Violet snarled at Mallory. Jake moved around them and walked barefoot through the front yard of thick Bermuda toward his sister-in-law’s car. As the blades tickled his skin, his mind was sent back in time thirteen years earlier.
“Why did you choose me?”
Jake rolled his eyes and sighed in faux disgust. Camille’s mischievous questions always led to sexy conversation and profound revelations. He leaned up on the front yard of the lawn, pondered when he’d buy a mower to cut the thick grass, then said the most outrageous thing he could think.
“Because you put out on the second date, on a beach in Mexico.”
Camille writhed on the ground, allowing her long blonde hair to dance over her white V-neck t-shirted cleavage.
“Jake Hanna, that’s my point. How many rock chicks did you still have in your life when we met; three, four? You had more exciting, trashier options.”
Jake laughed and looked into his wife’s royal blue eyes. She was fishing and he bit the hook to make her happy.
“Because you wanted me and needed me, sweetheart. The other women were one or the other, not both. Once you showed me the error of my rock chick ways, I became the man you wanted me to be.”
Camille’s soft white hands touched his face and she pulled him to her lips. Jake laughed.
“Camille, this is the front yard. Our toddler daughter doesn’t need mommy and daddy going to jail for entertaining the neighbors, this way.”
Camille kissed him again, with remarkable touch. She seemed to float above the tall green blades. Then she let go and he fell on her. They chuckled until they began to cough. Camille continued.
“Jake; Violet, Gus and I are the only club you need to be a part of now, and forever. Get used to it, okay?”
Jake’s bare feet reached the driveway. His sister-in-law Augusta greeted him with a sneer.
“Jake, take a walk. Let me and Violet handle this Mallory.”
*****blogger’s note*****
This is a new episode of my almost completed short story, Soul To Body, about a grieving father of a teenage daughter. This is also being contributed to http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/ Trifecta Writing Challenge’s one word prompt – “Club”. My friend and writing partner, Tar Rah aka @Tara_R from http://www.thinspiralnotebook.com chose today’s song.
My wife aka The Bobina wrote this week for Donetta’s great pick of The Beatles, “Don’t Let Me Down”
http://mythoughtsonthesubjectareasfollows.wordpress.com/ . It was about me, both the good and the bad, so I had to ask her to choose today’s song. I’m on some new pills that I’ll write about at a later date so I lost track of my days and times. Remember, you’re hanging out with a crazy person. I also put out on the Twitter to the rest of you for song suggestions. Tar Rah aka @Tara_R said “And She Was” by Talking Heads. That will be later today’s 333 word piece for Trifecta Writing, also a new Soul To Body story episode. The rest of you that suggested songs will be providing the soundtrack for the next few posts. Thank you. Back to Bobina’s selection and to Jake, Violet and Mallory on the Hannas’ front porch with a new Soul To Body for Bobina’s pick, Tightrope, the quirky pop song from Janelle Monae.
“Dad, Gus texted she’s on her way with the whole story about how Mallory tried to break up some guy’s marriage because he was in an band she liked from the 90s. Sound familiar?”
Jake knew he should correct his insolent daughter but her word spew about behavioral patterns were identical to what his late wife’s lectures.
“Vi, get back in the house! Let Mallory tell me her story! Gossip is a tightrope walk without a net.”
Jake looked past a tearful Mallory and saw his sister-in-law’s black car arrive in the driveway.
You have seven days from now to write 100 words inspired by Janelle Monae’s Tightrope chosen by Deana aka The Bobina. Be sure to text, tweet, book o face, google +, pony express, morse code, smoke signal, carrier pigeon and scream you post to as many people as possible. Let’s get double digit posts this week. Use Mr. Linky to show your write-up.
I spend so much time in my car, that I would rather be homeless than without my ride. Whether I’m traveling for work, fighting vicious Atlanta area traffic during my commutes to home and office, or just running errands and attending events for my family, I think I live in my car as much as my house. That’s where I listen to a lot of the music I love. When my wife and daughters are with me, I tune out their pop and country tunes and have my own favorite songs I’ve heard thousands of times, playing in my head.
