Rock-tober 31, 2023

My first Jimmy Buffett concert was at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in April of '95 during his Fruitcakes tour. I could only afford nosebleed, but even from the cheap seats it was a fantastic show. He definitely knew his audience because he ended with encores of "Biloxi" and "Pascagoula Run". I can guarantee I was whoopin' and hollerin' just as loud as any of the cats in the front row.

My second Buffett concert was in August of '97 at Merriweather Post Pavilion just a few miles up the road from where I'm typing this. I was with Andrea for this one, and at the time we'd barely been married three months. As I saw it, this was almost like Buffett was serenading us during an extension of our wedding reception. By this time, I could tell I was a bit older because I found myself annoyed with the youngsters traipsing through our space who were unable to hold their liquor.

I could swear I've also seen Buffett a 3rd time, but Andrea assures me that if I did, she wasn't with me. Maybe the blanks in my memory showed I finally got Parrot-Heading at a concert right.

Buffett was born in Pascagoula, so as a Mississippi Coastie, I take pride in being able to call him one of our native sons. His family then moved on to Mobile, Alabama, and after he struck out on his own, he eventually wound up in Key West. In the most tangential of ways, my migration mirrored his as I, too, started out on the Mississippi coast and eventually wound up in Mobile. Andrea and I finally touched down in Key West for the first time in 2017, but according to Mom, we almost moved there as a family because Dad was given the option of doing a tour of duty at NAS Key West.

Heck, Buffett even spent a year at my Alma Mater, the University of Alabama - Auburn. 

If I inventoried my now antiquated CD collection, I suspect the largest sector is occupied by Buffett. My first Buffett CD was Songs You Know by Heart, kind of a "Best Of" album, that I got in one of those Columbia House "10 albums for a penny" promotions. It's a good thing I bought this on CD. If it was a cassette, I know with certainty I'd have worn it out.

With that one album, I was hooked. While I had friends who praised U2 for their charity work and as spokespersons for the human condition, Nirvana for being the voice of youth disenfranchisement, and Metallica for just being hardcore and loud, I was grooving on the professional beach bum vibe exuded by Buffett.

My collection of Buffett albums grew. Off to See the Lizard, Barometer Soup, his massive compendium, Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads, and his one and only number 1 album, License to Chill, were picked up at different times and each had songs that resonated with me at those points in my life.

"A Pirate Looks at 40" and "Take Another Road" had me taking stock of my life to date. The obvious connection is to Frost's The Road Not Taken. Past choices and paths taken define our current situation. Despite regrets that everyone has, I'm good with where I've found myself.  

"Bama Breeze" is pure, wistful nostalgia for places I've been, things I've seen, and people I've known, some of which and some of whom are no longer with us.

"Son of a Son of a Sailor" and "Boats to Build" remind me I still have dreams and goals to achieve, and distant shores to see.

"Southern Cross" on the surface is a breakup song. But the references to the Southern Cross give it a deeper meaning. This particular constellation can only be seen from the southern hemisphere. Like its counterpart in the northern hemisphere, Polaris, it's a navigational beacon, a guide. It's a reminder if you're seeking clarity and direction, it may be achieved by viewing your position from a different perspective.

Of all Buffett tunes in continuous rotation on my playlists, "La Vie Dansante" just makes me happy. Despite disappointments and setbacks,

They can come take it all away

Break your heart by the light of day

Drown your love in a distant bay so lonely

The song remains hopeful.

There's a light shatters all the locks and saves me

And it reminds us,

Every stop is a place to start

If you know how to play the part with feeling

Losing Jimmy Buffett was a hard loss for me, but I can't view his death with sorrow. Rather than his absence, I'll focus on what we still have. Jimmy may no longer be with us, but his music remains and continues to speak. Every stop can be a place to start; every end is a chance at a new beginning if you can clarify and change your perspective.

Find your Southern Cross, your Polaris.

Rock-tober out.

Jimmy Buffett - "La Vie Dansante"

Rock-tober 30, 2023

When Andrea and I were first married, one of the earliest and biggest cultural divides we had to contend with was the starch that would be served with a meal.

For one of our first major holidays as husband and wife, Andrea prepared a legit feast. I surveyed the spread, taking in the sight and smell of the roast, casseroles, and various sides, and asked nonchalantly, "Where's the rice?"

She stepped back and regarded me with the now well-known raised eyebrow side glance. With a gloriously sarcastic flourish of her hands, one by one, she pointed out the garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yeast rolls like one of Bob Barker's ladies presenting a showcase. Knowing the effort she put into the meal, I deemed it unwise to mention, "Yeah, but there's no rice."

