So I’ve been busy on some projects I have been trying to pull together and complete forever now, thanks to my well-known Aussie rock fetish, and I guess you could say Phase 1 & 2 are up to speed now, Phase 3 is about to get done, and then onto Phase 4 one of these days when I have some free time that I never have anymore.

Anyway, I’ve been busy here and here, and finally got the only existing video footage of The Monarchs up on both MySpace and YouTube, and those of you who pop over here occasionally from the Pen and that general sector who haven’t already heard about the videos will certainly want to check those out.

Otherwise, I am so exhausted right now, and have had so little sleep in the past week and a half (not because of this stuff tho), that I have absolutely nothing else to blog about unless you wanna hear me yawn, so ’til later, folks…

WARNING:  Total Music Geek post ahead.  I mean, this is a realllllly major one, so you know, many of you are welcome to skip it if you really wanna.

It’s a freakin’ holy grail week!  Not only do I have live, never-seen-before Monarchs video IN MY HAND (thank you from the bottom of my little blonde heart, Muzz!) - which hopefully I will find time to convert and pop on the MySpace profile and YouTube within the next couple of days (as well as put a finish on and unveil the new website)…

But I just found a studio-quality MP3 of something I have not had on anything but CASSETTE in over 20 YEARS!!  It can’t even be found on CD anywhere!  I would tell you what it is, but 99.99% of you (even the music geeks) would have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about anyway.  But YAY!

Thus whittles down the long list I have been carrying around since 1986 of nearly impossible to find, out of print stuff to, like… maybe two things now?

Listen, I could have won $40 million in the lottery today and wouldn’t be any happier.

OK, yes, I know I’m whacked.  But who cares, I’m happy!

Woo!  I finally got the opportunity today to meet yet another person I’ve “known” online for somewhere around 13-15 years, another of the Hoodoo Gurus faithful (and ‘Mats fan, she’s a Replacements fan too) from way back when in the original early days of the congregation of fans around the world online.  Nese is from Texas and had trekked up here for the weekend for the big Webb Wilder shindig in Knoxville and was coming thru here on the way back, so I met her downtown at the Hard Rock on Beale Street and we had a fine afternoon lunching and visiting… and what awesome weather, couldn’t have picked a better day.  And naturally, she is awesome.  So woohoo!

I gotta say it was awfully weird hanging out downtown though.  Once upon a time I spent a significant amount of spare time in downtown Memphis, especially hanging around Beale and the riverfront on the nicer weekends, and the last several years I am almost never down there.  So much has changed… and I don’t know that I’d really say for the better.  To me it looks kind of just dressed up to look prettier.

My love-hate relationship with this town continues.  Strange, I don’t even really remember when I used to just love it, though I know once upon a time I did.

Well, now that come to find out I’ve been shamed out of my self-imposed temporary blogging exile (laughing), I guess I gotta write something. There is just so much of nothing going on here right now and, no pun or blonde jokes intended, but my mind is pretty much a blank lately. So keep your expectations low and we’ll all be satisfied, I reckon.

There’ve been a couple of things on the back burner for a while now, including my last-minute-planned trip to L.A. in March, when the Hoodoo Gurus were doing their mini-tour through the US. Now that I think about it, there isn’t that much to tell about the trip, but here were a few of the more interesting things (besides the obvious, which was the concert and which was fantastic as I knew it would be):

