vol. 35

i'm going to find myself a girl
who can show me what laughter means
and we'll fill in the missing colors
in each other's paint-by-number dreams...
-- jackson browne

• i'm sure that i wrote about my love for lists before -- i just don't feel like going back to find out exactly where it was that i said it -- at any rate -- i think it's a great way to get to know somebody -- and it's a great way to fill an evening in a smokey establishment after a long week and an even longer friday... i was with some friends friday night and one of our lists was our favorite jackson browne song -- for the longest time in my life, this wasn't even a question for me -- the load out/stay was hands down my favorite -- then, i moved on to for a dancer -- but there's no doubt that i had jumped the gun on those calls -- without question, the pretender has to be my favorite of his -- in fact, i've listened to different versions of it all weekend... the one i've linked is probably my favorite version of it -- it's from a storytellers-type show and he gives some pretty cool insight into how it came to be...

• you have got to love the creative process -- and learning how creative people create...

• there was a time when i was growing up when i first started getting in to music -- i'm going to try to paint this picture for you, but it'll be tough -- keep in mind that i was coming back to greensburg for the summer after being in albuquerque the rest of the year -- i had two ways of listening to music back then (we're talking like '78-'80ish) -- either through my dad's record player with headphones that looked like this (and i have to admit, these look pretty snazzy compared to the ones we had, which i swore were ten times bigger than those pictured) or through my dad's jukebox -- so i basically got two types of music as well -- through the record player i was listening to supertramp and jackson browne and fleetwood mac and barry manilow and seals and crofts and leo sayer and bob seger -- through the jukebox i was hearing the beatles, and itsy-bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini, and charlie brown, and does your chewing gum lose its flavor?, and hot rod lincoln and rainbow connection... yeah, i had it good...

• one of the things i'll always remember through this period was how often the phone would ring while i was listening with those headphones and belting out a weekend in new england (ahh, the cheesiness of barry manilow...) or something else like it, only to hear my dad's voice on the other end of the phone telling me to be quiet (i'm sure those weren't the words he used then...) -- this was at like 7 am and you used to be able to dial your own number and then hang up and it would ring on another phone in the house -- i had to have annoyed the heck out of him -- i'm sure this always happened after he just got off the late shift at caterpillar also...