make me smile...

A little over a year ago, I purchased an electric guitar. The local guitar store was going out of business, being purchased by one of those big chain stores so I snagged myself a nice black PRS Santana SE. A budget guitar built in Korea for American guitar maker Paul Reed Smith.

In the year I�ve owned it, I�ve only carried it out of the house about a half dozen times when the left shoulder strap on the gig bag ripped. A couple weeks ago, I sent an email to customer service and asked what I could do to get a new bag. I was told to cut the stitched logo off the front and send it to the factory with the serial number. I mailed it Friday at lunch to the factory in Maryland. I got this email around lunchtime today:

Shane,

I received the PRS logo from the defective bag, and a new one will be shipped to you today!

Take care and thanks again for your support!

Best Regards,
Jim Cullen
Customer Relations

i run down the aisle...

Song I wish I'd written #142.

in the throes of spring...

The Bradford pear trees are all budding green. Their tiny white blooms have come and gone, floating from the limbs like an early spring snow storm, piling up in small drifts at the end of the drive. The daffodils have bloomed and started to wane. The tulips are starting to show traces of color. They�re only a few days out from full glory. Jennifer planted begonias in the hanging baskets on the front porch last weekend. Small birds have already built quite an elaborate nest in the left one. She filled the planter by the door with a petite spruce and few smaller plants. She also planted pansies in the beds around the mailbox and the maple and spread fresh red-orange cedar mulch around them. Picture. Mat. Frame. Lovely.

She took pictures of the purple "flowers� in the back yard. �They�re pretty,� she pleaded. They�re weeds. Our back yard is more meadow than lawn. The grass has been cut twice now, this time extra short. I spent several hours raking up leaves and dead grass so I could overseed and fertilize the front lawn. Later in the evening, God saw fit to water it all for me with a nice shower. Perfect.

free advice...

If you find yourself in a high speed chase, with the cops and the blue lights and sirens, it might just help not to use your turn signal.

the warning signal...

In 9th grade, every member of the soccer team was programmed to respond, much like the dogs of Pavlov, to a single sound. If we heard anyone, I mean anyone, within earshot blow a tune between their pursed lips, our arms would fold over our chests with lightening speed. That was the rule. Everyone got a warning. And if you didn't heed the warning, if that whistle didn't move you to cover your nipples faster than a CNN reporter in Kuwait City jumping to put on a gas mask at the first whine of the air raid siren, you became the proud owner of a purple nurple. I spent most of that year with my arms crossed.

the little things...

• Any new electronic toy...
  
• Shaving with a new blade...
  
• Spooning with my wife...
  
• Driving on spring nights with the windows down and the sunroof open...
  
• Singing a song that's never been written...
  
• The F major 7 chord on my Lowden...
  
• Sipping warm tea on the porch on an early summer afternoon...
  
• Making a baby smile...
  
• Sunday afternoon naps...
  
• Writing down the clutter in my head...

pictures tell the story...

Saw a picture today that struck me. It was the cover of the News & Observer. A giant color photo of an American soldier carrying an Iraqi child to safety. Saw another piece of video this evening on Fox News Channel. As relief workers were passing out food and water in a southern Iraqi town, the people, so desperate for the basics necessities, were in near riot mode. These are the pictures I wish the world would pay attention to. Not the pictures of dead Marines on Al-Jazeera. Not pictures of tomahawk missiles throwing flames into the night sky over Bagdad. But, somehow, I don�t think that�s the way this is going to play out in the international media.

It was reported in the international news how awful it was that 50 Iraqi civilians were killed in the liberation of the city of Basra by collision forces. Ok... yes. It�s very horrible 50 people died, and I would never diminish that fact. But here�s another fact: there are 1.6 million civilians in Basra. Quick math, folks. That�s 0.00003125% of the population. I�d say we went out of our way to avoid unnecessary casualties. When are we going to get some credit for that? When are we going to get some credit for putting our troops at great risk? How are we being played as the bad guys here? I honestly don't understand it.

