Interesting take on Amsterdam. I try to keep in touch now that my relatives are getting older.
I like revisiting this because it shows up in my dreams. The only place I really have been
able to call the home of my family. Omaha, yes, but Amsterdam is where all the points
converge for us. It was pretty well calcified when I saw my whole family and their tombstones
lined up in the cemetery, one by one...
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.zillowblog.com/zillow_blog/images/sanfordcarpet.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.zillowblog.com/my-hometown-amsterdam-ny/2006/07/&usg=__YLQmbt4U8cdRuNthlVo9E8e_lMM=&h=320&w=505&sz=73&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=NVOg3SFJbZ_YWM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Damsterdam%2Bny%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Someone brought up a point about the new Wal-MArt which opened up recently, which Brooke and I decided to go shopping at this weekend. The location is up on the hill on 72nd Street where the Ranch Bowl used to be. Of course, that's my frame of reference because the fact of the Ranch Bowl is as old as my any of my memories of Omaha. Then Angie makes a comment, God, I just don't know because we used to do so many things at the Ranch Bowl and now it's a Wal-Mart! Which was a point I hadn't even connected at all, but God, amazingly true...then immediately, I got to thinking about the various shows I was able to see at the Bowl... one hell of a bruiser of a place to see a gig...
It started back in 1991 with Pearl Jam for me. My first real concert ever. My parents let me go out on a Thursday night, school next day for the first time ever. And I had enough to go see this show. Went with Sigler in his parents' grocery getter to see Eddie Vedder and the boys. Tribe After Tribe opened. 311, a few times. Mudhoney, Frank Black, Mike Doughty, Blue October, Galactic, Koko Taylor, Clutch, Shannon Curfman, James McMurtry, Bob Mould, and of course, I can't remember any others for some odd reason... when a band came through there, without fail, the drumbeats would ripple through you and the guitar would wail through the air. Total bruiser bar with a hard concrete floor and chain link separating the bar from the main floor. I know it was during a couple of the 311 shows where the crowd was so thick, everybody so excited and moshing around I also got knocked over and stomped completely. You had to fight the tide through that, because it would skin you alive if you succumbed to it. Tickets to the Bowl were never more than 20 or 25 bucks and I guess that's maybe due to the hike in cost for tickets or something like that. Toward the end, when I saw Koko Taylor in what must have been 2001, they set up tables on the floor and put drapes over them, lit candles. That particular show was probably one of my first blues shows (not many since actually) where it was all class and the rest was blues. Totally different atmosphere than anything I could have hoped for. The back story of how I got in there, involving me picking up the guitarist and drummer from the airport, still kind of blows my mind.
I suppose a major reason why I can't remember a lot of shows was because the ones I mentioned already were the big ones. The Bowl was legendary for their local shows and I couldn't count how many bands I saw there. Crappy, thrashy, junky bands. Bands that so far as anyone knows went nowhere. But that was the beauty of the place... I know my friend Garrity said he saw Widespread Panic there a while back in its history and the show got called because neighbors had filed a complaint for the noise. Something like that was said to have happened for Bob Weir's Ratdog. I thought that was the point of having music in bars and not outside. Even so, the place would get packed so tight that it was like a sweat lodge in there. During the winter, the windows would fog up on the outside, and then people would be ducking outside real quick to have a smoke, freeze near death, then come back in and pick it up again.
The thing you could never truly forget was that there WAS in fact a bowling alley. My sister and her friends used to play there on weekends, for lack of anything better to do. It was a real deal bowling alley and rock joint. You could play volleyball on a team during the summer if that was your thing. Now it's a f*&%in Wal-Mart for all that's worth. In its last days, the place looked delapidated, its spirit crushed.
It started back in 1991 with Pearl Jam for me. My first real concert ever. My parents let me go out on a Thursday night, school next day for the first time ever. And I had enough to go see this show. Went with Sigler in his parents' grocery getter to see Eddie Vedder and the boys. Tribe After Tribe opened. 311, a few times. Mudhoney, Frank Black, Mike Doughty, Blue October, Galactic, Koko Taylor, Clutch, Shannon Curfman, James McMurtry, Bob Mould, and of course, I can't remember any others for some odd reason... when a band came through there, without fail, the drumbeats would ripple through you and the guitar would wail through the air. Total bruiser bar with a hard concrete floor and chain link separating the bar from the main floor. I know it was during a couple of the 311 shows where the crowd was so thick, everybody so excited and moshing around I also got knocked over and stomped completely. You had to fight the tide through that, because it would skin you alive if you succumbed to it. Tickets to the Bowl were never more than 20 or 25 bucks and I guess that's maybe due to the hike in cost for tickets or something like that. Toward the end, when I saw Koko Taylor in what must have been 2001, they set up tables on the floor and put drapes over them, lit candles. That particular show was probably one of my first blues shows (not many since actually) where it was all class and the rest was blues. Totally different atmosphere than anything I could have hoped for. The back story of how I got in there, involving me picking up the guitarist and drummer from the airport, still kind of blows my mind.
