The Dave Matthews Band

/ Shane / 5 Comments

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a band. Specifically, the Dave Matthews Band.

I got my first DMB CD (Under the Table and Dreaming) when I was in high school, sight unseen (unheard?) based on the recommendation of my best friend. Who knew that it would spark a love affair that would last for more than a decade?

Everybody was a DMB fan back then, but it’s not an exaggeration to say that I lived, breathed, ate, and slept in their music. Most of the time, literally. Certainly there are super-fans who had more “cred” to their name, but I did alright. I have something like 20 DMB CDs. I had shirts, hats and stickers. I saw them in concert more times than I can count, including one magical tour when I saw them three consecutive nights in a row. I listened to CDs in the car, in my room, and on my discman in between classes (that’s right you youngsters, a discman). I learned how to play the guitar because of Dave Matthews. It seems ridiculous now, but I used to wear a hemp necklace. A hemp necklace people!

Considering all of this, I felt like I must have tons and tons of old blog entries about the Dave Matthews Band, but surprisingly I didn’t. However, I did find a pretty good excerpt from a blog post as recent as February 2008 that sums things up quickly:

One final note, Live at Radio City Music Hall by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds is really good!  Dave and I used to have a pretty good relationship.  We hit a rocky patch during the whole Lillywhite Sessions debacle, but Busted Stuff and Some Devil were better than a dozen roses.  Still, the endless live compilations began to wear on me (see Live Trax vols 1 – 10).  How many CDs can I own with the same songs on them?  Finally, Stand Up did our relationship in.  But here comes Live at Radio City to make me remember all those romantic weekends at Deer Creek.  Of course it is good!  Did we forget that Live at Luther College inspired me to learn how to play the guitar?  And that Tim Reynolds still can play the hell out of a guitar.  Dave’s voice is a little more raspy, the song selection is decidedly spiritual and I’ve never heard acoustic guitar sound so…sinister.  They really work that low E!  But it certainly brings back memories and I’ve spent more than a few trips in the car singing my lungs out.

Although I rarely listen to DMB these days, there’s no denying that a large portion of my life is inexorably tied to that music. It was the unceasing soundtrack of my life for a large, important chuck of time, spanning from high school, throughout college, throughout my time in Philadelphia, and into my life in Chicago.

Which is probably why, when I pulled out some old DMB CDs for a road trip a couple of weeks ago, I startled Sara by weeping openly several times.

It would be impossible to hear a DMB song that didn’t have some associated memory with it. I know them all by heart, but it’s like they know *me* by heart as well. I can’t hear Under the Table without thinking about driving around Fort Wayne in Chris’ red S10. I can’t hear Crash or Recently without thinking about playing Magic the Gathering in Casey’s basement. Live at Luther College reminds me of the guys that lived in my hallway at the dorm my freshman year. Before These Crowded Streets reminds me of playing guitar in Hillenbrand with Casey and Jeremy. Rody and I listed to Live at Red Rocks in the car on the way Deer Creek for concerts (ha, I just remembered, Rody won DMB tickets once by calling in to a radio show and singing Ants Marching!). Reid and Casey performed #41 at an open mike in the basement of the Union. I think about ex-girlfriends, friends half way around the world, and now I think about the DMB songs I sang to my kids when they were babies and wouldn’t go to sleep (and still occasionally now).

Everybody has a particular band or particular style of music that really defines them, or reminds them of their childhood. For me, that is and always will be the Dave Matthews Band.

Haven

/ Shane / 5 Comments

We finally managed to spend the night at the Haven, our new land barony in the hinterlands. It was awesome.

Hiking stick, check!

I don’t know if it was because it’s the longest amount of time we’ve spent there at one go, or if it was something about physically spending the night there, but in any case it was the best trip we’ve had. As much as I wanted to go up there already, I think this trip really lit a fire under me to go back.

And that’s kind of funny, since mostly what we did was hard work.

I guess this face helps her lift?

Hey, watch out for that…branch

I think she’s carrying quite a bit for her size!

We were only there for a short time, but I think we had just the right amount of work planned. Basically, the first day we hiked around until we found a dead tree (apparently THE dead tree…this was harder than we anticipated), cut it down, chopped it up, and carried it back to our campsite.

