Randomness

randomness

I have a new blog, called 100 Verses in Ragtime, located at http://alexparrott.blogspot.com/.

It's been a fun run on Tabulas, but all good things must come to an end. I'm certainly keeping this boat afloat for archival purposes.

Keep in touch, anyone reading this on Tabulas and LJ. I wish I were more, and not less, connected to the life I knew in, say, 7th through 10th grade.

--Parrott

For what it's worth, here's the setlist from my first RatDog show. Sure, I've heard them play better on tape, but it really was a fun night with some impressive standouts (Ramble On Rose; Hell in a Bucket > The Other One) and I basically wish I could follow them around. Oh, well. Here it is, then (thanks, RatDog.Org):

AND I called the encore.

--Parrott

Grateful Dead music from 1973 is just too goddamn beautiful.

randomness

I'm hoping to delve into those future plans later this week. I'm hoping to start my future later this week. I'm basically done applying to college. I think I did about as well as could be expected given the extreme time crunch, which I certainly knew was going to happen all along. It's just the way I operate and always have. "We'll see summer come again." One paragraph.

After I have finished applying to college (let's say, in the new year), I will begin work on a very exciting new project as time allows, one I hope will carry me into and through a genuine rebirth of artistic expression, rather than another false lead. I'm just going to tap into that excitement with which I've had reasonable familiarity in the past, wherever I happen to find it, and I think I have a good idea about where to look. It's taking all of my restraint not to just jump for it now. This will do me good.

--Parrott

J.K. Rowling quote of the day: "I go to church myself. I don't take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion."

Hoorah for J.K.

Hoorah for touring the U.S.A.

Listening to a little Blonde on Blonde while Pledging My Time to a more focused and productive life (I drafted a resolution last night, in black ink) and trying to ween myself off waste, these lyrics shot down my jazzed-up caffeinated spine and resonated in that core gland of adrenaline and giddiness and even nausea:

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man?"
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

I'm having a really good day. I've felt somewhat awful for a while, not to mention listless and uninspired. Today I'm just more attuned to possibility. From the moment my alarm clock went off too early and tucked me into an hour's more sleep, everything's been fabulous. Honestly. No complaints. I'll get it all done, too. Everything I need to, and then I'll go beyond that. I'll be as productive as I was 2003-04, when the Dead and Phish were still touring and I spent my time even better than I would if I could see them now. To be perfectly honest, I'm trying to decentalize them in my life; they've never gotten me to do anything except sit around and noodle on the piano... they have my thanks, of course. The one to whom everything is due, though, is Anna: for being with me through three otherwise odd and problematic years of my life, for getting me thinking about all this last night when I was just overwhelmed beyond reason and sense, for love and support and wit and loads of good advice.

Do I write differently while listening to Bob Dylan? Sorry. I'll try to reconsider that as well.

--Parrott

On Tabulas's drop-down list of moods (lol), they don't have "well" or "ill." I just think that's interesting. They have "good," but I'd rather not talk about that.

randomness

Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux did something extraordinarily decent, really the most any of could have asked for under the circumstances: he gave us an explanation and a reaffirmation of Rhino's commitment to the band and the vault, which to many has seemed rather tenuous. And I reserve a few doubts still; the explanation is marred by a few gaping holes. Anyhow, I'm feeling a little better. To read what he wrote:

http://dead.net/features/tapers-section/august-27-september-2-2007-0

There you go, then.

--Parrott

randomness

Something very sad and disgusting and just plain irritating happened in the world of the Grateful Dead online community yesterday. I would write an impassioned knifing of this debacle if some other fan hadn't beat me to it and done a very good job. If you're interested to know what's got my tail in a knot:

http://unclecrappy.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/hes-gone/

--Parrott