel suit. He was wearing those when Duran Duran was still wearing leather pants and New Romantic pirate shirts.

Jealous Guy

I was dreaming of the past
And my heart was beating fast
I began to lose control
I began to lose control

I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m sorry that I made you cry
I didn’t want to hurt you
I’m just a jealous guy

Ha, something funny just happened. When I am at my desk at home (like now), my cat Cat-Cat, sleeps in an open drawer or on the writing desk, like this:

Cat-Cat responds to whistling and whether indoors or out, he will come when we whistle for him. Of course as I was writing this post, I was listening to the music and as soon as the whistling began, Cat-Cat stood-up and got in my face as if to ask why the hell I felt like I needed to whistle for him when he was right there.

Finally, I have to give a shout-out to Rob Booth. I don’t think I can ever really talk about music (especially older music) without thinking about Rob. My life is full of music lovers and honest-to-God professional musicians and songwriters, but it is Rob who is my real musical muse. Part of it is because he is one of the only people I know who cares about the lyrical content of music as much as I do. Part of it just has to do with when we met and what was going on with music in those days. Anyway, Rob calls every couple of weeks when he is stuck in Houston’s rush hour traffic. We are never home that early, so he always sings me a song on the answering machine or will quote/rap/scat/toast some lyrics for me. It always, always makes me smile. Thanks, mate.

jimmy

• I finally got an S3! No, not an Audi S3 (still not available in the US), but a Canon S3. This replaces our Canon A70, which unexpectedly gave up the ghost last year. Project photos, before-and-afters, and other photo blogging will soon resume in earnest.
• I got the camera just in time for the 12 Hours of Sebring, which is in just a few weeks time (uh, -18d:23h:12m:23s, according to the countdown clock here).  I will be going again with the Fluhrs.
• Kimberly and I worked on the boat for most of the weekend. We finished the upholstery, finished installing all new cabinet hardware, fixed the anchor stay, fixed the swim ladder, applied new SeaRay badges to the radar arch, cleaned the cockpit, and even found a little time to relax.



 First photo with the S3 - Jimmy trying to grok Stranger in a Strange Land.

• (cont.) On Sunday afternoon, we decided to reward ourselves for all of our hard work, by taking the boat out to meet Dave and Heidi, but it wouldn’t start. Frustrated with the recalcitrant boat, I rechristened it - Fangdango (a reference to a previous mechanical disaster, my 1983 Audi UrQuattro named Fang). Anyway, Dave and Heidi kindly drifted over and tied-up at our marina, where we had a beer and showed them our handiwork. The sun fell in one of those beautiful displays that leaves the lake looking lavender. Despite some frustration, it was a great weekend.



Lake Lavender

• One of my new year resolutions is to read more books. Now, I love to read, so that isn’t the problem. The problem is that I am so busy that the only time I commit to reading is right before I go to bed, when I am so exhausted from being so busy that I can only read a paragraph or so before I nod-off like some old geezer. It doesn’t help that I’m a slow reader. No, not because I’m stupid, but rather because I approach good writing like a sommelier might sample an exquisite wine (hold up to the light, swirl, smell, slurp, swish, spit/swallow). After reading a particularly fine verse, I might lay the book down on my chest, chuckle, cry or just reflect on the pleasures of such inspired craft. And then I fall asleep. Consequently, I read maybe one or two books last year. Mrs. Pribble can read a whole book while I’m brushing my teeth. I tried a book on CD last year, but I also bought a convertible, which subverts that effort (wind noise). No, to read more books just takes commitment. So far, it’s going well. If I can slog through Stranger in a Strange Land (promising start, but I’m not really grokking the Free-Love Space-Jesus™ stuff), I will have surpassed my total book count for last year. Unless I am sidetracked by a particularly strong recommendation, I first plan to read all of the books in my collection, which I haven’t already read. I’m such a book lover that I will often buy books “for later” and later never comes. I am publishing my reading list on the misc page.
• Stewert Copeland’s band, The Police, have reunited for a tour. Initially, the prospect of righting one of my greatest musical regrets (not seeing my former Favorite Band of All Time™ as they passed through Austin on their Synchronicity tour) had me declaring that I would see them at all costs. But faced with the reality of shelling-out nearly $500 to see them in Dallas, I reconsidered my position. I have decided that their tour should support a new album. Do the work first, lads. Get into a studio, write, shout, fistfight, do whatever it takes and see where the artistic tension takes you. If your brilliance emerges once again, you can have all of my money. Until then, my money will go to The Killers, playing in Austin on April 13. 

jimmy    

It was down to 44 degrees this morning, but I was not to be deterred. I kept the top down. Clear and cold, the air whipped around me tugging at the new scarf around my neck. The scarf fluttered above the car looking like a gold striped ribbon on a gift wrapped in black paper. The Killers played to me, guitars building along with the revs…

 
“We’re burning down the highway skyline
on the back of a hurricane that started turning
when you were young
when you were young” 

The roaring wind, the cold air stinging my face and numbing my fingers, driving fast on the best road in Austin, and listening to new music formed a perfect storm of joy for me this morning. I couldn’t stop smiling. I don’t know if it was therapy or a drug, but it was a welcome break from the melancholia that I have been feeling, as I do every year when Summer changes to Autumn.