My music freak sister-in-arms, Jen from http://www.jenkehl.com requested a 1970s, part 1, playlist for her famed weekly series, Twisted Mixtape Tuesday. Despite growing up in the southern United States, my favorite 70s genres are glam and punk. Almost all rock music that followed in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s was directly influenced by the daring drunks of the bell bottoms era. While they were turned on by 1950s and 1960s rockabilly, garage rock, and psychedelia, their experimentation with feedback, distortion, speed, drugs, costumes, sleaze, and alternative lifestyles created musical templates that weren’t appreciated until much later. Most of what I’m about to play for you, I didn’t discover until I was my oldest daughter’s age, 17. It was 1987 by then, and a lot of these guys were dead, forgotten, or borderline respectable in poppier fields. But in the early 1970s, they were vanguards.
We can fight about who the glam rock King really was, David Bowie or Marc Bolan (they were close pals and friendly rivals who intentionally tried to outdo one another). Bolan struck first, maybe, with his band T.Rex and their epic 1971 album Electric Warrior. I’ve played it so much on this blog, I’m shocked I haven’t heard from the Bolan family (Marc died in 1977 after a car accident) for royalties or attaboys. With its boogie woogie piano opening and landmark riffs, (bang a gong) Get It On is a classic.
Less than a year later, David Bowie created one of rock and roll greatest albums and set the high water mark for glam and proto-punk music. If you don’t own 1972′s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, there’s something seriously wrong with you and we can’t be friends. Also, if you hear or read a top ten list of all-time greatest guitar players and Mick Ronson isn’t on it, then it has no credibility. Listen to what this man did in 3 minutes and 15 seconds. He changed the game as did his boss, Bowie.
The man who meant the world to Bowie, and whom Bowie and Bolan both later helped during a rough period, Lou Reed, made a record, Transformer, in 1972 that future rockers have studied like a Rosetta Stone of music. The lead track, Vicious, introduced feedback heavy guitar and snarling, dark lyrics to a newer, younger audience, and most of them formed bands we know and love, today. Lou’s white face on the album cover tripped people out, especially the ones that didn’t see A Clockwork Orange.
One of my favorite bands ever, was too far ahead of its time to be appreciated. That’s why they’re touring now, despite three of its members being dead. The New York Dolls were too crazy, too weird, too stoned, and too outrageous for 1973. Had they come out three years later, they may have been household names. Then again, I don’t think any of their members could have stayed straight regardless of the year. Their debut record is brilliant. Johnny Thunders’ guitar work is amazing. Every song could have been chosen but Looking For A Kiss is the only one I haven’t played previously on this blog. The Dolls’ manager in 1975 was Malcolm McLaren of Sex Pistols’ fame. You’ll hear more about him next week, for the 1970s part 2. He went back to England and well, you should know what happened next.
Wayne’s World made this next song mainstream famous. It should have been bigger than everything in 1974. From the opening drum fill to lead singer Brian Connolly asking his boys Steve, Andy, and Mick if they were ready, Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz is unforgettable. It’s pure rock and roll with a glam sheen. It’s an earworm that kills other earworms. Inspired by a gig in 1973 where a rowdy Scottish crowd at the Kilmarnock Grand Hall pelted them with beer bottles, Sweet released Blitz a year later and returned to Scotland as rock gods. You can’t here this and not speed down the road clapping and screaming.
I’m supposed to only play 5 songs but you’re getting a sixth because after listening to it, you’ll see why it was so important to part 2 of my 1970s playlist next week. Punk bands used this song to learn how to play. It’s ridiculous, cheesy, and completely awesome. The speedier guitar is telling. Sweet turned this song down from rock and roll songwriting team, Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman, because they thought it was too much like Ballroom Blitz. But when unknown Scottish rockers, Mud, got a hold of it, they turned everything up, got snotty, sped through it, and created a new deal. Here’s Dynamite.
*****blogger’s note****
100 word song returns tomorrow, as does Soul To Body, my fictional short story. I’ve written 2 chapters of the a sequel to my first book, The Ballad of Helene Troy which is is still available, digitally, on amazon/kindle, smashwords.com, and Good Reads. It’s also available in paperback from Lulu.com or signed copies from Pound Publishing headquarters. Prepare for Helene to return around Thanksgiving. Italian Radio, my second book is looking like a mid July release. Helene and Ramona Gallery made cameos in it.
Go see Jen at http://www.jenkehl.com or the other music loving freaks there and check out their 1970s playlist. Next week, here, punk rock.
With the exception of the state of rock music, I neither think the world is going to hell in a hand basket nor the younger generation is ill-equipped to handle the future. This puts me in a minority among folks my age, 42, and I’m okay with it. My viewpoint was bolstered earlier today when I sat with my wife and three daughter, aged 17, 9, and 8 with steaks from the grill, baked potatoes, glasses of sweet tea and the movie Lincoln. I liked to be at least six months behind the rest of the planet when it comes to pop culture. Lincoln came out last November, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture in January so I didn’t mind giving up two and a half hours of my Father’s Day to catch up to the rest of society.