I�m not a fan of war. I�m not a fan of death and destruction. But neither am the protesting type. (My favorite, by the way, are the �peace� protestors throwing rocks and maceing NYC cops. Gandhi would be soooo proud.) I�m way too pragmatic. I want to hear all sides of the story. I want to see the choices. For each choice I want to see the possible outcomes and then chose an action. I think we�re doing right. I think we owe it to the people of Iraq.

I�ll leave you with the following. It�s an excerpt from an email I received from a friend of a friend named Susan. Susan is a missionary in Athens, Greece who works in a refugee center. Here is a conversation she had with a young Iraqi mother :

"Why did you leave Iraq?" She looked me straight in the eye, with a 'don't you know anything?' stare and said, "Saddam." I don't know if the look in my eyes expressed disbelief or compassion, but she continued. "He killed the brothers of my husband. Two of them. I think he will take my husband. You don't ask where is my husband. You don't ask where are my children. Where is my brother? You don't ask. This is worst. He killed TWO brothers of my husband. It is Saddam. Many Arabs don't like him. Many want him gone. He is bad." I tried to comfort her (I hadn't learned yet) by asking something or saying something about the safety of her husband now that they were both out of Iraq and she began shaking her head and replied, "No. It is not good. He can get him here."

That was a stunner. I don't know if she's right or wrong, but SHE thinks she's right and that's all that matters to her. She continued, "I think America and Iraq play a game. For 13 years, we wait for ... to be free. Why do they play this game?" I asked, "If Saddam was gone, would you go back?" "Yes, of course. For 13 years, we wait and they play their game. They don't care. In just ONE day, not 2 weeks, not 2 days, ONE day and it will be finished. We would all go home. It is just a game to them, they don't care about us. Why don't America do something? Why don't they free us?"

hayseed nostrums...

Ever seen the movie Hoosiers? I�m not the biggest sports nut in the world, but I�m not sure that there could ever be a better movie to watch in the weeks following march sweeps when all your regular shows are in rerun. Especially when your head is ringing with the interminable pounding of the doldrums.

boozed on the highway...

First time I snuck liquor from my parent's stash was in 10th grade. There are only two good things about being in the 10th grade. 1) You�re no longer considered �freshmeat.� 2) A 16th birthday is right around the corner, along with the little plastic ticket to complete freedom called a �Driver�s license.� One obstacle stands in your way, however. First you must endure the right of passage known as �Driver�s Education.� Oh yes. What could be more fun than spending an hour each day with the assistant football coach, watching cheesy movies made ten years before you were born, driving in slow circles around the school parking lot in a car with two break pedals? And a good time was had by all, right? Oh so very wrong.

Driver�s Ed at Ootlewah High School was 3rd period, just before lunch. At the beginning of the semester, we were grouped in to teams of three. Most days we had to sit around in class with the track coach memorizing road signs and watching filmstrip movies. �When you hear this sound, << ding >>, advance to the next frame.� But then, there were the days you didn�t have to sit around, the days your team got to go out in the car. Every team consisted of three over-eager teenagers. My team only had two. We would get more driving time! I couldn�t be any luckier! Or so I first thought.

First day out was fun. I drove. Slow around the parking lot then out on the county roads. I did much better with my speed once I started reading the speedometer, rather than the tachometer. (What�d I know about tachometers? Mom�s Buick didn�t have a tachometer and I drove that well enough.) The only bad part was having my soccer coach as my co-pilot, which really wouldn�t have been so bad, save he enjoyed using the panic brake on his side of the car.