• The Phoenix airport is very nice and very pretty, and there appear to be a lot of nice shops and restaurants in it. However, I would not really know because it is WAY too spread out with no quick way to get anywhere, and judging from the conversations around me on the flight to Memphis from Phoenix, apparently most connecting flights that land there are scheduled to give the passenger no more than 30 minutes and, in most cases, 20 or 10 to get to the gate for the connecting flight, and apparently hardly any connecting flights are scheduled with gates in the same terminal. I have never had to bust my ass so much in an airport (and coming through both ways) in my life - I had a limited window of time to get to L.A. that night, and not only was our flight late leaving Memphis, but my connecting flight’s gate could not have possibly been any further from the gate where I arrived, and the door was closing as I hit the gate and barely made it on. Not quite as bad, but almost the same situation, going back to Memphis the next morning. However, I think I was one of the lucky ones on the flight out - most of the people around me on the plane had ten minutes or less to make their connecting flight, so likely they didn’t make it.
• Got off the plane at LAX, start walking toward the front door of the terminal and who is walking right towards me, then past me, but actor Sean Penn. Someone later asked me did he look like he wanted to punch someone, but no - he just looked hurried and a bit stressed like most everyone else in the airport terminal - hope he wasn’t having to go to Phoenix! And this makes the second time in my life I have seen an Oscar winner at LAX (the first being actress Sissy Spacek on my trip out there way back in 1979).
• I can’t say enough good about the Super Shuttle from LAX. As stated, I had a VERY limited time window that trip and one major bout of delay with flight or shuttle service could have wrecked my entire trip. Instead, I actually made it to the restaurant where I was meeting friends for dinner before the show a half hour before they got there. Yay for the Super Shuttle.
• Also a big thumbs up for Canter’s Deli on Fairfax, which was where I met up with my old friend Jimm, who was still living in Australia when I last saw him about a decade ago, and his lovely wife Wendie, who I was meeting for the first time. We had a great dinner and a wonderful time visiting and my only regret is that I couldn’t try everything on the menu, which all looked fabulous, but the menu itself could take you more than an hour to read because there are SO many wonderful things on the menu. Hooray for the most excellent Philly sandwich there, though. Yum.
• A great big giant thumbs down for the security people at the El Rey Theatre. Their overzealousness was completely unnecessary, given the act involved, but I’ve since learned from some of the locals that the security there is well known for being asses for no real good reason. Thanks, security jerks, for a great big black mark on a trip I had flown thousands of miles for and to spend a whole 13.5 hours in your fair city. Except for the one female security person who was the one who checked my bag and ID and did indeed see I had come all the way from Memphis and was the only one not acting like a total shit after the show. Yep, I did indeed see and enjoy the show but their behavior post-show was despicable (even towards the band’s own crew!!!). Partially my fault for having made these trip plans at what was the very last minute, but the security behavior in general just left a lot to be desired. I know certain members of the band brought the behavior to their management’s attention and I intend to do the same. Anyway…
• I spent the night, basically, in LAX because there just wasn’t any point in getting a hotel room when I was going to be in L.A. so short of a time - the show was not over until around midnight and I was gonna have to be on a plane back to Memphis (and go thru security and all that) at 6:30 a.m. It was very much NOT comfortable and all and I nearly froze to death, but I survived it… other than the fact I would have liked to have smacked a certain smartass airport security person in the mouth that morning, but I didn’t want to go to jail, so I didn’t. Note to LAX management: Mark your airport security areas where you want people to line up and to go CLEARLY. Because next time, after I have slept five hours in your airport and am not quite awake, and I’m the second person to go thru security and therefore there are no lines with people lined up like cattle going in whatever direction or the other, and some smartass on your security staff decides to holler out, “What, have you never been in an airport before?” rather than pointing out the direction I need to go or something else possibly, oh, helpful? I’m smacking her in the mouth next time. Just sayin’.

So that’s pretty much the basics of that trip. It was fun and I’m glad I went, but I don’t think I’ll ever do something crazy like that, going all the way to L.A. and spending a whole 13.5 hours there before flying back, again. I was exhausted for two weeks or more after. Of course, I’d been in Chicago for barely two days just days before that, so that probably didn’t help.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll catch up on one of the 541 memes I’ve been tagged for, who knows. We’ll see. Hope everyone had a good 4th!

ARRRGH. I know everyone that still bothers to read here is tired of reading me griping. I’M tired of reading me griping. It’s probably going to last a little longer, though. All of this post-wreck car stuff and insurance stuff has turned my brain to mush, and I can just barely deal with blogging right now, I’m so whacked out. I just want to go stand somewhere and scream for about ten hours, and this is one of those times it would be nice to live more conveniently to Hooterville so I could go stand in Newscoma’s corn field or whatever the hell kind of field it is she has up there that’s so good for standing and screaming in, and I would do it.

