Eight Feet Deep

It is a travel day. IAH to ELP via DFW. That’s Bush Intercontinental to El Paso via Dallas-Fort Worth for those familiar with airport lingo. The acronyms do cut down on a few words and can be important at times.

The via is due to my carrier being American Airlines. DFW is a AAL hub. I would much rather had taken the direct route from Houston to El Paso but when you get bargain prices with Priceline, you get the airline and the times they have available for a ticket. And, according to Priceline, I saved about $230. I could have spent about the same with Southwest and have myself a direct route from HOU to ELP (Houston Hobby) as well as my preferred times. But the only flight I took with Southwest felt like being shoved into a cattle car. Others I know don’t feel that way, but to each his or her own I suppose.

Let’s see what kind of weirdos we can see today at the airport. Fun, right? Yeah, fun, fun, fun to travel. At least that’s what I am trying to tell myself. Until later.

UPDATE: My friend Paul of Toyko, who is not exactly like Andy of Mayberry, struck me with a Clintonian:  “Doesn’t it depend on what you mean by the word “is?” This made me realize that I omitted a word in the first paragraph. Guess which word it was? No you are wrong. No you are wrong too. One more chance. Oh, no you are so wrong that you should be elected to the “So Wrong Hall of Fame.” Actually it is: “not.”

An editor on a freelance assignment told me that she did not permit the use of “is” and “was” in sentences. It was a little quirk, she explained, not using “is” as I remember. You think? But I do think of that as I have amassed my bags to begin packing for a trip.

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I am heading off tomorrow to El Paso. As in, “out in the West Texas town of El lPaso … ” Marty Robbins was certainly ahead of his time. I am sure somewhere on my blog — I’ve been writing this thing for five years now on almost every weekday so I don’t know what all is on here. I have to search like everyone else — I tell the story that as a heartbroken youngster I didn’t get to see Marty Robbins as intended and instead saw some guy dressed up in a suit and cowboy hat named Willie Nelson.

So, I have to pack. And since it’s been more than six months since I’ve flown, I checked the TSA site to see what the prohibited item du jour might be. I didn’t see anything new. I really can’t pack everything until the morning, so I thought I’d just pack what I could. Sometimes I can be pretty organized, even anal. Of course, some people whose lives I have crossed certainly  think of me more as anal than anything, more like an a**hole.

Seriously, I suppose some good hints are listed on TSA’s site. They kind of lose me in their “checkpoint friendly” laptop procedures. It appears some bags are okay in that they present a good image through X-ray of the computer and the laptop does not have to be removed from the bag. But the explanation just isn’t clear enough. Bags in the “trifold,” “butterfly” and “sleeve” styles are okay, but warns the TSA:

Purchasing one of these bags will not guarantee that you can leave your laptop in your bag for screening. If a Transportation Security Officer finds that the bag does not present a clear and distinct image of the laptop separate from the rest of the bag, the laptop must be screened separately.”

I have a sleeve bag for my computer, but I use it as a buffer in what is otherwise a flimsy canvas-style computer bag. It does have a lot of pockets, however, and I am a fool for pockets. Really, I feel the TSA wasting my time on an explanation about bags that might still require the standard screening is not a whole lot of use. Please let me board!

Tomorrow, I will still take out my computer and the battery, unless they tell me not. It’s like a giant, government-sanctioned, game of “Simon Says.”

“Simon says don’t take out your computer. Take out your power cord. Nope. Simon didn’t say take out your power cord … ” And so it goes. Please let me board!

While just about finishing a freelance piece my electricity went “kaplut.” I say kaplut because just saying it went off doesn’t add any color. Of course, when your lights go out and you are in the dark, that doesn’t add any color either.

The problem is this wreck sometime around 1 p.m. today near Dunkin Donuts on Eleventh Street near Harrison Avenue and Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital, to the right. One wild-looking but friendly guy with dreadlocks and a “holy” shirt passed me by on a bicycle. Now, I would never use just one person as a source except I was not going to go down there to the wreck because I am not working for a news organization. But here’s what Rasta Man Vibrations told me.

He said a car hit a power pole causing the lines to go around and around and around. Supposedly, someone was hit by an electric line and was taken to the hospital. That’s all I know. That is except, of course, my power is out and I have to finish my freelance article because tomorrow I have to get ready to fly to El Paso the next day. That will be from Houston and in a plane, or so I hope. Probably not like the guy on the bicycle was motoring. However that was.

