Misc.

Something I feared might happen -- not having anything worth blogging about -- has essentially come to fruition. Still, I forge ahead:

**This is possibly the creepiest thing ever, even more so than the real thing.

**I saw Idlewild at Metro Thursday night. I find Idlewild to be one of the best bands going these days (Warning/Promises will probably top my best-of list), and they did not disappoint. Great songs played with passion, with no real dead spots...just the "hits". A couple of bonuses (bonii?) capped the evening nicely: The place was maybe 3/4 full, so there was plenty of room to move around; not too many people were smoking, so I walked out of the club as April fresh as I walked in; and the show was over by 11:30. I was home by 11:45, walked the dog (not a euphemism for anything perverted) and was in bed by midnight.

**Saw my final Cubs game of the year, a desultory loss to the Cardinals, on Sept. 17. Final tally with me in attendance this season: 5-7. Overall record since 2001: 21-28.

**Happy 40th to the fine folk at Fort Recovery. As I mentioned in my first post, Jerry and I almost bought the farm together one long, drunken night about 10 years ago. Given that I generally have very little to write about, I'll tell the story now. (I suppose I could save it, but nah.)

I was living in Lexington, Ky. (definitely a story for another day), and I drove up to Columbus to see Guided By Voices play at the Alrosa Villa, now infamous for being where Dimebag Darrell got shot. We both (me and Jerry, not me and Dimebag) proceeded to get liquored up. Go figure, and at a GBV show? Crazy. Anyway, In my altered state, I thought I was in better shape to drive Jerry's car than he was. Turns out, not so much, as right near his house was an intersection that I thought was a four-way stop. We go through the intersection only to then hear screeching brakes and a screaming horn to our left; I punched the gas just enough (and the other guy swerved just enough) to avoid what would've been a nasty collision.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it's only been recently that I stopped having nightmares about dying in that crash. Again, I'm not kidding.

Long story short, Jerry was incredibly pissed off at me (rightly so) and proceeded to berate me until I went to sleep. After I left the next morning, we didn't speak for about two years. A few of my attempts at IMs were greeted with, "Blow me." Our friendship had always been a little tenuous anyway, due to that guy thing of always feeling compelled to rip on one another, and this episode was nearly end of it.

I'm happy to say that we did end up speaking about The Incident at one point, though what I remember most about the conversation is that Jerry said I was being a jerk that night previous to the near-fatal non-crash. Our friendship can probably be summed up by the fact that I thought the same thing about him. But at least we talked about it, and we remain friends.

His alt-country/Americana band, Moviola, comes to town later this year. Check them out.