The problem came in our second trip out in the car. It was my teammate�s turn to drive, and I�m using the word drive very loosely. He was a year younger (making him �freshmeat,� obviously) and sister to one of my classmates. This boy was a basket case. I�ve never see a person inept behind the wheel. He couldn�t keep the car in his lane. Gee, I�ve never seen anyone so incapable of keeping a car between the two white lines on either side of the freaking road! That�s right... two whole lanes and he can�t even keep a car from running off the road! Oh, and the left turn at the stop sign fiasco. When a normal person pulls up to a stop sign at a T intersection, you put on your right hand turn signal (which he forgot to do despite being told twice), you look left to make sure nothing's coming down your lane, you look right and turn into the right hand lane. Easy enough for anyone with an IQ slightly higher than their age. Oh, but not this kid. He looks left. He looks right. He pauses. He looks left. He looks right. He pauses. He looks left. He looks right. He pauses. The soccer coach screams �Today!� He looks left, continues to look left, turns the wheel to the right and pulls directly into the wrong lane, while continuing to look over his LEFT SHOLDER!!!

I spent a full hour, white-knuckle gripping the edge of the back seat, ripping holes in the fabric and praying for an end, any end. �Either stop this car now, or take me home now, God... please!� Driver�s Ed was 3rd period, just before lunch. I didn�t eat that day. I sat with my classmate and we cursed her brother�s driving together in a moment of solidarity. I was still shaking when I got home. There's no real excuse for underage drinking, but being 15 and stupid, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The tropical kool-aid rum drink didn�t help. Duh.

JSTANEON...

TopBottom Five Vanity License Plates Seen This Weekend :

• PLANETX
  
• DK 4EVER
  
• MOUTHDOC
  
• PATTYCAK
  
• GR8DA2DI

the language of love...

My new favorite phrase:

�The only French I speak is kissing.�

long day ramble...

The day started at 6:006:30 this morning. Left the house by 7:15. It�s now 11:50 and we just walked back in the door. I think I�m tired, but I�m too tired to tell.

Which begs the question: �why do I always think of things to write about when there�s no time to write?� All of my really good ideas for songs or poems or kudzu whatevers, come when I�m in the middle of a meeting or driving home in the rain or sitting on the... well... you get the idea. When I sit down to the machine and place my fingers firmly on home row like I learnt back in High School, all the ideas flitter out faster than my fingers can run across asdfjkl;

Ah, typing class. Ninth grade. In many ways, the most useful skill I learned at Ootlewah High School. That and how to lose a girl, how to chase a girl, how to kiss a girl on stage. Maybe you�d like to hear that story, but I�m too tired to tell it right now...

sunrise over baghdad...

Sitting here watching daybreak over the now quiet capital of Iraq. It's quite now. About an hour ago, the sound of a first strike rang through the air. The news reports F-117 dropped bombs, numbering in double digits, on "targets of opportunity," possibly members of the Iraqi leadership. The war starts, earlier than expected. Strike while the iron is hot. Next comes the "shock and awe" campaign. More bombs will fall. Make them deaf and blind. Bomb the radar. Bomb the communications.

I was going to post some war thoughts from Dennis Miller tonight. Something funny, yet poignant. A little wit and wisdom. Now I'm not in that sort of mood. I'm stone sober serious. I'm worried for the Marine that just told his wife on Fox News "Don't worry honey... I'll be coming home." I pray that's true. I pray all the troops make it home. But right now, they've got a job to do. I pray they do it well. I pray they do it quickly.

I also pray for the poor man in Baghdad, trying to explain the explosions to a young daughter. I pray for the young woman clinging to her new husband in anxious fear. I pray for all the conscripts who've hidden white flags in their uniforms, ready to surrender at the first sight of coalition forces cresting the hill in front of him.

Like it or not, we're at war. Believe it's needed or not, we're at war. Believe it's morally right or not, we're at war. And like surgery to replace a weak, defective heart, we will be at war until it is finished. The operation will not end until the new heart is in place, beating steady, and pushing the life blood of freedom along the arteries of hope to every corner of that poor country.

a cracked frame...

Michelle : You're not blond
Me : Uh... I guess not...
Michelle : Sorry
Michelle : I formed this mental image of you being blond and a young 20-something
Michelle : Dunno where that ever came from

I�ve been meeting and chatting with people over computer screens for years now. I�ve had long and in depth conversations on just about every subject under the sun. For each and every user, screen name, and email address, I�ve formed a distinct image of the person on the other end of the line. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how wrong my mental portraits are.

scene of the crime...

