After studying the word cloud the answer rained down on me….music. I like music. Music of all kinds. I don’t know much about it, other than what I like. My iPod artists range from 2Pac and Snoop Dogg to Ray Price and George Strait with a hat tip to Ted Nugent and Deep Purple along the way.

This video combines three of my favorites. Two artists, Stoney Larue & Gary Stewart and a song “Empty Glass”. This tune is one of my all time fave Gary Stewart songs. It has that melancholy regretful hopelessness that makes country music great. Simple, haunting lyrics that make a barroom song something more artsy than your average boot scootin’ boogie song.

I got turned on to Stoney Larue listening to the local “hard country” format radio station when he released “Oklahoma Breakdown” and I’ve found a few more of his songs that I like. I was actually looking for “Texas Moon” to share tonight but found this instead.

It’s a great rendition of Gary Stewart’s original which I heard Gary perform live several years back. Stoney doesn’t do the guitar solo here, but Gary did and I discovered what an amazing guitar player/musician he actually was.

So on a rainy North Texas night grab a bottle of whiskey, a pack of smokes, and maybe a box of Kleenex for this one.

I’m out.

Searching for a path back to this blog. Wondering what to make of it. Found a great word cloud generator at Wordle.net to see what all this looks like when you boil it down:

So many words....

Still not sure what it all means. But hope to be back posting new stuff soon.

Waylon Jennings – Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down

It’s been awhile since I blogged here. Thought I’d drop by to share some more country music on the occassion of what would have been Waylon Jennings’ 72nd birthday.

My parents were big fans of Waylon’s early music. I became a fan of his “outlaw” music in the 70’s. He came to the Black Eyed Pea Jamboree in Athens in 1976 or so with Willie. I’m not sure the Spanish Trace Inn has ever seen the likes of Waylon and his gang, and probably never will.

This selection combines both old and outlaw Waylon, with a bonus of an outstanding pedal steel guitar line, as all my faves usually do.

Ever notice that it’s always the old fat guy on pedal steel guitar? I think I gotta learn me some of that.

Saw this interesting story about AT&T negotiating with Apple to maintain it’s exclusive deal for the popular iPhone. The really interesting part was this little nugget buried in the last paragraph:

Mr. Stephenson also is seeking to overhaul AT&T’s marketing to make wireless the priority. The next step, he said, is to do away with a requirement that customers have AT&T’s home-phone service to qualify for discounts on TV or broadband Internet services. Being a wireless customer should be enough, he said.

“We have 77 million wireless customers and 30 million consumer phone lines,” Mr. Stephenson said in a recent interview at AT&T’s headquarters in Dallas, where he moved the company last summer. “Which customer base would you rather work from? We tend to come at this backwards.”

Nice to see the dinosaurs adapting to the world around them this time around. If AT&T can do the arithmetic maybe there is still hope for broken down old equipment manufacturers to make their way into the 21st century.

The really funny thing is The Intimidator (formerly known as The Esposa) and I just decided to forgo a land line and go 100% wireless at our house. We have five cellular devices and have dwindled to a single wired telephone in the house.

Now I’m headed off to AT&T to shop for my discount.

I got one of those calls today. One of those calls that make you examine your life, ponder what could have been. What should have been. On the other end was my brother with news that our cousin Henry had passed away the previous night.

Henry and I were close to the same age and were close when we were younger. But as we grew up, living in different locales, we drifted apart as cousins old enough to drive and avoid those nasty family get togethers are wont to do. It was actually my younger brother who grew closer to Henry in adulthood since they lived in the same area.

It takes an adult perspective to understand that family get togethers were a good thing. That’s why the picture below is so precious. Henry came over last year to a party we were having here at the house. It was the first time I had seen him in years and he looked great. Looking so much like his Dad in his adulthood.

L to R: Luther, Myownself, Brother Reggie and Cousin Henry

And today, he’s gone.

Rest in peace cousin.

I was listening to KHYI this afternoon and was surprised to hear a mainstream country music song. Of course when you’re talking George Strait I suppose they make allowances since he has stayed true to his Texas music roots.

They played this song from his Troubadour album which got me to thinking about what makes that Texas honky tonk sound. Some feel like the fiddle (that’s violin for you Yankees & Canadians) is the quintessential instrument in country music, but my vote goes to the Hawaiian Steel Guitar.

This song features an extended steel guitar solo, more so on the recorded version than this live performance, but good enough to get the drift.

Something about George Strait and a twanging steel guitar that makes me want to scoot my boots around the dance floor at the Broken Spoke with the Esposa.

Enjoy.

So Esposa and I went to Taco Bueno for lunch today. The dude took my order and gave me a freaking Sr. Citizen’s discount!!1!

WTF?

Maybe if I had a Trunk Monkey I’d be better about blogging. I know this is old, over 3.2M views, but it’s new to me and it made be blog about it. Probably also says something that this is the sort of goofy sh|t that makes me giggle.

Peace out.

No, I’m not talking about the stimulus, or spendulus, or porkulus or whatever you want to call the omnibus earmark bill that will impoverish my offspring for generations to come. I’m talking about the meat.

I was at the office the other day. At lunch I went down to the cafeteria to nosh on the fine food stylings of the Sodexho crew.

I ended up at the grill as I usually do chatting with my favorite cuñado. I ordered a cheeseburger and he asked me what sounded like a simple question….”Bacon señor?”

I thought for a moment. Bacon? Why hell yes! I’ll take some bacon. He nodded and started adding a couple of crisp sweet slices of heaven’s own meat to my burger. But  I was still contemplating the deeper meaning of his question, Bacon señor?

What did he really mean? Was he simply asking in the culinary sense or was this a call to arms? A challenge for all who love bacon to take a stand. Show our true bacon striped colors? Tell the world that hell yes, damn the consequences and what everyone else thinks I’ll have some bacon?

I decided he was probably just asking about the burger since his next question was “fries?” My answer was the same as always, “curly por favor” but having gone through the mental cogitation decided I would make my stand for bacon.

And so dear readers, here is my question, my challenge, my call to arms (and shanks):

Bacon señor?

I took Esposa’s MegaSUV to the car wash a few weeks back and was perusing the automotive accessory type stuff while I waited. The usual fare. Compass on a Suction Cup. Various types of space saving, automotive convenience  products and the usual assortment of air fresheners from the vaunted Ozium in a handy glove box size to the traditional pine scented hang on the rearview tree type. One thing I hadn’t noticed is that they now have the traditional pine tree in green, but also a veritable designers pallette of other scents as well. There was the berry scent on a purple pine tree. The cherry scent on a red pine tree. Each with a picture of their respective fruits just in case you weren’t hip to the color code or able to read the print prominently displayed at the bottom of each. I was puzzled by the sky blue tree adorned with parting clouds and a rainbow. Looking closer at the freshener though the mystery was solved.

Smells like a blend of unicorn farts and Skittles

I think I’m gonna buy one of those when my stimulus check comes in.