A Walking Antique

I must be getting old, or stupid, I'm not sure, but I went to an antique mall this weekend. A friend of mine suggested to decorate the empty space above my kitchen cupboards I should go to an antique store & place random things up there. It's a good thing Jenni was with me, otherwise, I'd have to seriously question my masculinity. It actually wasn't too bad, there's all sorts of crap, ahem, interesting stuff there to look at. I bought a John Prine record, an empty loose leaf tobacco can (it doesn't burn your tongue!), a license plate from the year I was born & a Pabst Blue Ribbon plaque. I'm not sure if these are the types of things that my friend had in my mind when she told me to go to an antique store, but I can't see myself putting any old pots or dolls up there, so I guess those are the best I can do. After a while, everything in the place starts to run together, you've seen one beer stein, you've seen 'em all. I can still smell the moth balls & the dust. There was even a cat sleeping in a box on the counter & a story from the man waiting in line behind me about how his elderly mother thought it was a stuffed animal when she went to pet it & how she almost had a heart attack.

On an unrelated note, I was playing some Herbie Hancock at work today, Head Hunters to be exact, when someone asked Gloria if it was her music. She proceeded to say boldly that it wasn't hers, then she pointed at me. The man went on to say that I was too young to listen to that kind of music. I'm not sure how old you are supposed to be to listen to music from 1972, but apparently I don't make the cut. Maybe I shouldn't read Shakespeare or look at the Mona Lisa, either.

Five Favorite Songs of the Day

Pressing On-Bob Dylan, Saved

"Many tried to stop me, shake me up in my mind. They say 'prove to me that He's Lord, show me a sign!'. What kind of sign do they need, when it all comes from within, when what's lost has been found, what's to come has already been?"

Drunkard's Special-Coley Jones, Anthology of American Folk Music

This is one of the many gems of this collection of epic material, & also the funniest. For those of you who haven't heard it, I'll sum it up for you. Guy gets drunk every night, goes home to the wife, only to find the most impractical things he's ever seen, a saddle on a milk cow's back where his mule oughta be, pockets on a bed quilt & hair on a cabbage head. The man manages to maintain some dignity by saying that he's traveled this world over, a million times or more & he's never seen these things before.

Bob Lee Junior-Memphis Jug Band, Anthology of American Folk Music

I can't sleep for dreaming...

I Wish I was a Mole in the Ground-Bascam Lunsford, Anthology of American Folk Music

That banjo pickin' that starts this song off always stops me in my tracks. "When I come over the hill with a forty dollar bill, she says 'baby where have you been so long?'. I've been in the bin so long...with the rough & rowdy men!"

Poor Girl's Blues-Jolie Holland, Escondida

Jolie's voice wouldn't sound out of place on the Anthology, although her stuff was recorded 60 years later. What a voice!

andrew, a walking antique...