Happyhobo's Journals

Oh Yeah, Now I Remember Why I Haven't Been Here In Four Months.

I have been trying for the past hour to post photos from our trip to D.C. last July. I have had very, very limited success.

If you should want to see them, find my Facebook page under the name Phil Farmer. I had absolutely no trouble posting them there.

Of course maybe I am assuming too much when I imagine that you can even see this post.

All the best,
Phil

It Always Comes Back To These

I was tagged by the all knowing Boz. Not too surprisingly He and I share some picks.

Here are the easy rules:

1) Pick your 10 favorite musical artists.
2) Tag the journal "top 10 bands" so we can have a full tag page of all our lists!
3) Pick 8 more people to do this! Make sure to link them to your original post.

I listen to so much music and a rather large variety. However these are the artists or groups that I always return to no matter how far or for how long I stray. Also, In the spirit of Nigel Tufnel this list goes to eleven.

In alphabetical order;

The original incarnation. An ungodly mix of blues, rock and jazz influences. Almost every speeding ticket I ever recieved was earned while listening to Live at the Filmore East. At their peak they were giants. Now, not so much but in the day and those were the days of Hendrix and Janis and The Dead etc., they were at the top of the heap.

Again, the original incarnation. The Last Waltz was intended to be just that. No group captured Americana better. Not bad for a group that is 4/5ths Canadian. Each member was a truly gifted multi-instrumentalist. At their best no one was ever better. As long as they didn't let Robbie sing.

I'm all about singer/songwriters and Vic is amongst the very best. His songs are often very beautiful in a lo-fi vein however simulaneously chock full of nasty truths about our society today. Plus he's the King of Athens Georgia. See his crown?

I know, it's a sucker pick. It's like picking The Beatles or The Stones. Well, I didn't pick either of them so get off my back. Truth is, he is the very best and is still proving it with each new album. Sure he had some off years when he produced some horrible music. I blame heroin.

Yet again, the original incarnation. I think I've said it before here, If pressed and please don't, neither of us will enjoy it much, Little Feat is probably my all time favorite band. The greatest southern rock band ever to come out of Los Angeles. Probably the greatest contribution made to music by Frank Zappa was to kick Lowell George out of the Mothers of Invention so that he could form this band. A tighter band you will not easily find.

Another singer songwriter of the highest order.You have to get beyond the hits Short People and I Love L.A. to understand his genius. Beyond that he could have been a tremendous success based only on his work scoring films.

I guess every music list has to include a tragedy. As cliche as it may be Gram Parsons career was much too short and his contributions were not realized soon enough to save him. His influence is astounding. Without him the Stones never concieve Exile on Main Street. That alone makes him praise worthy.

I'm not sure I can explain the appeal of John Prine. He can't sing or play the guitar very well. Oh yeah, now I remember it's the songs. (are you sensing a theme here?) It's all about the songs. Plus he is one of the most entertaining live performers still amongst us. That is if are lucky enough to get a ticket. He sells out faster than you can say Sam Stone.

Hey look, Brits. I'm cheating but only slightly here. They kind of count as two since most of their recordings are done seperately and I love them both but together they are tremendous also. Linda posseses perhaps the most beautiful voice I have ever heard and is producing some of the very best English folk music ever . (and can there be too much English folk music, don't answer) Richard is a triple threat. Wonderful writing, voice and he may be the greatest living guitarist. He's remarkable.

I don't think I have listed a singer/songwriter yet have I? Okay, just seeing if you have been playing along. Townes truly equals Dylan in nearly every way except for success. Another tragic story. His excesses were many. Fortunately talent was among his excesses but it was too quickly overtaken by personal demons. Let that be a lesson to you kids.

He writes songs and he sings them. I guess that makes him a......
I would love Bill Withers even if he wasn't from just up the road from my hometown. You may not think you have heard of him but when you hear his music you'll invariably say so that's who wrote that song.
Lean On Me, Use Me Up, Ain't No Sunshine, Just The Two Of Us.... Yeah he's that guy.

I'm not sure who has or has not been tagged so I'm taking the high road and tagging anyone who wants to participate. Jump in.

As If You Care...8 Random facts about The Hobo.