Chainsaw time

Prepare to feel the wrath of my ax of justice

When we were done with that, we were pretty hot and sweaty, so we decided to go to the beach. Immediately, a thunderstorm blew in. Oh well, we we wanted to cool down, right? The tent ended up leaking only a little bit, and it cleared up for a few hours just at the right time to have a camp fire that night. We even saw a few stars, before another storm blew in and we went to bed.

It rained all night, but the tent didn’t leak. After a very early morning wake up call (4:30…happy father’s day, love Evie), we got back to work. All we had to do was hang up the swing Ron made for Oliver’s birthday. Sounds easy right?

Ha ha ha, it’s funny how close to death I am!

Well worth the near death experience

Actually, the coolest part about doing the swing was that it ended up being a lot more than just hanging up a swing. We found the perfect tree, but we needed to clean it up a little bit. We ended up cutting down a handful of big branches and cleaning out all the scrub under an enormous old pine tree, creating a nice little hollow for the kids to play in. It kind of killed me to cut this beautiful old tree (I know you’ve been around for 100 years, but my kids need to swing), but we made a really cool little area that I think the kids will appreciate for many years to come.

In fact, maybe that’s what made the weekend so great. It’s like we “claimed” the land a little bit by doing some work to it and bending it to our will. Even just deciding where we would camp and how we would organize it, digging a fire pit, designating the wood stacking area, and locating a “bathroom”.

The finest facilities money can buy

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the bathroom got a lot more use than I was feeling was entirely necessarily within a few hours of arrival. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

I will say this: it gets pretty dark and quiet out there at night. Pretty dark and quiet. I had to go get something from the car, and although it wasn’t that far outside the fire light, my back did begin to creep a little bit. Lets just say, nobody took the trek back to the bathroom tree after 10 p.m. or so. I’m sure this is the city-slicker perspective, but it’s awfully easy to imagine something hiding in the woods right behind you.

Which is why, when Matt (on his first camping trip ever) went to the car, I immediately suggested that we all hide in the woods before he came back. Rachael added that we should perhaps knock over one chair to up the creepiness factor. Luna also obliged us by whining worriedly into the dark in the direction we’d gone, which was creeping me out even though I was the one hiding. Unfortunately, Ron was sleeping in his chair, so we just had to abandon him. We wondered which would be funnier: Matt coming back and finding us all gone, or Ron waking up and finding us all gone?

I don’t know if Matt had a moment of goosebumps or not, but, despite the fact that I was able to sufficiently muffle my snickers, he found us quickly enough when he came back. Unfortunately, I probably spooked myself out more than Matt, hiding in the woods like that. My imagination loves nothing more than to run away with itself. (What if she’s not whining because she wants to come with, what if she’s whining because there’s a monster RIGHT BEHIND US!)

I’m having some second thoughts about camping out there all alone.

Quote Monday hangs out in the woods

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Me: “Who made the couscous?”
Oliver: “Grandma Kathy?”
Me: “Nope.”
Oliver: “Mama?”
Me: “Nope, guess again.”
Oliver: “Grandpa Ron?”
Me: “No.”
Oliver: “LUNA?”

Apparently, it was more likely that the dog made the couscous then Aunt Rachael.

Sara: “Shane…we lost our snake.”

Don’t worry, we found it. I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that the snake was dead.

Rachael: “Your wife dropped a tree on my head.”
Sara, disparagingly: “Oh, it wasn’t that big.”

::Oliver hitting his stick on the sand::
Oliver: “My new stick goes, ‘fap’. My old stick went, ‘fump’.”

Bacon, now in poetry form

/ Shane / Leave a comment

When you publish a post, WordPress will automatically add “related post” hyperlinks at the bottom, with the idea that people might like to browse from related topic to related topic. Kind of like when you get stuck watching related videos on youtube for hours and hours.

I generally hate the idea.

The problem is that the “auto-generator” usually creates links that are barely related at best, and also tends to give the impression that I have intentionally linked in these posts, or endorsed them in some way. If I’m going to link to something, I’ll link to it. So I disabled the feature.

However, I recently got a ping-back on my Baconfest posts from Salut! Adventures, who had written an honest to goodness bacon poem. Now that’s a related link! In fact, it’s not just a bacon poem, but an awesome bacon poem, which I will now present to you. Although I didn’t write it, I wish I had. Enjoy.

The Vegan – A Baconfest Poem

Once upon a morning dreary, in my bathrobe, wan and weary,

I stood and gazed forlornly at my open icebox door.