It has really just been one thing after another over and over, and I’m tired of it. I was actually pretty satisfied - not only satisfied but very happy - with my insurance company until I learned yesterday that my rental car coverage is now over. I wouldn’t be so annoyed, except for the fact I asked at least twice, if not three times, about the timeframe of that. So now, not only have they left me hanging when I have plans for the weekend, but BECAUSE I had asked about the timeframe and thought they were covering that longer, guess what? I hadn’t really even seriously looked at replacement vehicles yet because we thought there was still plenty of time to do so! So now I’m stuck, in a major crunch, and pissed.

I think it’s all going to work out eventually but that just made things a much bigger pain than they already were, and it’s just been one thing after another and every little thing and I’m just, like, enough already. Tired of it. And there’s plenty of other things upsetting my little apple cart of life besides this car stuff right now, so I’m just really unhappy with a ton of stuff right now. But I will be SO glad when there is just SOME resolution, whatever it’s going to be, to this car junk. It was a tremendous headache I really didn’t need on top of all other frustrations with many other things right now.

And my brain really has turned to mush, even more so in the last couple of days that I have looked at ALL this new car stuff and used car stuff and more car stuff . Ugh. You know, all of my friends that ever moved to New York, the first thing they did just about was get rid of their cars. That would be SO nice. I thought car prices were getting a little ridiculous already back in the prehistoric times when I first started driving, but they’re just outrageous now. It’s insane. Necessary for the most part in this area (especially when you have responsibilities out of town), but insane.

I’m trying to look on the bright side of things if there is one, and I guess it stands to reason that I have had a car, and then two cars, neither of which I was very comfortable with driving out of town for various reasons for a few years now. So I don’t know that I’d go so far to say this was all a blessing in disguise, but there’s that. I just really wasn’t ready to start having to take on car payments again and late model car insurance and all that, but oh well, guess that decision got made for me.

And the IRS just screwed me so much it was insane, and then other things going on too - I just really could beat my head on the desk right now. That is, if I didn’t already still have a knot on my head from the wreck. At least the remaining black eye is finally going away.

What DOESN’T seem to be going away is our new little visitor. Which, you know, when you already have a bunch of pets, you don’t really notice another mouth to feed, so big deal, even though I really wish his owners would turn up. But if they don’t, we’ll manage. He really is very sweet but he’s completely psycho. He’s even wearing Quincy out (which is kind of poetic justice) wrestling and banging around the house playing with Quince. And he’s so funny looking. He’ll certainly make for humorous blog fodder and photos if he’s gonna stick around.

He’s also probably going to have a slight name change if he sticks around. His name was Tokyo, but there’s a Hoodoo Gurus song called “Tojo”, and I had a cat for 16 years that was named after a Replacements song, so it’s only fitting that this one gets a Gurus name, really.

Oh, and Buster and Petey apparently tried to kill each other while I was gone overnight this weekend, but though Buster’s fur is a nice shade of faded blood right now, I can’t find a wound on either of them except for a small one on Petey. Petey has a tendency to hurt his mouth when he gets too rough so that’s probably where the blood came from, but I really didn’t need to be scared to death like that when I got home Sunday night. But they’re fine, as they always are. And I was glad to see no signs of Bruiser having gotten into it, since he so often ends up inadvertently in the middle when he had nothing to do with it. Buster is just mad at the world because he’s smaller than his brothers and apparently hates Petey because he’s the biggest, and he and Petey are constantly growling at each other. Bruiser growls too, sometimes, but he really doesn’t know what he’s growling about.

So there you go, my big lame update for the moment. I know there’s lots more extremely important stuff going on in the world this week but I’m not even going to begin to address all that, many more people already have and so much better than I would have anyway.

One thing that IS important is that there will be at least a few of us having lunch at the Mothership this Saturday around noonish - nothing formal or planned, I just know Hutch and K-Co and I will be there, and maybe Finn, and I dunno who else - but if you want to join us for some BBQ or crack-n-cheese, come on down. We’ll probably be there until Knuck kicks us out at two-ish.

Now excuse me while I go bang the uninjured back side of my head against the nearest wall for a while. ARRRGH.