Here are the rules:

1) Only list 8 facts.
2) You must then list 8 TAGS at the end of the post. This means you must name 8 people on Buzznet who now must do the same blog.
3) Go comment on their profile and tell them to come read yours! Mark demands participation.

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Facts

1. I am named after the Pastor who married my folks.
2. I am the youngest of three children married to the oldest of three children and we have an only child.
3. I don't drink or smoke but I cuss like a motherfucker.
4. I do drink milk but I will only drink it out of a plastic cup. I can't stand the taste of milk out of glass.
6. I have sung (before a paying audience) on stage at Carnegie Hall.
7. I used to climb telephone poles for a living.
8. Right now I have $12.14 in my pockets.

I tag 8 "d's" : desertphreak, dustylenscap, denaliluna, dawnanthony, dvl, dlmj1972, digitalburning, deliderata

C.S.I. Tunnel Hill

The studio where I work is a few miles north of Dalton Ga. where I live. It is just off of I-75 in the quaint little burg of Tunnel hill Ga.. Tunnel Hill is a rural community of a couple of thousand folks and one less deer.

As I pulled into our parking lot this morning I noticed, just off the road beside our mailbox, a freshly dead deer. Okay, on further inspection, not so freshly dead but dead nonetheless.
I was slightly saddened but these things happen from time to time so I turned my attention towards having it removed. I was sure there was someone in charge of road kill removal of all types. I just had to figure out whom and get in touch with them.

Every year our studio, as a community service, photographs the local police force for a calendar that they distribute to the community. Local businesses can buy ads on the calendar. It's a hokie but well meaning bit of P.R. and we are happy to help out. In turn it keeps us in good standing with the local law enforcement. The Chief is a peach of a guy and is always quick to help should we need anything.

So I immediately thought to call the Chief knowing that he could steer me in the right direction and soon o'l Lucky would be off to her final resting place and would no longer be downwind of our front door.

I wasn't so lucky as to get to talk to the Chief. Instead I spoke with one of his well meaning but quite inept charges. I explained the situation and I could hear him rustling through some papers in search of codes and whatnot. His voice became much deeper in an attempt to be more officious. Asking questions like what county quadrant and the direction of said deer in relation to the city offices and WHATNOT.

"If you'll just tell me who to call I'll be glad to ring them myself" I said. "I just wasn't sure who to..."

Before I could finished he asked, "Have you determined a cause of death?" Before I could stop myself I said "I suspect it fell out of a tree."

Silence.

"You're not writing that down are you?" I asked.

More silence.

"If You'll call Ted at .........."

To All Interested Parties

I am currently trying to form an Alvin and the Chipmunks tribute cover band.

Talent is optional but formal length turtlenecks are a must.

It would also help if you only have four fingers.

Home Center Shopping, With A Twist

This past Saturday I went to Loweâ�™s. For a variety of reasons none of which include need.
a.) because it was Saturday
b.) because I live in the south
c.) because I am a male over forty (We are like a gang only for good and truth.)

As I entered the blue box there was a guy standing where the greeters occasionally stand only he wasnâ�™t wearing the customary Loweâ�™s uniform. There was no blue vest or wrangler jeans or dress sneakers (black Reeboks). Instead, he was a rather nicely dressed young urbanite. Since he was staring me down pretty sharply I gave him the customary non-committal glance and head nod. It was at this point that he asked a question I was ill prepared for.

â�œWould you like your spine checked?â�

I understood every word individually and in the context which they were used but I still looked him dead in the eye and said â�œWhat?â� So again he asks, â�œWould you like your spine checked?â� I quickly assessed the situation and determined that he had a small table, a laptop and a ominous looking chair. A nicely padded implement of both comfort and great pain.

What I didnâ�™t see was any kind of sign or card identifying my new best friend as either,
a.) a physician
b.) a physical therapist
c.) a massage therapist
d.) or none of the above (chiropractor)

I was sure that a dry crust was starting to form at the corners of my mouth as my jaw remained unhinged. My Saturday morning ritual had been altered beyond repair. Normally by now I would be well into my 22 minute segment of wandering aimlessly in the blue confines. Followed by actually remembering that I did need something which brings on stage two which involves 17 minutes of looking for that item and instead, finding quite by accident, something that I in no way need or even remotely recognize. This, I will buy.