I suppose a major reason why I can't remember a lot of shows was because the ones I mentioned already were the big ones. The Bowl was legendary for their local shows and I couldn't count how many bands I saw there. Crappy, thrashy, junky bands. Bands that so far as anyone knows went nowhere. But that was the beauty of the place... I know my friend Garrity said he saw Widespread Panic there a while back in its history and the show got called because neighbors had filed a complaint for the noise. Something like that was said to have happened for Bob Weir's Ratdog. I thought that was the point of having music in bars and not outside. Even so, the place would get packed so tight that it was like a sweat lodge in there. During the winter, the windows would fog up on the outside, and then people would be ducking outside real quick to have a smoke, freeze near death, then come back in and pick it up again.
The thing you could never truly forget was that there WAS in fact a bowling alley. My sister and her friends used to play there on weekends, for lack of anything better to do. It was a real deal bowling alley and rock joint. You could play volleyball on a team during the summer if that was your thing. Now it's a f*&%in Wal-Mart for all that's worth. In its last days, the place looked delapidated, its spirit crushed.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Today I'm grateful for
Democracy
Barack Obama
Don't get me wrong. Looking back, I might have taken John McCain. Joe & Kari & I stood downstairs at the 48th St and shared our own visions. Mostly Joe and Kari, they're both very heated in their expressions of passion. Joe was saying how John McCain was actually a good man, a good politician who might have seen his better days pass him. He still has that special spark within him to try to make his country a btter place. But maybe his methods and his focus has wandered a little bit. It would be hard for him to keep up with it all. We needed someone younger, with the vitality needed to man up for the job every day for 365 x 4. Palin was a nail in his political coffin. Crazy bee-zo that she is. I guess now we're finding out just how crazy she really is. Just my opinion from what I'm being given. McCain might not have made it for years not because he was 72. There's Viagara for 72, but just out of the sheer volume of mess that he would have had to sludge through. That Obama will have to sludge through, God bless him. As Willard said in Apocalyse Now, "the shit piled up so fast here you needed wings to stay above it. " And that's the best you can say right now to this man, God bless him. I think this guy is a leader, a politican of a different kind. Sure, a politician but a guy who will try to help this country reclaim its true feathers. A true leader leads from his gut. That's the kind of guy I think we gave ourselves now. He'll make mistakes, sure, but he'll also try to make good. You could see it on the night of the 4th. Standing triumpant, arm raised high with a fist. This guy's here to roll up his sleeves and try to get to work. He got the Congress to do it to. He is starting to look like a leader, like he did in '04 at the Democratic Convention- a man on fire. I thought it was possible back then when I heard him speak. I sit here now, four years later, amazed. A meteoric rise. He was gone a couple years and then he was back with a vengenance. People have hope now. Never mind that "a little hope is a dangerous thing" like Red said in Shawshank. We don't want to think about that now. We're hoping we never have to look back.
And one thing is true, as Kari was saying now there's a crack in the foundation, and no matter what happens, they won't be able to fill that crack enough. It's too late for that. The door is opened. I reflected upon my recent education about Native Americans, wondering if a tribesman would ever make it all the way to the top like that. If the country will ever completely turn around that way, see land return to their lawful owners. Anybody with any sense would say hopefully it's not in my lifetime. The hell to be paid. Still, this is the beginning, this where democracy will spring forth, if it ever completely does. The way Obama ran his campaign from start to finish was the way it needed to be done. The way it gets done in the world of the forefathers. I could hear some saying that Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, all of them would likely be wiggling in their graves a little bit. Not Lincoln I imagine. No old Abe probably cracked a little bit of a smile from beyond the pale. They've been talking about King, Kennedy, Bobby and John, Malcolm, George Washington Carver, WEB Dubois. Frederick Douglass. You can't help but feel that warm feeling come over you if you think about it, how far back the legacy goes. The bricklayers for hope. The beginning of a new day.
