High Level in Alberta is far away. It's about 490 kilometres away from my house. I had to drive there for work a little while ago. "Work" in High Level involves more driving, another couple of hundred kilometres each day actually. I was politely forced to go up for a couple of consecutive weeks of work before the snow melted. If you were wondering, that ends up being a whole lot of time in a pickup truck.
Let's not kid around here, the FM radio situation in Grande Prairie is very much lacking anything that genuinely keeps me entertained for any extended period. The radio options in High Level then, are abysmal.
I was surviving for a couple of days with CBC radio. Anna Maria & Jian (eyes of an Arabian Princess) were keeping me entertained, until Radio One inexplicably vanished from the FM dial one morning. That meant it'd be me & iTunes for the duration of my time.
I'm told that my 1100 song list is enough to facilitate 4 full days of listening, but do I really want to hear 36 Audioslave songs consecutively? Or my full 50 song classical collection in one shot, only to not be heard again for the rest of my time? No, a massive One Thousand and One Hundred song long shuffle is the adventure I decided to undertake.
The imagination can wander in such long hours, so don't mock me when I tell you that I spent the time imagining a Lollapalooza style music festival where you got one song to play before the next act had a turn. It worked out splendidly for the most part. On a few occasions, one of my 96 Foo Fighter tracks would immediately follow one of my 69 Danko Jones songs in what seemed to be a competition of who "rocked harder" ( I said don't mock me, remember?).
Importantly, I learned a few things about my music collection. That whole Johnny Cash thing we all went through after seeing Walk The Line is absolutely done with for me. As too, is the live Howie Day concert I have because looping things isn't a timeless art.
On the other hand, Robbie Williams did a cover album of Rat Pack tunes called Swing When You're Winning that seems to keep getting better and better despite being eleven years old. Chris Isaak's "Live at the Fillmore" is absolutely wonderful, might I recommend looking up that record's "I Want Your Love".
Despite being aggressive in nature, Metallica's "Death Magnetic" is still as exciting to me as the day I first heard it in 2008. I have always defended their "St. Anger" album, but I won't anymore because I was desperate to skip every song from it whenever it came on. I guess maybe I've grown up, if only just a very little bit
I've learned that driving a pickup in the snow with no one around for miles while a Danko Jones song is playing tends to turn me into what James May would call "a bit of a Yobbo" (or donut spinning Hooligan).
As far as rap goes my selection is limited, but I can tell you this: California Love is the best rap song of all time & I don't think I need to keep Gettin' Jiggy With It any more.
|
The C3 model Chevrolet Corvette was very popular in it's day. It's "day" was actually from 1968-1982, and lots of them were made in that time, Five Hundred & Forty-Two Thousand Seven Hundred & Forty One to be exact. That's an average of 696 cars manufactured every week for 15 years.
So there are a bunch for you to choose from if you are so inclined. I got my '78 two years ago, and being spoiled for choice helped me pick it up for only 6 Grand. However, when you've got an American car from that era being churned out at a rate of 696 cars per week, you are going to notice some build quality issues 33 years down the road.
I've never heard of a Sting Ray era Corvette with a working clock in it & my pop-up headlights arrive one at a time. I've already replaced the steering box/sway bars/power steering fluid pump. Everything rattles until I find it, take it off, then put it back on. Most of the interior doesn't seem to fit together properly. There is always heat coming from the footwells. My glovebox opens on it's own if the bump in the road is great enough, & since I'm on the topic of bumps: the suspension is a nightmare. It's not what you would call a smooth ride & at speeds over 80mph it feels skittish to the point where I'm kind of surprised it hasn't leapt for the ditch already (not that I would know, because I never exceed the limit).
There is indeed quite a lot of work that needs to be done. So much work that it isn't worth owning? No Way! I am Doe-Eyed/Twitterpated/Fall Down IN LOVE every time I even see that car. The painting is done, the powder coating is done and to look at my car today with it's lime green flags & flat black skin I get awe struck that it's mine.
Open the windows for a breeze and the heater issue is resolved. With the right song up loud enough, all the rattles are gone & all is right with the world too.
I love my family, they are just not what I want to gush about today.
|
I was just inches away from sitting down here and telling you all about my newfound understanding and love for homosexuals, because I watched Philadelphia last night while getting over a migraine. What a sanctimonious turd that would have made me!
You should watch that movie if you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it for a long time. Denzel Washington was terrific and so was Antonio Banderas. Tom Hanks was so believable that his Best Actor Oscar almost doesn't seem enough, maybe the academy could have given him some of the lighting & sound effects awards from that year too.
Philadelphia did indeed do a wonderful job of displaying the fear, shame and loneliness that gay people can feel for being "different" to most other people around them. I was consumed by sympathy & compassion towards any & every gay person, and felt absolutely awful for not understanding all of this better already.
Telling you that "I get it" though, would have been preachy, tacky, and horrible. I do not "get it" and I never will. In fact, watching a sad movie does not give one a perfect insight into any topic. I am better off, but I've never had to live a life like that & any claim of knowing what a discriminated against gay person feels like would be as big of an insult as the initial discrimination.
Sympathy & empathy are two different things. I had sympathy, now I have some more. I'll leave it at that.
|
