Ticket Stubs and All and Sundry

*removes halo, fashioned fedora-like to compliment hairdo on such a lovely, dry day*

One my most favorite activities, when powers of autotelekinesis fail me and I must physically move the body-proper as simply "Caroline," is to travel. I did it recently, and as usual, I sat on the memory and let it age a few weeks.

Okay, so all that gibberish is code for "I procrastinated." But hey.

Anyway, I went here and was accomodated by a most gracious and good friend of mine. And like his account of the weekend, I, too, found it spendid. I was not sunburned to the point of looking like I'd scribbled all over myself with a pink hi-lighter, nor was I attacked by mud-throwing teenage dirtbags, baby. Instead, I got a bang-up return for the ticket price, great food, even greater company, and a sizeable helping of restoration in my faith in American (for the most part) music. The suits may be sounding their vocoder'd clarion call that we're headed for the crapper, but going by my eyes and ears, that ain't the case. Not when you're dealing with music in its first connotation as a joyful noise and not as a synonym for "p.r. release" or "product tie-in" or whatever such nonsense that is found more often than not in the hit parade these days.

And was it ever a joyful noise of craft, skill, and spirit. It made me realize that I live on a coast that too often prefers a widening gulf between the beat and the heartbeat when it comes to the sounds it champions.

Anyway, I'll no doubt elaborate on my kick-ass time in Austin since I haven't even touched on specifics... but I have a feeling it will be best captured against the events that transpire in trips #2 and #3, which are just around the corner *wink-wink*.

*re-dons halo; absolves, etc.*

Redux!

A smattering of the things I've learned while being incommunicado the past two weeks:

1. I created a drink that tastes like Cloraseptic. Even the Devil Himself was appalled. It's no Tea of E, but it'll do for now. Plus, it's #1 in Hospitals.

2. Joyce DeWitt runs Purgatory, which is just one, big, interminable DMV office. And she was soooo on the prom committee.

3. If you have to stand behind Stone Cold Steve Austin, he is reminiscient of a cross between Sloth from "The Goonies" and VICI from "Small Wonder", as in his head is a bit pointy and dented and wires might very well pop out of his back.

4. Fact: Hilary Duff is indeed the character Tammy from "Kids in the Hall".

5. The Polyphonic Spree are on the VIP list. The Devil Himself was all like, "I haven't had this much fun at a concert since hanging with the Hell's Angels at Altamira!" Awesome.

6. East Lake, at Main St. and Franklin Ave. in Flushing, Queens, is a very good Chinese restaurant: they even make chicken feet rock the house.

7. And as I am also now the newly-appointed Patron Saint of the Exit Row, Delta still sucks. Southwest doesn't, even though BWI is fired. Austin-Bergstrom reminds me of a mini Copenhagen-Kastrup, which is a high compliment, if I may say so meself.

Oooo, Bridezilla Illin' Y'all

To: The Devil Hisself
From: St. Caroline (patron saint of sundry causes and whatnot)

As the kids say, "Tacos come out your backside, too, cholo."

Ah, 'tis such. But perhaps that is good thinking on your part, as I was beginning to wonder what kind of fetish the woman was developing with nuptials in the month of September (yeah, like, weren't #1 and #2 done-up around one autumnal equinox or another?). But don't worry about Gregory Peck-- I told him he can totally go to the Hendrix/Acquataine shin-dig since we've now got the 1977 edition of John Ritter to orientate (yeah, yeah... whatever, make fun all you want. *cough* Jim Verraros *cough*). And of course the mighty Man in Black has totally got a free pass to do whatever he wants.

However, on a different note, there are occasions when we here at Pearly Gates try to lobby with the Big Guy when we see the day's guestlist, as in, there are some names we just don't want to see yet because we know full-well that a lot of pertinent thought and action was left undone and unsaid. We feel that way about Anna Lindh. I just don't understand why this had to happen at all.

Weekly ?-bound Round-up

Oooo! Two things this week. And Corn wishes to chime in, as well.