So I am home, but not for long. I am exhausted to the max, but in a good way. I should have just gone straight on to bed early last night, but didn’t. Now I’m up again, but that’s OK, I think (think) today is going to be a fairly easy day.

All and all, great trip. I met in person some wonderful folks I have “known” for a while and a few more, and we just had a great, great time. Other than the fact that I lost my MP3 player and some other stuff I can’t quite remember what was in the bag at O’Hare, and the fact that my foot is about to fall off, it’s all good. I almost broke my foot a few years ago but didn’t quite break it, and it has given me a ton of trouble ever since, and nowadays the other foot and ankle gives me a little trouble too because I don’t walk quite right anymore because of the bad one. Consequently, the bad foot and ankle have a habit of swelling up to Supersize with things like lots of walking in airports and stuff. I didn’t notice it until I was waiting in the St. Louis airport yesterday for my connecting flight, and then it was like, whoa! The other one was swollen too but the difference was between looking at an almost normal foot and ankle compared to a gargantuan deformed one. It really hasn’t bothered me that much (and has gone down a little), probably because when I am really tired, my feet always hurt anyway. I’ve felt better, but I’ll live.

The show, again, was fantastic and The Abbey is a pretty great place to see live music in Chicago. Other than that little idiot who made us leave the venue entirely too early and before everyone in the band had come out after the show.

I kinda hate now that I understand I could have met up with Tatiana for dinner or something Saturday night, dang it. But since it was such a last minute trip and was kind of a whirlwind one, I just wasn’t thinking much ahead of time other than all the must-do’s. Hopefully there might be a next time for Chicago later in the year, though.

But here’s the REAL scoop… remember I said I’m home, but not for long? Guess where I am going Wednesday? L.A.! Yep, I’m going to see the Hoodoo Gurus AGAIN on Wednesday night. It was another opportunity that turned up that I just couldn’t pass on, things with work are working out where I can go (and Thursday’s my day off anyway), so here I go again! It just so happens I have an old friend who is from Sydney but has been living in L.A. for several years now who also was going to the show, so hopefully things will work out there (’cos lord knows I don’t have enough $$ left for cab fare at this point, but we’ll see).

This is going to be an even more whirlwind trip ‘cos I am actually going to be there barely 12 hours, but when the opportunity presented itself, I just couldn’t pass it up. And I never get to do stuff like this or go much of anywhere anyway, so this is cool. About ten years ago, the band was playing what was then intended to be one of their last dates in Australia, and almost all the American fans went down there for the show, the band and their manager threw a big barbecue for everyone who had come in from all over the world, and all this great stuff. I wasn’t able to go and was miserable. So all of this this week almost makes up for that. I’m thrilled, really; too tired to maybe show it right now, but I am.

So this week’s going to be a super hectic one (especially because I am going BACK out of town again for a very short trip on Saturday), and I’m probably going to just collapse next week when it’s all over with, but it’s all good. For a whole bunch of last minute stuff, it’s not turned out so bad (yet - knock on wood nothing happens like my plane is severely delayed Wednesday, god, that would be awful).

If you wanna see some pictures taken of the Chicago outing, click here. Someone needs to stop me from waving every time a camera’s out, I look like a big dork. And to shut my mouth. And I seriously was not drunk until the very end of the evening, heh.

I probably shouldn’t be posting because I am pretty drunk. The last beer I had before leaving the pub next door to the venue pretty much did me in. I just got back to the hotel a little bit ago, and unfortunately I have to leave for the airport shortly. But that’s OK.

The show was FANTASTIC and everything I could have hoped for. There’s a rumor they even played one song because I asked for it and that info was relayed by some friends of mine that were following them around.

I got to chat with their manager, who I have “known” via e-mail for many years, so that was great. Great, great, great. He is such a good person and always has been.

Unfortunately, even tho the guys in the band have spent a fair amount of time meeting and greeting after the shows at all the others thus far, there was some little sh*t kicking people out early on at this place. I realize now I should have put my foot down (or even prevailed upon their manager) to leave us be because we were waiting to talk with the band - the one in particular I wanted to speak with a bit, I know saw me in the audience - but we let that little idiot run us out anyway, I dunno why.