Here are a couple of pictures from the show I played last Saturday at Sprout's Cafe in Apex, NC.


Thanks for the pics Rusty....

five things...

• I still haven�t seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding
  
• I only dated five girls and I married the fifth.
  
• I wrote a ten page paper on Frank Herbert�s Dune in college.
  
• I spend more money on music than clothing.
  
• I love the sound of a djembe.

unfinished song fragment...

we took down the picture of Jesus
from our mother's wall
in it's place we've hung
a velvet elvis
in a white suit and sequins
our shinning knight
our new pop god

candid camera on the redline...

It seems that Stacey has been taking cadid photos on the subway again. It also seems I can't keep from making up stories about people I've never met.

boy on a train

the doors sigh and open.
she emerges, drifts onto the platform;
brushes against him in the crowd;
drops a shy smile.
he slides onto a seat
still caught in her perfume;
still fixed on her smile;
still silent, still longing.
one day he will smile back,
ask her name,
offer her a Pepsi.
one day he will.
tomorrow...

withdrawals�

Warning: Vicodin is an addictive narcotic. If you�ve been taking it for more than five days straight, do not stop taking it suddenly. Even if you don�t experience a relapse of the original pain, you�re certain to enjoy cramps, shakes, and a massive headache.

This would have been a helpful sticker to have on the bottle.

two days early...

Picture our young hero: nervous, anxious, excited. Today is not the day he planned, but the anticipation has devoured the last morsel of patience. Today it is. A half step out the door, he turns around, moves to the back room of the apartment in a half jog, dives his hand into a dark corner of the closet. His hand closes around it�s target and moves it quickly into the front left pocket of his jeans. He waves knowingly to his brother as he bounds from their shared apartment, down the flight of stairs and into the car.

The Mongolian grill is only two miles away. Even in late afternoon traffic, our hero covers the distance in a single bound. The body of patrons is thin. He jumps into the line, loads vegetables and raw meats onto a metal tray, covers them in hot sauce, and hands it over to the cook. He serves himself a plate of sweet and sour chicken from the buffet as he waits. The waiting is interminable. He finishes the chicken. His custom grill order arrives. He waits.

She sits across from him in the booth. She�s lovely, radiant, chatty, perfect. She finishes her dinner and retrieves two sugar covered donuts from the buffet. The first one leaves sugar granules on the edges of her red lips. She leans across the table for our hero to remove that sweetness with a kiss. He does so willingly. She takes the time to reapply sugar, like a model rejuvenating her lipstick. She smiles and invites him to remove it again with a kiss.

�We�re being disgusting, you know,� she says coyly.

�I know. Wanna be even more disgusting?� our hero asks, slipping his hand into his pocket unnoticed.

�Sure� she replies, curious about his meaning. He slips from his booth, drops to one knee beside the table and holds out his hand, letting the small diamond solitaire catch the faint light of restaurant. She gasps, nodes, and seizes the ring from his hand, placing it on her finger and her hands around his neck before he can get up from his knee.

The waitress walks by, leaves the check on the table, smiles at our young heroine and whispers �congradrurations� in a sweet broken English.

demos...

Phoebe
Shadow Boxing
Best Laid Plans
Always Remember
Freedom Song / All I Want Is You ( live )

ugly green shirt...

Some ratty old shirt. A tattered blouse. Dirt and oil stained jeans. A frayed, flannel gown. We all have clothes that we love to wear, that define comfort, that we cling to like Linus holds to his blue blanket. These are the clothes we wear when we�re sick, lazy, on vacation. These are the clothes that define us. These are the clothes that our spouses hate, despise, loathe even. And this makes them all the more special.

e-nostalgia.com...

Believe it or not, there was a time before the internet, a time before high speed communications, before we could instantly send photos to the other side of the world. Yes, there was a time before Instant Messages. I remember those days, before the information super highway, when only the true geeks surfed cyberspace, meeting in digital back alleys and at the end of information dirt roads.