My 8-year-old daughter, known here as The Goose, is on an Abraham Lincoln kick. Her second grade class learned about him during the last two months of school, then we went on a family trip to Washington D.C. a week ago. I’ve been inundated with Honest Abe talk, tidbits and trivia for weeks. Despite it’s PG-13 rating, when Goose wanted to buy Lincoln with her money earned from chores, my wife and I said sure. The fact she and her 9-year-old sister sat still for almost 3 hours, and were engrossed and entertained was a borderline miracle. They also washed a car, this weekend. I’m not Catholic, but I’m petitioning the Vatican for a ruling.
My review echoes all the others you’ve read or heard since late 2012. Lincoln is awesome. Daniel Day-Lewis’ nuanced performance was well worth the acting Oscar. Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones tour de force turns as Mary Todd Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens, respectively, deserved trophies, too. Director Steven Spielberg’s simplified story and lambada dance with facts, politics, and point of view are worthy of academic debate. But like the 16th President’s life, and term as Commander in Chief, the end product justifies the complicated means. As a middle-aged man who grew up in the southern conservative environment of Atlanta, Georgia, I knew what I was watching was not 100 percent accurate, but the acting was so good and allegories of 1865 politics compared to 2013′s was fascinating. What was even more involved was my 3 daughters’ reactions.
When my 8 and 9-year-old daughters are the age of their older sister, 17, they can break down pre-Thirteenth Amendment Lincoln from post. They can learn about how complicated the era’s politics were and why their great-great-great-great whatevers may or may not have owned other human beings and been against making everyone equal under the law. But their wide-eyed wonder at a two and a half hour epic about someone that doesn’t have anything to do with Taylor Swift or Pretty Little Liars made me proud.
The southern United States is going through some serious growing pains, especially among residents my age and older. But those of us who have kids need to be aware of their attitudes. My kids cringed at the racial epithets and political ugliness expressed in Lincoln. Then, they asked questions. Once the questions were answered, to the best of mine and my wife’s abilities, their admiration for Lincoln the man, the myth and the movie was astonishing. And this wasn’t the one where he was a vampire hunter.
This post in so antecdotal it’s super-antecdotal. Maybe down the street a more conservative or possibly bigoted family was watching Lincoln with disgust, turning it off, and watching Duck Dynasty or something on Fox News. But inside my home, the amount of learning, interest in race relations, old school and new school politics, and quality movie-making was impressive. At one point I heard my 8-year-old whisper to her mom, “well, Lincoln’s trying end the Civil War, that’s awesome.” It reminded me what Axl Rose said at the end of a 1991 Use Your Illusion song, “what’s so civil about war, anyway.”
See Lincoln. Try to do so with your kids, The language is a little rough, but the subject matter is terrific. And Danny Day-Lewis is boss. It all made for a good Father’s Day.
As country, America is so much like it was in 1965, it’s scary. If you don’t believe me, I’ll give you my social media passwords and the negative reviews of Lincoln. They’re scary. The beginning of the Guns n Roses songs begins with the Cool Hand Luke movie quote, “what we have heeeyahhhh, is a failyah to communnikate”.
Summer’s map is busy. There’s swallowing the monster, gathering innocents, sunscreen triple-check then opening the door to southern discomfort of morning humidity. You can’t get there from here, but I know another way.
****BLOGGER’S NOTE*****
Got the girls together for a day at their grandmother’s. They may or may not make the pool, but they’ll have fun while their mom and I work. I listened to R.E.M. dropping them off and on my way into the office. Fables Of The Reconstruction was released on June 10, 1985. I remember listening to it on the way to the lake or pool or beach with my friends. I never wore sunscreen.
Don’t forget to include my book in your summer plans. The Ballad of Helene Troy is available, digitally, on amazon/kindle, smashwords.com, Good Reads, and in paperback from Lulu.com or Pound Publishing Headquarters offers a signed copy from me, the author, like this one. Wine is not included.
Can’t Get There From Here was the first single from Fables. That makes this song 28 years old today.
Air in the room is cold enough to spotlight my dancing breath. My choke is desperate and the pool of sweat around me is my only light in a dark tunnel.
