more normal than not

Your “hipness quotient” always goes up if you like bands that no one’s ever heard of.

I was never so hip that I really went off the radar…no punk bands from the South of France…no South African pan steel bands with a really hot zither player…nothing like that.

But I did like some bands that I’d read about somewhere or found their music in the 25 cents bin at the pawn shop.  If it was obscure and reasonably good….I was all over it.

Bands like the Strawbs, Gentle Giant…Domenic Troiano…David Lasley (I have a buddy who used to get physically sick when I played one of this guy’s albums)….the Souther/Hillman/Furay band…I can’t even remember most of the other ones.

I guess my point is that some of the stuff that was most interesting to me, even as a pretty young music listener, was the music that was happening on the fringes.

The thing about music in the 1970’s was that you stood a pretty good chance of hearing some of it on mainstream radio.  Nothing was “computer programmed”…if a DJ had an eclectic taste, he’d play whatever he wanted to. It was easy to hear some of this stuff back when it was getting played on the radio.

I look at some of the stuff that I was listening to at the time and it was all pretty safe…nothing too challenging or strange.  Lots of singer songwriters…it was kind of a high water time for that style of music…so I couldn’t go too far off the rails if I was buying music by an artist I’d never heard of as long as he had an old Gibson or Martin with him on the cover of the album.

Good gosh…I just realized that some of my tastes were the “edgy” alternative to Chicago and Air Supply….holy smokes…I wasn’t nearly as cool as I thought I was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1BS-s_RiYc

And another thing…this YouTube thing…I don’t think that there’s ever been a time in history when it’s easier to discover new bands.  Forget everything I said about the radio…the internet is where it’s really at.

I guess that like a lot of things…it’s not really how hip you actually are, it’s how hip you think you are that really matters.  If you can carve some strange little niche out in your mind because you like some music that doesn’t jibe with everyone else’s tastes…well…more power to us all.

We had an ice storm today.

At 4:30 in the morning, I noticed the lights flickering when I went downstairs to make some coffee…and shortly after that we lost power for the day.

The whole day.

Good grief…we are creatures of habit and comfort.  It was inconvenient.  It wasn’t as much fun as it usually is at our house…kind of dark…but it wasn’t all that bad.

I delivered the mail on wet but traction filled roads.

I was able to maneuver around all the downed limbs.

It was more interesting than devastating.

Check out this video of what a really horrible ice storm looks like.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.  Arthur  Shopenhauer

Arggghhh…driving the mail 6 days a week is too challenging.

I don’t mean that it’s a job I can’t do….nothing like that.

What I mean is that because I listen to motivational audio books, I hear things that challenge me.  I suppose that there’s a big difference.

It’s a big world out there.  It’s a big, small world out there.  Everything is accessible…and really, everything is attainable.  That is a large and crazy thought and fact to wrap my head around.

There isn’t a thing in the world that I can’t attain.

DAMN DARN IT!!!!!

What a dangerous and painful conclusion to arrive at.

I don’t want the responsibility of potential hanging over my head…it’s a lot easier to just go back to bed or watch another rerun of The Big Bang Theory.

We make our world so small.  We make our world small in a bad way.  It’s not a recognition that it’s a small and accessible world…it’s more a belief that the fence line is close and that’s as far as we can go.

I feed dogs on the route.  I carry a box of cheap big box store brand bones to give out to my dog customers along the way as I deliver the mail.

I have one house with a white german shepherd and a big chocolate lab that is early on the route.  These two dogs are crazy excited when I pull up to deliver at their address.  They both know that something good is coming…and that he is going to have a bone for them to gobble down.

I’ve noticed some days that the chocolate lab sticks close to the house…won’t come off the covered porch when I drive up…won’t come running out to get his bone.  I wondered about this…wondered if he was o.k…..and then I realized….

It was raining.   The crazy dog didn’t like to get out in the rain…so he wasn’t going to run out to get his bone.

The big white shepherd didn’t care…I think she’d jump through fire for an imitation milk bone.

But…the lab knew that wasn’t going to happen…he knows that rain means to stick close to home…and he doesn’t change the pattern even if it means missing out on a treat.

(I put a bone in his mailbox for him for later anyway).

I wonder how many times I put up some weird conditional excuse for not doing something that would have been exciting or rewarding?

(One of my daughter’s early phrases…sadly enough and all my fault….was “too ‘spensive”.  What the heck?  I should be ashamed of myself.)

Like I said earlier…it’s a big world out there.  But…I’m starting to figure out that it’s big in the potential for adventure and opportunity….but not big enough to make anything unattainable.

I rode around at Disneyland and heard that cliché’ over and over…but until I can start putting it into practice…until I start believing that “small world” doesn’t mean a world of limits, just an opportunity to explore and attain…I’ll be just another dog who won’t get off the porch when it’s raining.