Oh well, there will be a next time later this year, hopefully. And if nothing else, I just never thought I’d ever see the Gurus play on these shores ever again, so that alone made it all worth it.

I’ve got to get packed and ready to go to the airport so ’til later… man, I am pretty wasted. This should be a fun day.

OK, I am just about outta here in an hour and on my way to Chicago. Boring Saturday night ahead stuck in my hotel room probably, which would probably mean mad blogging except I just remembered I think they only have a wireless center in the hotel and not available throughout. Not sure, guess we’ll see. But more than likely I’ll just be Twittering the more bored I get.

Hoodoo Gurus on Sunday evening, rock! Bez and Jeffraham, sorry you guys won’t be with me. Hopefully they will play a Southeast date later in the year and maybe we can round up Hutch and whoever else and all go.

Hope everyone is having a fine Saturday!

I had to keep quiet for a few days because I didn’t think it was gonna happen, and frankly, I never dreamed in a million years that this was gonna work out at all, and was fully prepared prepared to be depressed about it and mopey indefinitely. But for some reason, my usually rotten luck and karma turned around and things started falling into place this week at what was really just about the VERY last minute.

Let me back up here…

My favorite band in the world besides The Replacements, the Hoodoo Gurus from Australia, announced last fall they were going to be touring the U.S. in March. My original plan when I heard about it was that I was going try to make every show east of the Mississippi I could, and maybe another one or two western dates depending on where/when. I thought I was going to be in a position to be able to follow them around the country for at least a bit, at least on this side of the country.

Alas, when the time came around, not only were things not the way I had predicted by now where I could be in a position to travel like that, but no dates were scheduled at all here in the Southeast. The tour is very small and brief, and the closest they were coming to the Southeastern U.S. was Chicago.

I have been trying for a few weeks now to see if I could work it out to get to Chicago. The fact that I live in a city where we might as well not even have an airport for all the good it does us didn’t help. You can get on the SAME plane in Little Rock or Nashville that is also going to stop in Memphis, and pay anywhere from $200-500 more if you board it in Memphis. But that’s a rant for sometime next week.

Anyway, I had been playing with schedules and fares for weeks and trying desperately to make something work. I had even looked into Amtrak and Greyhound but those schedules weren’t working either. Driving was always an option, but that’s an awful long drive by myself to a very big major large city I have never been to, and probably without much sleep if I made the drive… and all expenses totaled would have probably been around the same ballpark figure as any half decent priced airfare would have been.

I really gave up any hope of going weeks ago, but things started falling into place and presented an opportunity again this week where I might be able to go. It was a slim chance, but a chance all the same, and from last weekend to this past Wednesday, I was desperately searching and trying to make things work and make all the pieces of the puzzle fit.

On Wednesday, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place and voila. I’m headed to Chicago on Saturday afternoon and will be seeing the Hoodoo Gurus play Sunday night. I’ve been waiting for this for nearly ten years, since their last U.S. tour got abruptly canceled, and I haven’t seen them play live in 13 years, I think. This has been SUCH a long time coming and I am still pinching myself in disbelief after having lost all hope. I can’t believe I am going.

A good friend of mine I have known thru the Gurus grapevine all these many years that is a local is going to be kind enough to pick me up and cart me around, some friends from the same bunch from New York are going to be there, and another pal I know from Nashville and his wife are going to be there, too. This is just going to be an exceptional weekend.

I have decided it was just meant to be. My friend the local wound up with an extra ticket to the show since the friend that was originally going bailed. I thought I was going to have to kill myself to get to the laundromat because my washer/dryer is broken, but when I looked for what I was planning to wear, I was shocked to find it was clean. First the travel arrangements but then everything ELSE fell into place, too. It had to have been meant to be.

By the way, word has gotten around that they are hoping to come back to the U.S. later in the year, so hopefully there will be some Southeast dates scheduled - Atlanta probably, hopefully Memphis or Nashville - that time around. And if that happens, I WILL be making an effort to get to every show.

But for now, I’m just pleased and bouncing about how this weekend has turned out. I can’t stop giggling and I’ve got 40,147 things to do between now and Saturday afternoon, but that’s OK. Sunday night I will be exactly where I want to be after having waited 10 and 13 years, after having had to miss not just one but TWO potential trips to Australia, and everything else I have had to miss out on that could have been for the past decade, if only there’d been a way.