In Filipino culture, the staple starch is, of course, rice. It's what makes the meal. It doesn't matter if you belly up to a 3X super-sized combo with dessert and bottomless drink refills. If it doesn't come with rice, it's not a meal, it's a snack.

This disconnect surprised me since Southern cuisine is replete with rice-based dishes: gumbo, jambalaya, Cajun dirty rice, and the OG southern rice dish, red beans and rice. Part of the problem, apparently, was the difficulty in getting a good, consistent pot of rice. Over the years, I've talked with many a southern cook who likened crafting a batch of tender fluffy rice to invoking a swamp land voodoo incantation. To me, that was a headscratcher, because cooking rice for family meals became part of my chores when I was barely out of kindergarten. The not-so-closely-held secret in the Filipino community was an automatic rice cooker.

A standard stovetop recipe for rice involves waiting for water to boil, adding the rice, taking it off the heat, letting it steam undisturbed, and finally fluffing with a fork. By contrast, with a rice cooker, you toss rice and water into the cooker, turn it on, and wait for it to ding, signaling your rice is ready. This implement is so basic in the Filipino kitchen, that when I left home for college, Mom and Dad kitted me out with a phone card, a credit card, and a rice cooker.

"But, Wayne, the Alton Brown school of thought says uni-taskers in the kitchen are bad."

But they're not just for rice. I've seen them turn out soups and light stews as well. Listen, if at least one weekly meal involves rice, do yourself a favor and get an automatic rice cooker. While a high-end Zojirushi can set you back over $500 dollars, a basic model will cost less than a tenth of that.

With the method of cooking now addressed, another problem is the kind of rice. Admittedly, this can be overwhelming. The two types you'll come across are brown and white. However, within both of those, you'll find short, medium, and long grain. A rule of thumb is, the shorter the grain, the stickier the rice. Any medium-grain rice, white or brown, will cover 90% of all recipes. The one type of rice to stay away from would have the portrait of a kindly, black gentleman on the box.

In the days after Dad's funeral, Andrea and I stopped by my old church to thank the pastor for officiating and the staff for the flowers they'd sent. As we were leaving, I mentioned to Andrea our next stop was the grocery store because, with family in town, we were short on supplies, including rice. Someone in that church office had their ears perked up because a few hours later, they dropped by the house with a box of Uncle Ben's.

I was touched. They heard we had a need and stepped in. It was a gracious act, and kind of adorable. I told Andrea it was like a little kid walking into a jewelry store with a bag of pennies expecting it would be enough to buy a gold necklace for his mom.

These days, I have no issues with meals without rice - especially if the starch du jour is Andrea's garlic mashed potatoes. For her part, Andrea can kick off a batch of fluffy goodness in the rice cooker like a native of Baguio City.

Not surprisingly, there's a huge scarcity of classic rock songs that focus on the most consumed staple in the world. There's this gem, but I prefer CCR and their cover of this pre-first-generation rock classic with a fantastic rice-centric menu.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - "Jambalaya"

Rock-tober 29, 2023

In June of '87, I was with a passel of friends somewhere in the Florida panhandle where we were celebrating our recent graduation from Long Beach High. A parting of the ways was fast approaching for the group, and we were looking for a few more final hurrahs.

The crew had been basking in the surf and sand for a week, and with funds running low, this was going to be one of our last nights in town. All of us piled into rides and started cruising the local strip looking for anything exciting to pop up.

Someone signaled to pull into one of the Alvin's Island tourist emporiums that dotted the boardwalk and strip, and we all converged in the parking lot. I took advantage of the stop and picked up a souvenir T-shirt and some guava jelly.

Taking my kitsch to the lone register, I saw the guys had all gathered around the only employee in the place. She had long, dark hair, surprisingly fair skin for living in the sun belt, and wore jeans, a polo, and a linen jacket rolled up to her elbows. She was actually kind of cute, and all the guys swarming around her made it look like she was holding court.

Obviously accustomed to the attention of the male tourists of the species, she was at ease verbally sparring with members of our crew. It took a turn when one of them asked if she wanted to join us at a club down the road.

"Depends. What are you driving?" Most responded they were in jeeps and trucks. Learning this, she smiled. "Ah! You're a bunch of 'boggy boys'". We had no idea what she meant so she decided to school us in the vernacular. "You know, those guys that never grew up and keep playing in the mud." Her derisive laugh left no room for misinterpretation. We'd all just been insulted.

