Writing this on A’s Blackberry while sitting at the Alpine Rose Cafe in Walsenburg, Colorado and waiting for lunch. Yup, the annual road trip is underway. Pray for us.
And then I told him, without a trace of jest, “If you lose this one, I will kill you.”
(If you missed the original blog post which more or less explains the above picture, you can find it here.)
As noted in last week’s Vol. 1, I recently embarked an extraordinary road trip with my two favorite people on the planet, and during the course of this week-long vacation, I was made privy to fifteen vital, life-altering lessons about life, love, music, and madness, all of which I’m itching to share with you, my loyal readers. Screw Tuesdays with Morrie; you can learn urrything you need to know about this insane world and the folks who inhabit it right here at the Buzz.
In Vol. 1, we delved into the first set of those lessons, and without further ado… I now give you Vol. 2:
LESSON NUMBER FOUR: While the food is marvelous, The Rainforest Café isn’t exactly a quiet, retiring lunch locale.
After a couple of hours in the car (a fabulously gorgeous gunmetal-gray 2008 Mustang which quite literally broke my heart to return to Hertz when the rental week was up) with me and Sherry Ann — during which time we discussed everything from the soaps to the unexpected brilliance of Peggy Scott-Adams to Jewel’s maddeningly incoherent comments on “Nashville Star” — A looked as though he was ready to choke one or both of us. (When she and I share the same space, we have this tendency to forget that other people are around.) So, to break the trip up a bit (as well as feed our faces), we stopped off at Katy Mills on our way into Houston. Sherry Ann had been up since 3:30am, or some similar ungodly hour, in order to catch a 7am flight out of Amarillo, and she was understandably starving by the time one o’clock rolled around, and while A and I had dined on watermelon and homemade waffles that morning while catching the “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son” reruns on TV Land, our breakfast had long since worn off.
Three weeks ago, A, Sherry Ann, and myself embarked on a hilarious, joy-filled excursion to Houston, where — twenty-five years after first making his acquaintance — we had primo tickets to the George Michael concert. George hadn’t toured America in almost two decades, and when the news broke early last spring that there was going to be a Texas stop on his ’08 jaunt, my ass instantly leapt into action; faster than you can say, “Charge it,” I had reserved us three spectacular seats inside Houston’s Toyota Center.
Excited by the mere idea of what we were about to experience, Sherry Ann proclaimed to anyone who would listen that we were going on, in her words, “a big gay adventure!” All we had to do was get there in one piece, and we’d be set.
The hijinks and hilarity that resulted from this trip were not only the most fun I’ve had in light years, they were also quite informative and educational. I don’t kid when I tell you I acquired so many various and sundry nuggets of knowledge on this weeklong vay-cay, and, in a multi-part series, I’d like to share them each with you, my loyal readers.
A is in town this weekend for a whirlwind visit, and Sherry Ann will arrive bright and early Monday morning, whereupon the three of us are embarking on a tiny l’il road trip (or, as Sherry called it when we spoke last week, “a big gay adventure!”). My plan as of now is to pre-tape a few Buzz posts (at least a quotable or two, plus next week’s record store report and, ideally, a new playlist) so that my absence at the helm is not quite so obvious; regardless of whether that idea succeeds or fails, the Buzz will resume normal activity on Thursday, July 17. Among the first topics of discussion at that time: a salute to one of television history’s most groundbreaking and terrific series, which next week marks its 40th (!) year on the air. Trust me — you don’t want to miss that.
On a related note, the Buzz is almost certainly going to notch its 3000th pageview some time this weekend (we’re sitting somewhere in the 2980s as I type this, according to WordPress’ stats), which truly does blow my mind. I considered this wacky experiment a smashing success all the way back on April 22, when — on all of the fourth day of the Buzz’s then-tenuous existence — I actually managed to think of a worthy, valid topic for a strong third post. (Honest to God, all you have to do to understand just why most blogs stall in the very early-going is start one.) Now, 74 posts, 23 post categories, 267 post tags, and nearly thirty hundred look-sees later, I’m utterly speechless by the unfailing support and encouragement you’ve all shown both the Buzz and its chief cook and bottle washer. I seriously adore you guys.
So, there’s this sketch.
I drew it a couple of weekends ago, using three half-sharp crayolas, on a paper tablecloth at a restaurant where such artistic expressions have long since passed into the lore between my lover and myself.
The sketch consists of a rectangular mass of cerulean brushstrokes — colored sideways to subconsciously limn a softer effect — strategically placed between a moonbound spacecraft clearly marked “U.S.A.” and two stick figures pointing skyward, projecting all the wondrous awe of which stick figures are capable, toward a crescent aglow from the inviolable glint of starlight.
The thread to here:
Prologue — As Gershwin once wrote, “And when he comes my way, I’ll do my best to make him stay”
Part the Second — In random, scattershot strokes… me
Interlude — Everything I’ve needed to know about life, I’ve learned from Sting
So, then came Cascada.
Yes, that nightmarish, migraine-inducing German dance trio — who have just morphed Rascal Flatts’ soaring, searing triumph “What Hurts the Most” into a ridiculous, ear-splitting slab of hopped-up Eurotrash that makes DHT’s intolerably wretched recent remake of Roxette’s pop classic “Listen to Your Heart” sound positively stately by comparison — incited the most vicious argument A and I have ever had.
But first things first.