There was no breakfast for the makin’, no smoky hardwood bacon,

And it seemed that I would soon be schlepping towards the corner store.

Schlepping sadly to the store.

But then there came a tapping, an annoying kind of rapping

On the wooden frame that stands around my humble kitchen door.

‘Twas my pink and chubby neighbor, come to ask of me a favor,

Come to borrow almond flavor that he knew I had in store.

Only this and nothing more.

“What’s the worry?  Why the hubbub?” asked the portly little cherub,

As he watched me grab my house keys and walk ‘cross the kitchen floor.

I explained I had no bacon, and the toll that it was takin’

As I gave him almond extract and I showed him towards the door.

Showed him firmly towards the door.

“That’s no problem, said my neighbor, “You can get the same great flavor

From the tofu products you can buy at any health food store.

We vegans really love it, and you too will be fond of it,

Really, going without bacon is not that much of a chore.

Not too terrible a chore!”

“Ye Gods!” I spat and sputtered, and some expletives were muttered

As I wrestled with my neighbor like a warring Carnivore.

In a rage I hit and pounded , until suddenly astounded,

I saw a curly, porcine tail slip out onto the kitchen floor.

‘Twas a pig! And nothing more.

An hour later I was sated, with my bacon crave abated,

And I never even had to journey to the corner store.

My freezer now is packed with pounds of bacon, neatly stacked

Enough to last through summertime, and maybe even more.

And my neighbor?  Nevermore.

People without kids are going to have to deal with the fact that my kids might sometimes ruin their day

/ Shane / Leave a comment

On occasion, children have been known to get out of hand. And on occasion, nearby people have been known to remark, or give the stink eye, especially if those nearby people have chosen not to have kids, or have raised their kids so long ago that they’ve completely forgotten the fact that on occasion their kids weren’t the perfect angels they remember them as.

This hasn’t happened to me, mind you, because my children are perfect angels. And also because I have a terrible scowl that is so fierce, judgmental people instinctively know that they can keep their judgement to themselves. And also because judgmental people are usually (but not always) wise enough to save their disapproval for a time when they are safely away from any kind of real confrontation (by which I mean the Internet).

So I have heard some general grousing about children ruining things. Everything. Meals at restaurants, movies, walking in the park, etc. (True story, last weekend Oliver screamed so loud in the bathroom at Meijer that people were forced to flee without washing their hands. My children even ruined hand washing!) And even more than that, I can assure you that I’ve *imagined* more complaining about my kids than all of the actual complaining about kids that has ever taken place put together.

I suppose there might be actual parents out there who really are clueless about what their kids are doing, ignoring them as they run circles around the restaurant, screaming at the top of their lungs, knocking people’s food off their plates, etc. (or at least that’s the way the pearl-clutching old ladies will tell the story to their church group or whatever when they get home) But speaking for the rest of us, I can assure you that we are absolutely mortified by bad behavior, even if we are pretending nonchalance as we hastily wolf down our meal and try to collect our stuff as fast as possible so we can get the hell out of there, crawl into a hole, and die.

As a parent, I try so hard to make sure my kids behave. I feel awful when my kids are awful. I think we do about as well as is physically possible to do, and yet despite our best efforts, on occasion they still cause trouble. Sometimes the kids still shriek at 5 a.m. in a hotel room because they can’t agree on who should get to use the remote like a pretend phone first. Sometimes they still make trouble at a restaurant because they didn’t get the right crayon color, or we forgot to let them order for themselves, or they didn’t have “the right kind of french fries”.

But here’s the thing: all of that is part of learning how to behave.

It could be argued that it’s not fair that my kids are ruining your experience, that my choice to have kids is interfering with your choice to not have kids. I suppose there is some merit to that. However, if you make that argument, then you can’ t complain about how awful kids are these days, or how society is going to hell in a handbasket. Because we’re trying to be good parents, and trying to make our kids into good, respectful people. We’re trying to teach them how to behave. And when you’re learning something, you don’t always get it right the first time (believe it or not, our kids get it right more often then not, and when they don’t, it’s my fault for misjudging the level of tiredness/hungriness/orneriness in the first place).

If we hide in a bunker, never exposing our kids to the real world, then they’re going to end up as weirdo degenerate sub-humans who don’t know how to act in public, or interact with the real world. And ultimately, that’s going to end up disrupting your life a lot more than this one dinner.