Sitting on the couch, knee up on a pillow, wrapped in ice, recovering from surgery, I�ve been enjoying the laptop and the new wireless network. But it�s brought back some grand memories of my first laptop computer and the days of Bulletin Board Systems. During my junior year of college, I purchased a Toshiba 486sx with a monochrome screen with 64 distinct shades of gray and a 14,000bps PCMCIA modem. Sure it sounds funny now, but in �93, it was the bomb.

A fellow student up in the computer lab gave me a copy of a program called Procomm Plus and a list of phone numbers for local BBS�s, including the Neutral Zone BBS, housed in a closet of the computer lab. I wonder if the university ever knew we hijacked one of it�s phone lines? Of course, the guy that put it there is now the IT director of the school. Can you say �irony?� I knew that you could.

Every night, sometimes all night, I would sit on the bed and dial up every BBS in my phonebook. Eventually, as with all addictions, I needed more to satisfy my cravings. I installed a second phone line, purchased a stripped down 386, downloaded the World War IV BBS software, and became a SysOp. It was called �The Ragamuffin BBS.� We laughed, we debated, we had pizza parties at my apartment.

Then came FreeNet. Then there was Zebra.Net. The BBS world crumbled. The Ragamuffin faded into memory and was lost in a pile of old floppy disks stacked up in a box in the back of the closet. The internet became home. The information super highway is my bread and butter. But some nights, I miss the screech of the 14k modem and those long walks down the old cyberspace dirt roads.

grrr...

Welcome to the new site. I spent the last 5 hrs playing around with style sheets and HTML to make sure everyone could read the Kudzu, both PC users and you Mac cultists.

Of course, you can't see the new site, or this message because my web hosting service is hosed. Lovely..

* update *
Well... Looks like it's working this morning...

Drop me a note and let me know what you think...

live from the living room...

Two days into recovery and I�ve managed to make a nice Shane-shaped grove in the mattress of our hide-a-bed. Cabin fever is slowly setting in. Why didn�t I do this last fall? Why did I wait until it was nice outside? I really should be out cleaning up the yard, laying down some grass seed, fertilizer, mulch, flowers. But oh no. I�m laid up in front of the TV, surfing the net, rotting my brain. Joy. On the upside, Jennifer finished knitting her scarf and I started designing a new layout for Kuduz. We�re so exciting...

the friday five...

1. What was the last song you heard?

• �Serve Hymn� by Andrew Peterson on the new Love & Thunder

• Stargate Ultimate DVD
  
• Network

• 3 pairs of Docker�s pants
  
• a new wallet
  
• Vicodin

• fix the alignment issues of this site in mac browsers
  
• put Jennifer�s kite together
  
• be nice to my nurse wife
  
• heal

• Jennifer
  
• Mom
  
• Tracy (one of my nurses)
  
• the nurse who helped me to the car (didn�t catch her name)
  
• some woman telemarketer:

  she: can I speak to the person at home responsible for the phone bill?
  me: yes?
  she: how are you doing today, sir?
  me: I had surgery this morning...
  she: I�m sorry. I hope you feel better soon. [click]

old as you feel...

I�ve said in the past that you know you�re getting old when you no longer feel comfortable talking about your last doctor visit in public. Seems to be holding true thus far. Add to that my new theory that you�re not considered old until you have your first surgery to fix a bum knee. Tomorrow morning, 45 minutes before I normally wake up, I�ll put on a thin gown with a backside breeze, place a check mark on my left knee with a sharpie, and wince in fear as some underpaid nurse with little sleep shaves the long, brown hair from a good portion of my leg. Tomorrow morning, I go under the knife for my second knee surgery. How old does that make me? Sure makes me feel old.

computer downgrading...