A lot of worry and more mistrust show my fear that I’ll never stay ahead of the ghosts. The thoughts are always the same. They’re never clever enough to become nightmares. Will I swim through the evil tide of my deep end?
Judgemental eyes in the shadows always infuriate me. Who do they think are, with their sainted normalcy?
The ghosts have faded away for now. They’ll be back.
Looking for a great Father’s Day gift or a summer sex, drugs & rock & roll read to take to the beach/pool/backdeck/kid’s soccer games? Buy my 1st one, The Ballad of Helene Troy, available digitally from amazon/kindle, smashwords, and Good Reads or in paperback from Lulu.com or Pound Publishing headquarters can send you a signed copy like this one
The words of Men At Work’s Overkill have described my thought processes for so many years. It’s a brilliant song.
Later and later and later. This 100 word song thing is starting to tick me off as well as you. Thanks for the great song last week and the amazing responses. With coming back from vacation in Washington D.C. and then going to a rock show, The Whigs in Atlanta, time has been tight.
Earlier today I addressed the “mental problems” as my wife calls them and the diagnosis was as sobering as I was expecting. This made Wednesday, time-wise, even tighter. Being busy and crazy is hard work. We’re almost at the end of this story. Soul To Body will get double duty this week. I will put all the posts together, update the page, and see what everyone thinks of the serialized tale as a while story.
Donetta Sifford aka @donettasifford on the Twitter, picked today’s song. For a good ole girl from West Virginia, she has excellent taste. Leeroy asked her to pick something and she chose The Beatles’ Don’t Let Me Down.
Violet held her phone in her right hand, checking text messages. Her angry stare through Mallory worried Jake. He tried moving between them to use his 5’11″ frame to block his daughter from Mallory.
“Mallory, now’s not a good time. Vi and I were talking and I don’t want to let you down, but I just can’t……”
Violet ducked under her father’s left arm. Her long blonde ponytail bounced in front of Jake’s face, interrupting him. Violet emerged across the threshold.
“Mallory, my dad’s not available! And that that married guy in Ohio you got in trouble answered my Aunt Augusta’s email!”
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You have seven days from today to write 100 words for Donetta's pick, The Beatles Don't Let Me Down. Then email, tweet, book o face, smoke signal, pony express, carrier pigeon, and standard mail your responses to as many people as possible. Don't forget to use Mr. Linky below.
I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but for the second time in less than three months I left the house on a weeknight and saw a rock show. Last night I ventured back to Masquerade in Atlanta with the only person I know, locally, with the same musicical tastes, my cousin by marriage, Sutcliffe. I call him Sutcliffe, here, because I don’t really have his permission to blog about him, and when I picked him up at his job around 6pm eastern, he was sporting a big red beard. We went to see Gaslight Anthem in March and he was clean cut. I think he may be a tad envious of my beard so he grew a killer one with attitude. He’s from California, originally, and a major Los Angeles Dodgers fan, so I realized he looked like former Dodgers rookie of the year and current baseball broadcaster, Rick Sutcliffe. So an internet identity is born.
Gaslight Anthem had been a birthday present from my wife, the Bobina, but last night’s concert was a spur of the moment idea from Sutcliffe. Last week he called and asked, “hey, wanna go see The Whigs, that great Athens, Georgia garage rock band. It’s on a Monday night.” I knew that meant hitting up our wives, making sure our six kids (he has three, I have three) had adult supervision, and we took plenty of five-hour energy to stay up past our bedtimes.
Masquerade’s “charm” is that it’s split into 3 levels, Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. The top floor is Heaven, and so forth. Twenty or more years ago the club functioned as a goth and metal club for the suburbanite wannabe creatures of the night. Now, it’s just a neat place to never pay more than 25 dollars for a ticket and see mostly rock bands, sweat and scream. In march, Gaslight Anthem played the top floor, Heaven. But last night, The Whigs, veterans of five albums, with one currently out called Enjoy The Company, played the basement aka Hell. Maybe they requested it, but I was surprised. They’re local legends. They’ve played all the major late night talk shows, opened for every major act of the last ten years, and they’re really freaking good.
The two opening bands were solid. Death On Two Wheelshttp://deathontwowheels.com/ is a four-piece bunch of twenty-somethings. If Grand Funk Railroad had a baby with The Black Crowes and let Foo Fighters raise it, then you’d have Death on Two Wheels. They were good with the potential for really good. I enjoyed their rhythm section. Their covers were better than their originals. They brought energy and I was needing a beer, I mean diet coke, after their set but Sutcliffe and I stayed still to see what Deap Vally was all about.