However, The spell was snapped and by the looks of his death chair perhaps quite literally. I searched for a kind way to let Dr. Bendo down easy. I didnâ�™t want to just refuse his kind offer but there was no way in hell I was going to ruin a perfectly good Saturday by somehow relenting and casting myself astride his deadly snare. I now noticed an electric cord snaking its way from the chair off into the direction of the furnace filters. Nothing good can come from any of this.

Finally I spoke and all I could muster was â�œSorry, I uh, left my spine at home.â� Which now that I think of it, was not entirely untrue.

This tickled me.

You may not find this to be as great as I did but I must share it.

One of the first people I met in Dalton when we moved here 15 years ago was Mark Pace. Mr. Pace (which he hates to be called. whenever I call him Mr. Pace he quickly says Mark M-A-R-K Mark. Like one long word, Mark M-A-R-K Mark. I Love that) is a newspaper man from way back and I mean way back. Sixty plus years ago back. He helped start the first newspaper here in Dalton literally decades upon decades ago. He and his wife Alva are quickly approaching ninety years old.

Tonight when I came home around eight o'clock Deana told me that Mr. Pace had called as she brought me the phone. I dialed him up ... oh I forgot to mention, Deana was not here when he called so he had left a message on the answering machine. The message starts Phil, this is Mark M-A-R-K Mark. Like one long word. I belly laughed. Anyway, I dial him up and he wants my help cleaning up an old picture for him.

Mr Pace has long retired from the newspaper business but ocassionally still writes guest columns. The picture he wants me to clean up is of an artist who was from Dalton who painted Harry Truman's Presidential portrait. The only shot he has is from 1947 and is actually a pretty poor copy from an original news story. We shall see.

Later Mr. Pace went to work for the local power company writing their public news letters and inter-office news letters. He retired from that job about ten years ago and a guy I worked with at the paper at the time repladced him at the power company. Only hitch in the plan is Mr. Pace has yet to leave. So the guy that replaced him is essentially his assistant. God love him.

To make a long story longer, I run over to Mark and Alva's home which is very close to ours to pick up the picture. As I pull up in front of the house Mr. Pace is standing on the front stoop half in-half out the front door waving me inside with one hand and holding the cordless phone with the other.

Mr. Pace doesn't hear so very well so he talks rather loudly. As a result I couldn't help but hear his side of the phone conversation as I entered the house.

As best I can recall it went something like;
"How did that test go"? "That testing you had done, how'd it come out".
"Oh, very well then". "Have they cut you loose then"? ( while talking Mr. Pace is digging the picture out of a pile of papers on his dining room table.)
"What I'm getting at is we need to go out to one of these fine restaurants and have dinner".
"Alva and I and... we have all talked about doing so several times".

long pause, ...and then much quieter...... "No, Alva's allergic to cabbage".

short pause..then back to full volume......"Well, let's cook some hamburgers then, okay bye".

"How are you Phil"? "How's your lovely family"? "Here's what I hoping you can do if you would"....

No Les, no more.

Les and I were friends many years ago but like many friends do, we lost touch with one another. We worked together at my hometown newspaper. I as a photographer and Les as a business/lifestyles writer. If you didn't know Les you would swear he was a speedballer. He was rail thin and everything he did was quick and frantic. A hundred miles an hour and going nowhere I used to tell him to which he would reply. This job is merely a stepping stone to the "Weekly World News."

Many was the time that Les would hit me up at the last minute for a photo for a business story of his. "Phil, I need you to get me a shot of the new car lot opening up on the avenue. Make it sexy baby." "Only you can do it Phil." he'd lie. When he noticed my hesitant scowl he would add, "If you'll do this for me it would be the greatest thing ever and I will salute you by placing my right hand on my left shoulder." Which he would demonstrate. He left me shaking my head more times than I could count.

Les could name every member of every Marshall University Football team dating back to the sixties. You could mention any date in history or tell him the date of your birth and he could tell you what day of the week it fell on. He single handedly brought mud wrestling to southern West Virginia. He could wad up a piece of paper and throw it with either hand around behind his back and hit a target four out of five times.