Dissing a guy's ride, in particular his first one, is almost guaranteed to tweak him off. Wanting to be rid of her continuing barbs and vacate the scene quickly, Mike and Chris, who were riding shotgun and passenger with me, were paying for their stuff. As she rang Chris up, she tried to get in one last dig. "I suppose you've got a big ol' truck, too?" Chris nodded.

"I do. But he's our ride," and he nodded towards me.

"Yeah. I'm the yellow Mustang out in the lot." This seemed to stifle her jabs momentarily, once again showing the 'Stang had more game than me.

We were all headed for the exit and almost out the door when one of us realized we hadn't asked the obvious question. Turning back towards her, he asked, "So...what do you drive?" She was immediately evasive and hedged.

"Well, it's just temporary for now." That stopped us in our tracks. Sensing a counteroffensive in the "Dis My Ride" conflict we all paused and turned. Under more direct questioning, she relented. "It's a Yugo, OK? I drive a Yugo."

Everyone was immediately doubled over in laughter. Recovering, we waved goodbye to our one-time antagonizer, piled into our convoy of jeeps, trucks, and a lone 1970 Mustang, and headed for a nightclub down the road. Again, as funds were low, gaining entry was a problem. Mike solved this with a stroke of genius, detailed in the now classic missive, Rock-tober 07, 2015.

Once through the club doors, the rock and roll stars aligned themselves perfectly for me as I heard staccato piano chords announcing the start of a favorite Bob Seger tune. As the song played over the din of the crowd, I was smiling ear to ear, letting the moment wash over me. We all joined some of the ladies from our class already on the dance floor and kicked off a memorable last hurrah.

Bob Seger - "Old Time Rock & Roll"

Rock-tober 28, 2023

It was the summer of '76, and Dad and I were at the cafeteria at the Navy Base Exchange talking over a couple of Cokes. With his deployment schedule, Dad was gone for half the year, and these moments alone with him were a rare treat. We were talking about the Bicentennial and the celebratory atmosphere that was sweeping over the entire country. Six-year-old me didn't understand the concept.

"Well, in a few weeks, the country is having a birthday party." Dad had my attention. I liked birthday parties. "And this is a special one because America will be 200 years old." His face scrunched up to accentuate the age bit.

"Whoa. That's really old." He laughed at that.

"Yeah, son, I guess for people it is."

It was late May in South Mississippi. School was almost out. Dad was home from deployment. And I was living my best life as he and I went fishing every weekend.

Our favorite places were "The Rocks" in Long Beach and the concrete breakwater in Pass Christian Harbor. Once, after we were done for the day out in Pass Christian, we made our way off the structure. I was looking forward to the cold can of Nestle Iced Tea that we both always got at the convenience store up the lane when I looked down and saw my shoelace untied.

Dad was hauling the bucket with our catch, and I was responsible for our tackle box and my own rod. I set these down on the walkway to deal with my shoe, but as I finished, I nudged my rod the wrong way. I wasn't fast enough, and I watched it fall in slow motion into the water 11 feet below.

I must have yelled out because Dad turned and saw me lying on the concrete grasping over the edge towards the water. He took in the scene and ran to me. I was bawling. "Wayne, it's OK. It's just a fishing rod."

But I was inconsolable. Six-year-old me couldn't articulate what was going through my head. Yes, it was just a rod, but it was my fishing rod. Dad bought it for me, and in every memory I had of going fishing with him, I was using it. And when you don't see your dad for half the year, anything associated with a memory of him becomes inordinately more precious.

Dad looked down at his kid holding his head in his hands. Maybe, even though I didn't say a word, he sensed what I was thinking. He stood and told me to stay put in that exact spot. With that, he walked to the head of the breakwater, picked his way through the boulders down to the water, and jumped in.

I was not expecting that. He swam to the point where I was on the structure, looked up at me, smiled, and dove down. When he came up, though, the smile was gone. He dove down several more times but ultimately couldn't retrieve my rod.

When we got home, Mom saw Dad and almost shrieked. That snapped me out of my own fog, and I turned and saw what Dad's efforts cost him. Because of wave action or the wakes of boats leaving the marina, Dad was repeatedly pushed against the barnacle-encrusted concrete pilings of the breakwater. He had deep gashes all over his torso. The immense sadness I'd felt prior was now coupled with immense guilt. And I started sobbing again.