The Killers’ first CD Hot Fuss never left heavy rotation around me. Literally, it never left the CD changer in my car. As a complete work, it satisfied and thrilled like no other album I had heard in years. Every song was a hidden treasure of sonic tracings and echoes from the 80’s in a way that was like authentic genetic influence rather than a band playing dress-up. Rising above the rest was a song that has become one of my favorites - Brandon Flowers’ discussion with God on “All These Things I’ve Done” - a song I have quoted on this blog before.

On their new CD Sam’s Town, The Killers continue to dazzle, if perhaps to a slightly lesser degree. The DNA strands from my youth are still there. I hear the Styx opening to Paradise Theater on Enterlude. I hear Springsteen’s Born to Run (or Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s superior(!) remake) in When You Were Young and a Book of Love synth thread in perhaps the best song of the album Read My Mind. OCD keeps me from absorbing the whole album at once, so I am rotating through my first favorites, the aforementioned three plus Sam’s Town and Reasons Unknown. In my opinion, these alone substantiate this sophomore effort as near-brilliant in its own right. If I warm to the second half of the CD, I will consider it great indeed.

“Slipping in my faith
until I fall
you never returned that call
woman, open the door
don’t let it sting
I wanna breathe that fire again

She said
I don’t mind
if you don’t mind
’cause I don’t shine
if you don’t shine”

- The Killers “Read My Mind”

jimmy
 

I had a day off on Friday because I worked at my company’s annual convention in Grapevine last week. Anyway, I spent most of the day working on my track car in the garage. At one point, I looked up from what I was doing to see a roadrunner running down the middle of my street being chased by a mockingbird. The mockingbird was swooping down back and forth swatting the roadrunner on its behind. This continued as they ran towards my house, then past my house, and finally down the street beyond where I could see them. I really appreciate living in a neighborhood where one might see a roadrunner being chased by a mockingbird.

Also on Friday, Mrs. Pribble brought home her new treadmill - a NordicTrack C2300. With quite a lot of effort, we managed to unload this 300 lbs. machine from her 4Runner and get it into the house. Except for maneuvering it into place, assembly was straightforward and fairly easy. It’s a very nice machine and seems sturdy enough. I have used it twice in two days, but plan on using it on days that I don’t go to the gym. I also use a treadmill at the gym, so over the course of the next few weeks, I hope to compare our home machine to the professional units. This also leads me to the first of two commitments:

1. Within reason, I will go through one program (30 minutes) on the new treadmill on any day that I don’t go to the gym.

2. I will make a blog entry every day for the next 20 days, starting yesterday (hey, I’m not stupid). In about 20 days, Mrs. Pribble and I will be going out of town with some friends and I won’t be able to make any entries that weekend.

Today, I entered all of my old blog pages through WordPress and edited their timestamps, so that they are now annotated and archived correctly. If you ever wanted to comment on any of my old stories, you may now do so. Also, Mrs. Pribble (who is a programmer by trade) talked me into using WordPress to manage all of my site content, so I will continue the migration process over the next couple of weeks. She’s a smart cookie, so I better listen to her.

Now Playing: Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap

Nothing but a beautiful voice and a vocoder. Soulful, harmonic, space-age a cappella.

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cutouts
Speak no feeling, no, I don’t believe you
You don’t care a bit, you don’t care a bit

Joy of joys, I’m up late tonight working on the latest version of the site and listening to tranceportal.org’s Trance Tuesday, which is a three hour mix of glorious trance music podcast every Tuesday. Free. Three hours of free music once a week. Plus most of the 25 podcasts are archived on transportal.org, which is 60+ hours of music! Mrs. Pribble and I have long been legitimate, now purchasing our online music through iTunes, but I have continued to swipe electronica from eMule because of its limited availability through legitimate channels and because of the difficulties in finding the specific music I want. I’m in ecstasy!

Listening to this music makes me want go out right now (midnight), find an underground after-hours club, drop some methylenedioxymethamphetamine, and then dance it off for hours until the sun comes up. The only problem with that plan is that I’m already a little sleepy, I haven’t done drugs in years (and besides, X causes severe long-term depression and I don’t need any more help with that), I wouldn’t even begin to know where to go to find an underground club, and I’m almost 40 years old, so you know - inappropriate. I guess I’ll just keep working on the site and I’ll listen to more of this music tomorrow, when I’m on the treadmill. Love to dance, though - love to dance.

Anyway, the biggest change in the website is that I will now be using WordPress blogging software for my blog, rather than coding each page by hand. This will make posting and archiving much easier and it will allow comments and other features that my earlier blog didn’t have. I’m still trying to decide if I should use WordPress to manage all of the pages in my site, or just the blog. In the meantime, I am trying to get the blog page to integrate properly into the site. The site looks fine on Internet Explorer, but looks terrible in Firefox. Graphically, I haven’t done much different with the site. I moved the menu bar so that it is easier to read. Otherwise, I am still stuck on the same black, white, grey, and red color scheme, which I think can do no wrong on the web (or in print). Maybe the v.2.0. will look different. Frankly, I think it’s more important that I write more content and the main change in the site should make it easier for me to do that.

jimmy