Lindsey and Julie aka Deap Vally from Los Angeles http://deapvally.umg-uk-wp.com/wp-content/themes/arcadia/usa/default.html aka @deapvally are what the next link in the chain since The White Stripes broke up. Heart, Joan Jett, Janis Joplin, The White Stripes, the influences were evident as redhead, shiny gold-outfitted Julie beat the skins, and jorts wearing audacious growling Lindsey pounded her electric guitar. The duo from L.A. gave a refreshing 45 minute set filled with some technical problems that they howled, strummed, and cursed over like rock and roll champs. I’d only heard two songs of theirs before last night. Now, I can’t wait to hear their new album, out soon.
Finally, the hometown heroes showed up to a taped Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop chant that was stolen from the Florida State Seminoles twenty-two years ago via Deion Sanders. This whipped the packed crowd of 200 or so into a proper frenzy. The Whigs http://www.thewhigs.com/ aka @thewhigs plays straight-up Beatles and R.E.M. influenced rock music. They’re not a lot of hey, how ya doing or let me tell you about the road and this new album chit and or chat. Julian beat the drums like the award winning percussionist he is, Tim did triple duty on bass guitar, lead guitar, and organ. lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Parker, unleashed his soul through a dozen of the bands best songs, including 4 off their latest CD.
It was basic, sweaty, loud, feedback overloaded, slap you in the face rock and roll. The crowd was venely mixed and I wasn’t the oldest person there and I suspect I may have been in March at Gaslight Anthem. The Whigs put on a music show, and that was good enough for me and Sutcliffe as well as the adoring hometown crowd. Deap Vally was a good opening act for them. The Whigs are one of the best Indie rock bands on the scene and it was easy to see why they’re so respected and well-liked. Parker’s easy-going demeanor juxaposes with his heated guitar playing that features dramatics drops to the floor and lengthy dances with feedback and distortion. For my money, Julian and Tim may be the best rhythm section in the Indie business, right now. They’re relentless, energetic musicians.
The Whigs with Deap Vally and Death on Two Wheels supporting was a A-grade rock show. Sutcliffe loved them even more than he did Gaslight Anthem, while I just really liked it and would love to see The Whigs and Deap Vally after they get seasoned through their current tour.
Mostly, Sutcliffe and I got out of the house and listened to live music. Today, it’s cheerleading camp and a trip to the drugstore after work. Don’t tell out wives, but Sutcliffe and I are planning our next rock show. We’re thinking Halestorm in July. Shhhhhh.
don’t forget, buy the book. The Ballad of Helene Troy, I bet Deap Vally would love Helene, is on sale digitally at amazon/kindle, smashwords.com, and Good Reads. It’s also available in paperback from Lulu.com or a signed copy from Pound Publishing Headquarters. Contact the author…me.
Here’s one of The Whigs best performances last night, Summer Heat.
Because of youtube, social media, and blogs, there seems to be an epidemic of high school graduation acts of rebellion. Students across the fruited America plain are wearing things on their caps, dressing provocatively under the robe, gyrating like Lady GaGa on a crack binge as they receive the diploma they’ll forget about in their parents’ basement in a year.
I’m about to recognize twenty-five years since I graduated from high school. There’s a reunionin August. I’m kinda sorta maybe helping organize the shindig. Twenty-five years is a long time. That’s technically a generation. To avoid sounding like thatoldguywhoisabouttotalkabouthowstupidthisgenerationiscomparedtohiswhenhewalkedtenmilesbothwaysuphillinthesnow, I’ll just let you know that showing your rear end, literally and figuratively, at your graduation has been going on for a long time. In 1988, we didn’t have a phone with a camera and instant download capability to the Twitter and the Book of Face.
The one act of rebellion that’s getting a lot of play on the Internet is from Liberty High School’s class of 2013 class valdictorian, Roy Costner IV.
Liberty High School is located in Pickens, South Carolina. Recently, Liberty followed the law passed through it’s County that public prayer was not allowed at school events. I know what some of you are thinking. Wasn’t this done like, twenty-five years ago when everyone figured out that separtion of church and state was like a real thing? Well, forgive us here in the southern United States, but we like to be behind by a generation or more on pretty much anything social – race, sexual orientation, and of course, religion, so, sadly no. In fact, there are patches of Georgia, where I live, and South Carolina, where young not related to Kevin Costner, Roy, live that still believe it’s 1953 and thus we all should honor Christianity only. But I digress. This is about wide-eyed 18-year-old rebel, Roy Costner.