Needless to say I’m going to be busy-busy for the next 24 hours, but I have absolutely nothing to do for 24 hours once I get to Chicago - I originally wasn’t planning to be there more than one night but as things fell into place, flying in Saturday was the only option - so I’ll have my laptop and likely be liveblogging or at least Twittering while I’m bored and holed up in the hotel with nothing to do Saturday night… ’til then!

I have probably been getting a little too much entertainment lately out of reviewing the search terms that land people here on The Lynnster Zone, but some of them have been pretty darned funny and many have been just plain odd. I’ll probably start sharing these weekly or something, they have really been cracking me up. Here we go…

“orange hair from sleeping too much”

I sleep a rather ridiculous amount of hours when I do sleep, but no, can’t say that one’s ever happened to me.

“what happens if you sleep too much”

Well, according to this next searcher, you could become…

“insane from sleeping too much”

Oh, so THAT’S what’s wrong with me. Okay! Moving right along…

Next, we have this next group of search terms that has popped up on several occasions:

“how to deal with a freeloader boyfriend”
“boyfriend freeloader”
“freeloader boyfriend”
“boyfriend freeloader”

My advice, as before… kick his ass to the curb!!!

“constantly dreaming about ex-boyfriends”

A phenomenon I’m certainly somewhat familiar with, though I wouldn’t say even close to constantly, thank goodness. If I got rid of you once, I certainly don’t wanna keep seeing you, be it in my subconscious or not.

“the munsters vs. the addams family”

Ah yeah! Verification that my friends and I aren’t the only freaks who sit around discussing stuff like this as if it’s something so important like finding the answer to world peace. KC would be so proud!

Given the fact that I write a lot about music-related stuff here, it’s no surprise a good deal of the searching that brings people here is music-related… first we have the Motley Crue contingent:

“don’t go away mad just go away lyrics”
“motley crew dont go away mad”

One time several years ago I referred to my group of longtime friends as a “motley crew” and ever since I’ve been getting the Motley Crue hits. Then I made it even worse by titling a post with a Crue lyric (sort of on purpose, sort of not). But it’s also not my fault people don’t get the Crue vs. crew right in the first place.

“when you gonna give me some time”

Sharona!

“Bangles married Hoodoo Gurus”

Nope, sorry to burst a bubble for somebody somewhere, but while Michael Steele and Brad Shepherd did date for a while in the ’80s, none of the Hoodoo Gurus have ever been married to any of the Bangles. (And no, contrary to Jeffraham Prestonian insistence, I am NOT Debbi Peterson of the Bangles… heh.)

“tabitha soren ugly pig”

Shame on you… that’s not a very nice thing to say.

“john mayer fan rants”

Uh sorry… wrong blog! (Though I do think his blog is funny and link to it here.)

“meg white’s feet”

Oooh… an alt-rocker foot fetish in the making? I can’t tell you anything about chick drummer Meg White’s feet, but I am unfortunately all too personally familiar with chick drummer Jo Walker’s feet, which is why that search landed here anyway. And Josie hates Meg White. So maybe that kinda counts.

Then we have the local and semi-local music searchers, like the Government Cheese fans:

“fishstick day government cheese mp3″
“camping on acid”
“come on back to bowling green and marry”
“government cheese band”

And more Nashville and Knoxville music searchers:

“jet black factory” when the city sleeps”
“smokin dave & the premo dopes”

Then a note to all blonde, long-haired guys at MTSU… somebody is looking for you! See:

“blonde, long hair guys at MTSU”

Next, of the stalker variety…

“the lynnster zone”
“memphis lynnster”
“lynnster”

Hello Stalker! Or old friend trying to find me, whichever the case may be…

“john cosper memphis”

Man, I have no idea what has become of my old friend Cochise Cosper, but if you do find him, tell him to e-mail me. His disappearance has become stuff of legend among the Memphis Gripe crew.

“Annette Fine”

I haven’t talked with Annette in probably a decade, but I’m sure she’s still