The next day was one of the last days of first grade. What should have been a happy carefree time was anything but because of yesterday's events. I got home and walked through the front door. "Hey, Wayne!" I turned and saw Dad sitting on the couch, wiping down a fishing rod. 

Not a new one, but my rod. The same one he'd bought me when we were stationed in Maryland. The one we'd taken on all our outings. The one I'd associated with many of my fondest memories to that point.

"What? How?"

Smiling, he said he'd picked up a small grappling hook and a length of line at the Exchange and headed back to the breakwater. He'd spent the morning tossing the hook attempting to snag my fishing rod. He succeeded and was just now reassembling my reel after he'd cleaned and oiled it.

I just looked at him. Right then, I decided my dad could do absolutely anything in the world.

Cat Stevens - "Father & Son"

Rock-tober 27, 2023

I've previously written about how pure logic can be stymied by the real world because the real world isn't binary, black and white. There are countless shades of gray, and it's in the "gray" where the magic of imagination pops up.

In a rare bit of self-introspection, I believe DiSC type C personalities like myself don't like to color outside the lines. Because of this, there's difficulty bridging the gap between a known quantity and the next great thing. This is a leap that absolutely demands imaginative ways to push past obvious or existing boundaries, and perhaps my type C cohorts and I are too logical.

If Steve Jobs had been a type C, we might have wound up with incremental improvements on a first-generation Nokia, but we never would have wound up with the iPhone and its many iterations.

A professor once challenged his class to present a logical argument to prove there is life after death. Someone submitted the following.

After death there is mourning.

After morning comes the dawn.

After dawn comes the night.

Beyond the knight is the bishop.

Past the bishop is the Pope.

The Pope has grave convictions.

After a grave conviction, you get life.

Taken as a whole, they're a series of non-sequiturs, but each statement is logically correct on its own. It wouldn't stand up in a religion or philosophy class, but it imaginatively fulfilled the requirements of the assignment.  

My high school English teacher, Mr. Ladner, spent a lot of time on classic English literature. One of his exam questions was, "What is a sark?" The answer was a long, flowing shirt worn in Chaucer's England. However, one of his former students didn't know this snippet of information. But it didn't stop him from answering.

"A sark is a fis that eats sips." This was accompanied by a drawing of a "shark" eating a "ship". Appreciating the ability to think outside the box, Mr. Ladner granted full credit.

As a hard-core Type C, I doubt these particular responses to these questions would have occurred to me. They're not obvious or logical.

People who are able to think on this non-conformist plane can annoy me as I picture them to be touchy-feely extroverts. Additionally, they make me envious of their ability to see the unobvious and make leaps of artistry or logic. But they also have my respect. Without them, the world wouldn't have all the glorious nuances between the starkness of black and white.

They've managed to retain some of the childhood spark of imagination we're all born with but most of us have allowed to be educated or conformed out of us. 

Images fill my newsfeed with the creativity of friends who refused to surrender this spark. Capturing visions of the mind's eye in a photograph or swath of canvas, the lyrical beauty of the human voice, maybe the more primal media of wood and steel, the ability to create something from nothing is a great gift - for us as well as the wielder. 

I'm reminded of a meme that stated "Tetris is a great life lesson. When you fit in, you disappear." Stay illogical, my friends.

Supertramp - "The Logical Song"

Rock-tober 26, 2023

I've found that in their absence, we really miss certain restaurants. We have a good friend, Julie, who's a big fan of Sonic. In our travels, it was a thing for both of us to report Sonic sightings and post a selfie with a large Slush on social media. A classmate of mine who watched this exchange didn't understand the fixation.

"But...it's just a Sonic."

"Yeah, but you have them all around you. I'd have to drive 100 miles to get a Blue Coconut Slush!"

"Ah. I guess it's the same way I feel about Popeye's" I felt genuinely bad for her. The Lonestar State may have many things, but it ain't got a Popeye's in West Texas.

On a side note, Julie is also a fan of Waffle House, similarly posting sitings and visits on her news feed. Because of her embracing of this exemplar of Southern fare, I requested honorary Southern citizenship be bestowed on this native New Yorker. She'll be pleased with the privileges the office affords which includes the license to use, "Awww, bless your heart."

Whenever Andrea and I roll through Auburn, there are two must-hit restaurants. One is  Niffer's, the site of our first date. The other is a chicken finger house named Guthrie's. I can't explain the obsession because Guthrie's basic offering is simply battered and fried chicken tenders, a slice of Texas toast, and coleslaw. Maybe they lace the dipping sauce with addictive mojo seasoning. Whatever the case, Guthrie's chicken fingers rank high on our list of comfort foods.