“I am a strong Christian, and when I heard about our local school board getting attacked by the ACLU and Freedom From Religion Foundation, I realized it was outside groups pressuring our local officials,” Roy said in an interview with The Christian Post. “The complaints came from a Wisconsin organization and the ACLU also tried to make things difficult, even though this was not a local problem and no one from our county had complained about public prayer.”
Costner, like many class valedictorians, does more than eat cheetos on the couch and play xbox. He helps run a website called libertyspeaks.net. It’s actually pretty reasonable with well-written editorials. They detail how the ACLU put political pressure on his county’s school board to eliminate public prayer before school functions. It was a 3-2 vote and some of the members weren’t present. Costner is 18, passionate about God, and despite the chin beard his boys will make fun of him about in a few years, seems like a fine young man. He got mad and he got clever. There were no picket signs, no anti-liberal blog posts or tweets. When he was surprisingly made valedictorian in May, he plotted. Like the original rebel himself, Jesus, he figured out a way to protest. He tore up his speech and dropped the Lord’s Prayer aka Matthew 6:9-13 on June 3, 2013 at his graduation ceremony.
I thought what young Roy Costner did was pretty awesome. It was classier than mooning the audience. It was stronger than doing the dougie after getting his diploma. And it witnessed to people, some of whom have negative perceptions of Christians as whiny, hateful, bigoted, poor sport jerks who can’t seem to comment a youtube video or Facebook post about religious arguments without using seventeen exclamation points and telling the other person they’re going to Hell with Lindsay Lohan and Barack Obama.
I’m a Christian, too. The only thing I have a problem with Roy Costner on, besides the ridiculous chin beard is identifying himself as a “strong Christian”. What does that make me, a weak one? A panty-waist Christian? I like my church and state separate, my music rebellious, and my social attitudes far to the left. I don’t think Christians are under attack. I don’t think the President is socialist enough. I think my issue is more with the people commenting Roy Costner’s act of rebellion. I saw in Roy Costner IV a follower of Christ’s words of strength, commitment, kindness, honesty, and love in the face of adversity. I didn’t see a poor little Christian boy in a den of lions. Roy Costner was better than that.
My own 17-year-old daughter’s Twitter feed is pretty boring. She does reference her Faith. Her bio talks about living like her late cousin, Adam, a young teenaged boy who was very similar to Roy. My daughter’s aiming for valedictorian- type status next year as she’s currently a junior. As her father, I’m hoping she plays it safe, walks across the stage, grabs her diploma, maybe does a pageant wave, then laughs at me because I’ll be crying like a toddler without a nap. But if she decides to drop a Bible verse or reference her late cousin or something else rebellious, against accordance of school policy, I’ll brag about her on social media and this blog as if she were a revolutionary freedom fighter.
Roy Costner IV is more than a temporary Internet star. He’s headed to Clemson University to study Computer Science. We’ll all be working for him in a few years, I bet. But I hope some other rebellion gets inside of him now that he’ll be away from his parents, and that’s the ability to know that Christianity knows no politics. We need more of that kind of thought and speech from followers of Jesus or whomever or whatever y’all believe.
Ignore the lyrics and feel the cheesy teenage rebellion in honor of Roy, my daughter and others like them here in the south and around the world. Rebel Yells, all of them….Here’s Billy Idol
At some point, around midnight on the third night of a five-day stay in Washington D.C., I found myself crying in bed from laughing. It was then I realized I was having the greatest vacation ever.
The least sarcastic, happiest, and sweetest member of my family, my eight-year-old daughter, provided the entertainment that paid for the trip.
*****blogger’s note****
Instead of showing you hundreds of pictures of Washington D.C. sights, or detailing each day of good food, bad food, fun bus trips, nightmare transportation issues, sunshine, torrential rain, and me holding purses while my wife and 3 daughters shopped, I thought I’d show you my little girl’s hidden talent that kept us in stitches.
This is for my friends Mel and Michele from According To Mags http://youtu.be/UYLLNhTiQZc and Old Dog New Tits http://olddognewtits.com/, respectively, for their monthly prompt “Ketchup with us”, 57 words about your best vacation experience.
Here’s the best song about Washington DC. ever written, in my opinion, from The Magnetic Fields 1999 concept album, 69 love songs. The last line of the song fits my youngest daughter and this experience, perfectly.