Talking about being out of touch. Was somebody talking about being out of touch? Yes. I was. Okay, then by all means go ahead.

Sometimes, those pieces of your life which become vestiges just seem to completely disappear until one day, you open your door, or answer your phone or look at the e-mail you’ve been deleting — for years it seems without reading it — everything comes back. Maybe not just as you expected it. In  fact, the “retro life” hardly ever returns in any shape or form as you expected it or even like it for that matter. There are bold exceptions. I don’t know if this is one of them but it is what it is and it ain’t bad.

For however long I have been receiving e-mails from “Skyrocket, the Band.” Maybe one time I glanced at it. It didn’t seem like a big deal. So I gave it the “ol’ heavy hand” or “the monster finger” or deleted it was what I am trying to say.

Today I get an e-mail from “Trish Murphy Office.” That I recognized. Trish Murphy is very photogenic and a great singer. I open up the message and it says “Free — Outdoors and Early” and its an e-mail ad from Skyrocket. I then see Trish’s photogenic face and stuff and realize that the band is one that includes Trish and her musical brother, Darin. They are playing a gig at Discovery Green on Thursday afternoon in Houston. I would go because I have to be at the airport in Houston the next day. But I might not go because I have to be at the airport in Houston the next day. You know what I mean? No? Heck, I might just go and spend the night in Houston. It sounds like fun. Disovery Green is a 12-acre eco-friendly conservancy park in dowtown Houston.

Anyway, Skyrocket is a cover band that does 70s and 80s hits. They’ve got an extensive list here along with clips on each and every song. As their About page points out, all of the members of the band are recording artists in their own right. They won the 2007 South By Southwest “Best Cover Band” award and was named  in 2006 by the Austin Chronicle as “The Best Reason to Pawn Your Karaoke Machine.” But what have you done lately? Sorry, I always ask that. No offense.

Of course, they’d be worth checking out just because I have a crush on Trish Murphy. Not really, but here is all about her:

“Austin’s queen of musical cooking. Has written for Pat Green and performed alongside Bonnie Raitt and Kathy Valentine. Recently starred in a Chevy commercial. The camera loves her.”

I know mine certainly did (camera). Actually, it was my friend, Ross’ camera. No matter. I was using it. If I show up Thursday for Skyrocket’s performance, please don’t have the cops arrest me for stalking, Trish. I’m only kidding. Just a fan. After all, the camera loves her. As for the picture above, this was from one of my earliest posts, back when I was first unemployed but was not yet drawing a check. I could probably use a picture from their e-mail or Web site since this would certainly pass the smell Fair Use test. But it’s best to say, I took it. I was there. The camera really does love her, you know.

Skyrocket
Thursday, May 10
6:30 p.m. — 9 p.m.
Discovery Green
1500 McKinney St.
Houston, Texas
Free, all ages welcome

Here is what one can expect out of the Republican members of the Senate during confirmation hearings for newest Supreme Court pick Elena Kagan: “No.”

Just say no. The words of Nancy Reagan are once again popular among the GOP crowd except this time it doesn’t have to do with drugs. No. No means no. No means everything. The Republicans will vote no against everything the Democrats do. Somehow, that seems quite foolish not to mention petulant.

No matter that the Senate confirmed Kagan last year by a vote of  61-31 as President Obama’s pick for solicitor general. So what happened between then? Nothing that anyone can think of but many GOP members of Senate will drag Kagan through the mud.

She is liberal, liberal, liberal, the Republicans will say. Kagan is an alteh moid — Jewish spinster lady — although doubtfully any senator would be foolish enough to call her that. Well, we shall see.  But that doesn’t keep the interest groups pressuring their Republican senators, who still will likely do nothing to keep Kagan from being confirmed, from using her past to smear her. Never married at 50, huh? You know what that means! Limbaugh will probably call her something short of a “dyke.”

To be fair, I remember some of the same discussion upon the GOP pick of retired Justice David Souter, who turned out to be a disappointment to the Republicans.  Not surprising though, the whisper campaign against Souter appeared as to be as much from the right as from the Democrats.

The confirmation hearings will be pure politics. That’s all that it has been for years now. Not just for Clarence Thomas, an electronic lynching. But if you think things are bad now, just think how gruesome the political carnage will be if Obama gets to replace one of the right-wing members of the court. Oh my, my. I don’t know whether to hope for it or to  hope it doesn’t happen.