The economy will be one thing. Iraq, Iran another. Foreign policy. I say to hell with foreign policy right now. Screw it. Economy is job number one. You get this baby flying again and those cats will be filing for green cards, they'll want to come over here, not wait for us to go over there. That'll be a whole new problem. This talk of working toward more efficient forms of energy, creating new jobs with a new enterprise all together is particularly interesting. The idea of getting scientists and physicists, engineers, architects together and make the approach toward developing new sources of energy as industry. It seems obvious now that the machine has been busy just grinding the gears, trying to make everyone happy by just whitewashing everything. What a bunch of clowns. What a bunch of infiltrators, intruders and magicians. Giving us the old bait and switch now for eight years. They watch us get bombed four times in one day, and then spent the next seven years tap-dancing so we would forget. What a bunch of jackasses.
Democracy
Barack Obama
Don't get me wrong. Looking back, I might have taken John McCain. Joe & Kari & I stood downstairs at the 48th St and shared our own visions. Mostly Joe and Kari, they're both very heated in their expressions of passion. Joe was saying how John McCain was actually a good man, a good politician who might have seen his better days pass him. He still has that special spark within him to try to make his country a btter place. But maybe his methods and his focus has wandered a little bit. It would be hard for him to keep up with it all. We needed someone younger, with the vitality needed to man up for the job every day for 365 x 4. Palin was a nail in his political coffin. Crazy bee-zo that she is. I guess now we're finding out just how crazy she really is. Just my opinion from what I'm being given. McCain might not have made it for years not because he was 72. There's Viagara for 72, but just out of the sheer volume of mess that he would have had to sludge through. That Obama will have to sludge through, God bless him. As Willard said in Apocalyse Now, "the shit piled up so fast here you needed wings to stay above it. " And that's the best you can say right now to this man, God bless him. I think this guy is a leader, a politican of a different kind. Sure, a politician but a guy who will try to help this country reclaim its true feathers. A true leader leads from his gut. That's the kind of guy I think we gave ourselves now. He'll make mistakes, sure, but he'll also try to make good. You could see it on the night of the 4th. Standing triumpant, arm raised high with a fist. This guy's here to roll up his sleeves and try to get to work. He got the Congress to do it to. He is starting to look like a leader, like he did in '04 at the Democratic Convention- a man on fire. I thought it was possible back then when I heard him speak. I sit here now, four years later, amazed. A meteoric rise. He was gone a couple years and then he was back with a vengenance. People have hope now. Never mind that "a little hope is a dangerous thing" like Red said in Shawshank. We don't want to think about that now. We're hoping we never have to look back.
And one thing is true, as Kari was saying now there's a crack in the foundation, and no matter what happens, they won't be able to fill that crack enough. It's too late for that. The door is opened. I reflected upon my recent education about Native Americans, wondering if a tribesman would ever make it all the way to the top like that. If the country will ever completely turn around that way, see land return to their lawful owners. Anybody with any sense would say hopefully it's not in my lifetime. The hell to be paid. Still, this is the beginning, this where democracy will spring forth, if it ever completely does. The way Obama ran his campaign from start to finish was the way it needed to be done. The way it gets done in the world of the forefathers. I could hear some saying that Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, all of them would likely be wiggling in their graves a little bit. Not Lincoln I imagine. No old Abe probably cracked a little bit of a smile from beyond the pale. They've been talking about King, Kennedy, Bobby and John, Malcolm, George Washington Carver, WEB Dubois. Frederick Douglass. You can't help but feel that warm feeling come over you if you think about it, how far back the legacy goes. The bricklayers for hope. The beginning of a new day.
The economy will be one thing. Iraq, Iran another. Foreign policy. I say to hell with foreign policy right now. Screw it. Economy is job number one. You get this baby flying again and those cats will be filing for green cards, they'll want to come over here, not wait for us to go over there. That'll be a whole new problem. This talk of working toward more efficient forms of energy, creating new jobs with a new enterprise all together is particularly interesting. The idea of getting scientists and physicists, engineers, architects together and make the approach toward developing new sources of energy as industry. It seems obvious now that the machine has been busy just grinding the gears, trying to make everyone happy by just whitewashing everything. What a bunch of clowns. What a bunch of infiltrators, intruders and magicians. Giving us the old bait and switch now for eight years. They watch us get bombed four times in one day, and then spent the next seven years tap-dancing so we would forget. What a bunch of jackasses.
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