There are 49 locations with the largest cluster around Auburn, Alabama. One of the furthest outposts from Tiger Town ground zero is tucked away in the far northwest corner of Georgia. When Andrea and I discovered this, we detoured just to hit the secret sauce one more time before returning to the barrenness of the Mid-Atlantic.

I've had in-depth conversations with two classmates, Ken and Brad, about the virtue of Guthrie's and the woeful absence of the chicken finger house this far north. Brad spent years in Mobile and we went back and forth as he championed the local favorite, Foosackly's. Ken then gave me actionable intel.

"Have you checked out Royal Farms? You know they've got chicken fingers, right?" 

Holy Hannah. I did not.

Royal Farms is a Baltimore headquartered version of 7-11, and they are everywhere in these parts. I was very hopeful as I got my first batch, but they were just OK. It was like having etouffee made from a recipe from the New York Times - passable, but not the genuine article.

I'd resigned myself to not getting the real deal unless we were way south of the Mason-Dixon.

One day my news feed, usually stocked with dire tidings of wars, rising interest rates, and government shutdowns, delivered some unexpectedly delectable news. A Raising Cane's franchise was opening 20 minutes away.

Raising Cane's is far and away not Guthrie's. However, beggars can't be choosers, and Cane's did base itself on the original Guthrie's in Haleyville, Alabama. More importantly, in our chicken house meanderings, Andrea and I rated Cane's above Zaxby's (too salty) and Foosackley's (sorry, Brad).

I watched the calendar, gleefully ticking off days until the opening like a crazy Southern Advent calendar.

When the glorious day arrived, we giddily drove over. But as we pulled up, we were utterly flabbergasted. The parking lot was overflowing. A solid line of cars wrapped around the restaurant twice and overflowed onto the street. A cop was present to direct traffic because the serpentine line of cars full of people jonesing for the good stuff continued to spill out onto the main highway.

As a southern ex-pat living far from the southland, I assumed this low-brow cuisine would fly under people's radar this far north. But as I beheld this unexpected throng of people queueing for some southern goodness, I experienced a weird mixture of pride and annoyance - kinda like seeing a bunch of northern license plates down at Gulf Shores.

Now if only a Krispy Kreme would open nearby.

Nazareth - "Kentucky Fried Blues"

Rock-tober 25, 2023

Once on a prior job, I walked into the facility's break room. The TV was tuned to a random news channel and the entire room was empty save for one guy. We were on friendly terms, so I approached his table and noticed he was spooning Metamucil into a glass of water. I was feeling snarky this particular day and was putting a lot of trust in our cordiality. As he acknowledged me with a nod, I pointed to the congealing mixture in the glass and asked this gun-toting Fed, "Problems?"

He laughed it off, "Nope. Doctor's orders. This stuff's supposed to be good at lowering cholesterol."

I was intrigued. With enough relatives and in-laws involved in the medical field, I was curious about the mechanism. The corporate website outlined the benefits of their product, citing various government studies and private papers.

As I started rabbit-holing down all the links of the supporting sites, I noticed something. If I delved deep enough, they all started citing each other, like a crazy self-supporting Escher latticework. Where was the one primal source of truth? It was as if all a premise needed was enough hyperlinks to other sites making the same statement to be deemed true.

I once saw a blurb about a college journalism professor who admonished his class.

"If one source tells you it's raining and another source tells you it's sunny, your job isn't to print them both. Your job is to open the f*ckin' window to see who's lying."

The Internet makes the retrieval of information from mankind's repository of knowledge jaw-droppingly easy, but it's also a potent vector of half-truths and full obfuscations. Finding the truth isn't always as easy as "opening the f*ckin' window".

My five decades of trodding this sod have taught me two things about searching for truth. Don't give up and don't be dogmatic. Mulder was always right, "The truth is out there." And when you find it, you may be surprised if it doesn't align with your worldview. Allow yourself the courtesy of growing into this discovery. Hardcore dogmatism can be truth's bitter enemy.

I think C.S. Lewis's dwarves were more cantankerous than Tolkien's. In Lewis's The Last Battle, a feast was laid out before a group of dwarves. Unfortunately, their jaded worldview prevented them from seeing the obvious truth literally in front of their faces. While the rest of the party beheld a scrumptious feast, all the dwarves allowed themselves to see was pig slop.

A wise doctor once offered an apt description. "They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views."

Richard Ashcroft - Are You Ready?