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Crow's Column

Shameless plug for a long time reader of this column:
Check out www.domshakal.blogspot.com
I don't agree about the bananafish, I think it's a pedophile story, but don't let me bias you, check out the blog.

It's a New Year with an all new lifestyle management plan. The winter has been harsh this month, but I've been happy. I don't really know why, I'm working overtime to find two pennies to rub together, but mostly life's been good.

I've been all around the state traveling and such for work and pleasure so this month's song is all about the open road (and drugs and sorrow and cheating so you know it's country). I heard this song for the first time on Sirius which makes it extra fitting for the month since I heard the death knell of Satellite radio sound earlier in the month. The Song is by my favorite songwriter of all time Townes Van Zandt, now that's Texas! It goes somethin like this here:

Bad news from Houston, half my friends are diein
White freight liner won't you steal away my mind
Lord I'm gonna ramble 'til I get back where I came
White Freight liner gonna haul away my brain
I'm going out on the highway, listen to them big trucks whine
White freight liner won't you steal away my mind.

Just a couple nights ago I was riding back from New York City, the big apple. Normally this trip would take five hours and I wouldn't have much to say about it except that upstate New York is truly beautiful and the road side diners are full of nice folks that are truly more like southerners than east coast Yankees, but this time the trip took 10 hours.

The snow was coming down hard and the lines in the road were gone, but the ditches were still there. Seven of us were in a rented Nissan Pathfinder and I think this "3 hour tour" would make a good pilot episode for a new sitcom.

Consider the cast: A middle aged prosecuting attorney with an overactive appreciation for breasts, a law degree, and a rebel attitude. The older business owner, overly generous, quiet and reserved, but really the uniting element of everyone else. A LARPing Vampire player with the ability to keep everyone engaged in the conversation and to prevent them from sleeping along with his hot european artist wife that once worked for the Polish Playboy icing girls' nipples among other duties. The obligatory young open-minded college coed. The jack-of-all-trades not-quite-over-hill, but not quite hip working class fella. And finally the modest ex-military star-crazed woman who's not giving anything away, but everyone is thinking about it just the same. Now where is Hollywood?

We're not friends, we're just stuck on the road going home; hoping to get there in one piece and trying to keep between those ditches. Seriously a lot went on in that car and I wish I had my digital recorder running, but alas, I'll have to look back fondly now and hope it never happens again.

February is short month so I took an extra 12 days to post. I think I'll keep posting towards the end of the month from now on. Maybe next month I'll be pissed off about something. Until then you all keep it between the ditches and listen to Sirius while you still have the chance. This article is a little out of date, but still I agree with most his points: http://www.orbitcast.com/archives/sirius-xm-merger-enough-already.html

Crow