1. The Wade Robson Project. So, the first time I saw this, erm... "show," I thought it was part of that whole MDA Jerry Lewis telethon-thingee. And I thought, "You know, it's really not nice to make fun of the disabled." But then Corn informed me that this was instead an MDMA telethon-thingee and that "it's quite alright to laugh at a bunch of tossers spazzing around to tunes from five-minutes-ago and in desperate need of a glowstick."

The verdict? I think we've just found SpecialCorner's house "dancers."

2. Aaack! WTF is this?!? *The people of Earth fall prone and wail, "What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?"*

The verdict? Uh... isn't this what they play in every waiting room and for every "Please hold" in Hell? And isn't this the exact history all those Babies in Limbo are forced to learn ad infinitum?

Weekly ?-bound Round-up

*and... star-wash* Hello, all. A bit late with this, what with the holiday and all (yeah, whatever)... but this week's selection is:

Delta Airlines. Specifically two prongs: 1. the DC-National (I refuse to call it Reagan because the guy's not even dead yet [maybe he is, though, and Nancy's just keeping it to herself, but that's another soapbox] to NYC-La Guardia [at least he's dead, so I'll call it that] shuttle and 2. Terminal B at Atlanta-Hartsfield.

1. You know all those 10-year-old boys who won't sit still and uselessly fidget and have to go on Ritalin? They turn out to be middle-managers who like to "network" with their fellow selves on the Monday Morning Power Flight by doing things like standing up to talk "that guy who knows this guy in the Denver office" four rows up during taxi-ing on the runway so that the pilot has to stop the plane and drinking large amounts of mini-booze at 7 AM so as to become rude to female passengers. In any event, with all the delays and coddling that subsequently occurs, it then dawns on you that it would have been faster to have gone via ScAmtrak.

2. Okay, so, the next time ("if" perhaps being an operative word) the folks from The Amazing Race are scouting out locations, I'd highly recommend forcing the wacky head-cases to somehow connect in Atlanta, arriving in Terminal B and having to get to the International Terminal E. Why Terminal B, you ask? Well, let's just put it this way: it has a higher proportion of just-plain street-stoopid folk. Now, that's nothing against them, but when you've got tons of DeltaConnection planes coming in from the wilds of LouisiBamaSippi, full of people "connectin' for this her' mission trip to Mex-i-co 'cuz ther' ain't no chrishchuns down thar,"* and who likewise just STAND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALKWAY** gawking and pointing and mouthing the words out loud on the departures board ["Look, Daddy! That thar plane goes to Grandmama's house!"], it makes for a great challenge to wade through the crowd to the nearest bathroom, let alone down to the other end of the terminal to catch that intra-airport train-shuttle-thing. Now can't you just see it? Forcing the kids to get on a Terminal E direct-flight to Tokyo, Johannesburg, or Buenos Aires? Granted, they'd have to start the whole thing off in Charleston, SC, or maybe New Orleans, but they'd totally weed out the folks who second-guessed themselves when they said, "Hey, maybe we should try Miami. Or even New York," leaving the most obsessively-compulsive driven to plow through the sea of confederate-flag- and pro-2nd-Amendment-themed clothing and living specimens of the "Utah Claw" [that female hairdo of the really high, really hairsprayed arc of bangs... yes, it's still out there].

So, my final estimation: Delta is the Official Airline of Purgatory. Not good, but not mind-searingly awful like old-skool Eastern [isn't that the Official Airline of Hell? I have a fab story about being offered wine as a five-year-old by a flight attendant on a Miami-Panama City (Panama, natch) flight. Whenever I have to visit the Shamehole for "research and reconnaissance purposes," I always go via Eastern], either. Just meh. Okay, "meh" with many more groans of pain than the average "meh," but still meh. Either way, it still has work to do.

*- yeah, very Mark Twain at his worst, but it's a cop-out kinda day.
**- My beef being more from the perspective of the principle of the Fallacy of Composition: what may be good for the individual may not be good for the whole. In other words, yes, you may indeed have to stand and gawk at the departures board for ages-on-end, but if everybody does it? Yeah, that's what I thought.