The time came for me to move on to a paper here in Georgia and I went back to the old paper a few times and always looked up Les. I let a couple of years slip by between visits and in the interum Les moved on to, you guessed it, The Weekly World News. Eventually he rose to the position of Editor. I was a litle shocked to learn that he was actually working there until I let it soak in and really thought about it. OF COURSE he is working at The Weekly World News. It's so perfect.

Every so sften I would pick up a copy to see what he was up to. He wrote under several aliases so I was never sure what was his work. That is until BATBOY. The story goes that a half boy. half bat creature was discovered in a cave in the hills of West Virginia. When I read that I knew, without a doubt that Leskie's hand was all over that. Batboy took on a life of it's own and his exploits became wackier with every sighting.

Les, much to the surprise of many, married and even produced a couple of offspring and with that a rather sucessful and quite humorous book and desk calendar touting the joy and trevails of fatherhood was produced.

I hadn't talked to Les in years but I tried to stay in touch with the help of Google and the other day I thought it was about time to see what he was up to since I couldn't remember the last time I had spied on his goings on. What I tragically discovered was that Les died last June of colon cancer. Oh No, Damn it I said much louder than I realized. Actually I didn't realize I had said it at all until from the kitchen Deana wondered what was the problem. I didn't answer her because I didn't hear her. She came to check on me and I still ignored her with my eyes glued to the several stories and obits on the screen before me.

Deana could see that although I was wide eyed and slack jawed, I wasn't bleeding so she left me alone. It was unbelievable to me that the guy that I remembered so well was gone. He was so full of life and seemingly enjoyed it to the fullest. He had so much life left. Had he lived Leskie would have been 46 last month. Barely a year older than I. Sobering.

The following is an exerpt from one of the obits and a portion of an interview Les did while editor of. the Weekly World News.

The "discoverer" of Batboy, Leskie J. Pinson, died recently after a lengthy bout with cancer.

As editor of the Weekly World News, a newspaper with higher credibility than The New York Times, Pinson wrote of Batboy's exploits and other stories with a wonderful sense of humor and flair.

In the obit, it described Pinson as a man who could not drive past lost dogs without stopping to help them. It also he authored the popular desk calendar "Dads: Funny and True Tales of Fatherhood," after being diagnosed with colon cancer in July 2003.

I posted about his life on my blog, The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire..

Check out the transcript from On The Media where Pinson talked about Batboy with tongue firmly planted in cheek:

BILL SLOAN: I think that the people at, at Weekly World News are really excited about this because even though Bat Boy [sic] is a made up character, it still lends an aura of respectability to the paper.
MAN: Bat Boy is not made up, according to Weekly World News managing editor Leskie Pinson.
LESKIE PINSON: Why would we want to do that? The verisimilitude of 47 pages would be thrown away if we tried to run some kind of a crazy phony story on one page, so it's not worth it for us.
BILL SLOAN: I know that's not true. I know that Bat Boy is a creation.
MAN: Cynics like Bill Sloan don't rattle Pinson. He insists that his paper's coverage of Bat Boy is very real and very expensive!
LESKIE PINSON: You know we're a little bit different than some news organizations. They say they never pay for their stories. "We would never pay for a story!" some of 'em say. We know, but hey -- when it's a big special like the space alien shaking hands with the presidential candidate or the Bat with Al Gore, we're not afraid to go sometimes 6 figures, maybe 8 figures if you count both sides of the decimal point for a photograph like that.

I salute you Les, by placing my right hand on my left shoulder.

All good stories...

...have a great and distinct beginning, middle and end. My favorite story begins: On the morning I was attacked by rhesus monkeys... and it ends: I think Coco and I are goiing to be really good friends. I leave the middle up to your imagination.

Well, some good news and......

I went back to the doctor the other day as a follow up to my blood pressure shooting through the top of my head.

They took some samplings of a couple of my precious bodily fluids and re-took my blood pressure which I was pleased to discover had come way down to just barely above normal. Well the results are in and they are generally pretty good. My cholesteral was a little high but not bad and all the other numbers were good.

They did tell me what I already knew, that it wouldn't hurt me to drop a few pounds and step up the exercise a bit. I told the nurse that I felt like my weight was not out of line for someone who is 6' 8" tall. She agreed but reminded me that I am 5' 11'' tall. So there is some work to be done on that front.

So look out Wendy May, you've got company as of today. You and I are going to have a yard sale and get rid of some clothes.