There�s nothing quite as annoying as having to set up a new computer. As a contractor, you might think I�d get used to it, moving from client to client as I�ve done, but no... it�s always the same. Never fails to waste about three days (24 project hours) getting everything back to the way you had it on the previous computer. Sometimes, the change in machines is an upgrade: faster CPU, more RAM, DVD drive, etc. Sometimes it�s a step, maybe even a huge step, downward. None of that really matters all that much. No, it�s having to reinstall all your software, change all your colors, settings, move all your windows to where they should sit, change the colors, fix up the screen resolution. Changing homes doesn�t take as long or require as much tediousness. Trust me. As many times as I�ve moved, I should know.

fun with anagrams...

What's in a name?

Shane Blake:

shaken bale
shake ben al
hansel bake
ashen bleak
al bash knee
bash ken ale
he banks ale

Steven Shane Blake:

thankless vane bee
the vane bleakness
kathleen saves ben
see blankets haven
blankets have seen
kenneth saves able
lean knave's behest

taken for granted...

Just sitting here, cross-legged in the floor of the living room. A program about the history of ancient Egypt provides a little white noise. I can hear the laptop�s fan faintly humming beneath my left hand, pushing warm air against the couch pillow that props it up. Jennifer�s head is resting on my leg, eyes closed, curls spilling down over my knee in an auburn waterfall.

I�ve been sitting here too long, now. The hard floor taking it�s toll on my less-than-well-padded butt. My bent knee starts to complain again. It reminds me of it�s date with the knife this Friday. Jennifer is asleep. I know this because she no longer complains that I�m typing instead of rubbing her head. It�s time for bed, but I can�t find anything worth writing about.

steak, potatos, and war...

A friend and former neighbor invited us over for dinner and a game of spades last night. He and his bride won the card game, but they fed us a nice big juicy steak. Fair enough. As the men sank into the fabric and foam surrounding the T.V., the conversation drifted to the impending desert training maneuvers in Iraq. Now, this friend and I are from completely different sides of the political aisle, so the conversation sounded a bit like this:
Why are we going in preemptively? We�re not. This is just a continuation of Desert Storm because he�s never abided by the cease-fire agreement. Why are we going to try to do this alone? We�re not. There are only a handful of governments in Europe aren�t up for this, despite the fact they signed off on UN resolution 1441, and precisely because they�re getting cheap oil from that madman. They�re just going to hate us more if we invade Iraq. They already hate us enough to kill themselves trying to destroy us. How could they hate us any more? They hate us because we try to police the rest of the world. No, they hate us because their evil, baby killing, child rapping, torturous, megalomaniacal leaders tell them we�re Satan�s love child and we revel in their sufferings.

Still, we found ourselves agreeing that it�s time for Hussein to get the proverbial crap kicked out of him. The sooner, the better. And, don�t get me wrong, I don�t enjoy war. I don�t enjoy seeing American Forces in harms way, but neither am I willing to wait until this Hitler wannabe is beating down our front door. I think James Lileks summed up my thoughts better than I can in last Friday�s Bleat:

The world would change if we did nothing; now we seek to shape the change. Better this than letting the change shape us.
And so, God help us, to war.

song fragment...

I've got a desktop view of the Sun
In false-color x-rays
caught in the solar play
I'm enthraled with the excess of God
lost in the wonderment
of the Earth and the firmament

I�ve been starring at the sky too long
call me a dreamer, call me a fool
But when the new moon is rising
I�m just a lunatic

after the long drive home...

1:00 A.M. and I�m tired, dragging, falling through the door. I was 30 minutes late for the gig tonight. I had the wrong start time. 7:30, not 8:00. Our little songwriters group was the opening act tonight. The other band never showed up so we stayed on, jammed a few songs together, entertained ourselves if no one else. Prostituted our art and made an extra $50 for it. Not bad, really . . . before you split it four ways.

Now it�s late. I missed a day of posting. I smell of stale beer and second-hand nicotine. My fret fingers are pulsating from over fretting. I kinda' regret making up that song about Johnny Cash and the bordello, but I don�t regret staying up too late. The bartender was nice. She passed the hat around for us. Did our begging for us. Her name was Michelle. I gave her a small part in the last divvy of tips, wished her well, and left to drive home in the rain.