Tuesday morning. Time slows. The world waits
OK yeah, so I left my iPod at home this morning and am thus sans tunes. My work PC is not geared towards me listening to anything AND continuing to function for work related tasks at the same time. So today I get to listen to the lovely clacking murmur of the office. I’m not old, but I’m no longer young but please, please, please never let me become like the rest women in my office. Consumed with smoke breaks (followed by hack attacks that have me nearly lunging for the defibrillator) and phone calls from irrationally needy children and grandchildren. They wheeze their way through the morning, complaining about how their computers aren’t working (that you obliviously have 14 versions of the same application running might be a concern) and the old system (IBM circa 1986?) was so much better and the air quality in the office suites is killing them (no, that would be Marlboro my dear).
2.5 more days of this then I’m off to the Big Easy. I haven’t been there since 1999 so I’m really looking forward to it…and in some ways I’m expecting to be a little surprised by things that have changed in nearly ten years and after Katrina. Hell, look at how much I’ve changed in ten years. I’ve no doubt that I will have a blast though. C’mon, it’s New Orleans.
I wish I had brought my left over hummus for lunch but alas, it’s a can of Progresso soup. Better than nothing though and better FOR ME than a lot of things. Tonight is a gym night and hopefully I can get some laundry done afterwards. I’m just feeling beat down tired at the moment, even with caffeine thrumming through my veins. Annie is mournful lately that she hasn’t had a walk in a few days but it’s been gloomy, damp, cold and raining on and off since Thursday of last week. I don’t even want to think about how unhappy and confused she’s going to be when we bring her to be boarded. Poor Annie-Fanny.
Yesterday’s blues are kind of just hanging about there but at least now I know I know it’s mostly hormones. For you guys out there, just an FYI and maybe a TMI…ovulation…the act of an egg bursting out of an ovary to trek on down the fallopian tube for potential baby making (Not. A Fucking. Chance.) can hurt like a bitch and then can make the sufferer of fertility somewhat sore for the next day. I’m sure the hormone stew that has been simmering up to and during this event is just insane. Meh, at least it’s over.
I watched a series of YouTube clips last night, which pretty much encompassed an episode of Tom Green’s Internet call-in/talk show when Henry Rollins was his guest. I think it was about a year old, but hey, it was new on YouTube. As usual, HR was polite and well spoken. He looked mostly comfortable (which he sometimes doesn’t in interview situations) and had lots of great stuff to say. Unfortunately I thought Tom Green was a little bit of a jerk (surprise, surprise, surprise) and, maybe not belittled Henry’s experiences and travels…but kind of tried to steer him away from politics and general intelligent conversations about books, authors, literature, valid points about music and “the industry” and more towards lighter topics with more potential for Tom’s style of humor, and quite probably the humor of any fans that were listening at the time. I think in trying to manage the conversation that way, Tom stepped on Henry a bunch of times (rude) and then did some really lame segue that just made for a slightly startled HR, uncomfortable pauses and forced niceties for a moment while they both changed tracks. I think the time that HR allotted to being on Tom Green’s show could have been spent more productively elsewhere.
Then again it’s possible that having a conversation with Henry in a media format is difficult because his work is mostly a one way conversation with his audience…be they listening to his music, reading his books or at a spoken word show, it’s all one way. On talk shows and interviews it’s still more of a “Here’s a topic Hank. Here’s what we think. You have 3.5 minutes until our commercial break. Ready? Go!” and less of a comfortable back and forth conversation. I’m not complaining, he can sermonize from the mount for the rest of his days for all I care. I just think that if someone is actually going to try to engage the man in a back and forth conversation, they should be a little better at it than Tom Green. Though my media saturated mind tends to be spolied by "leet skillz" of people like Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer or Matt Lauer. (though the day Henry Rollins sits down with Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters…wow I am so frigging there)
Hell, even I’d be better at it.. Well, at least more prepared to do my homework and ask something new that he hasn’t been asked about TEN MILLION times before. AND AND AND...still tie it in to listeners/readers who aren’t as familiar with him, listen, interject appropriately and moderate from topic to topic once I got over my panic about being able to interview someone I admire and not wanting to sound like an ass.