SwampLog 3.0

The Easy Part

I'm drafting the master list for the "50 Song For 50 Years" list, and with very little effort, I've got 68 songs. The hardest period to pick for? It's not the earlier years of rock, but the latest decade (1994 - 2003). I only have five songs there so far, and it's only by looking and seeing what songs came out in that period that gives me any insight.

Right now, I have 12 songs in 1954-63, 12 in 1964-73, 20 in 1974-83, and 18 in 1984-93. I won't start paring down the list until I know that I'm not leaving anything out. My iPod will help this process dramatically, as I'm dropping each track into the playlist as it gets added to the Master List.

You've asked what I do for a hobby -- this is it. Erika asked if this would add more stress to my life, but honestly, this helps me to get away from the worries of the day and just relax into the task at hand.

Found Art

"My enemy is hopelessness, my ally honest doubt /
The Answer is a Question that I never will find out"

Harry Chapin is one of those 70s artists, like Jim Croce, who will never be remembered by anyone other than purists for much other than their hit single. While "Cat's In The Cradle" is a great song, Chapin had so many others. I was reminded of one, in a great FilmForce article on Douglas Adams, that I had not heard in quite a while.

"There Only Was One Choice" is one of those songs that you hear in your youth, and the imagery is so overpowering that you love the song even though you don't know why.

Listening to it now that a decade has passed, it makes a lot more sense. I wholly recommend you seek the track out -- it's not on the iTunes Music Store, but you can get the album 'Dance Band on the Titanic' from Amazon.com.

Quid Pro Quo

Rolling Stone is marking the Fiftieth Annivesary of Rock this year, noting that Elvis Presley's Sun Studios sessions were in July 1954. Something I've always toyed with was taking the last fifty years to task and making my list of the "Fifty Best Songs of the Last Fifty Years" for the site, and I'll probably start doing it this week.

Here's the guidelines: Ten songs per ten-year period. Wholly objective. You will not have heard of quite a few of them, and I'll try my best to have links to them through the iTunes Music Store. There will also be ample lobbying for your favorite songs, but it will do no good. Make your own damned list.

For me, the toughest decade will be the period from 1984 - 1993. That was when I came of age, and started to work as a DJ. But it will all be tough, since I have to whittle down songs from the Beatles, James Brown, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Journey, Bo Diddley, Van Halen, and so forth.

The list will piss me off. I hope it pisses you off as well.

The first list (1954 - 1963) will be online next Monday.

Curt Shilling

Working tonight, and possibly each Wednesday night, at Buffalo Wild Wings in South Grand Prairie. The store is just east of Great Southwest Parkway on I-20. It's a fairly standard Devin show, so if you happen to be in the proverbial neighborhood, c'mon out.

(Bonus points if you got the headline.)

I Found A Picture Of You

It hit me around 12:30 am on Sunday.

I was working at the Blue Monkey Lounge in City Streets, a multi-format club in Fort Worth's Sundance Square. I've been in the room several times, and have known the DJ, Ray, for over a decade. This, however, was the first time we've worked together in a room -- he's always been in management when I've been working as a jock.

What I found was, while they wanted an MC for the room, they didn't want to change much. My "enthusiasm" for the room led to several occurrences of Ray telling me, "Ease up. It's just Fort Worth. It's a whole lot different from Dallas, and these people don't care about the quality of the show." They may not, but I still do. And it started to make me crazy.

At Rawlings, I ended up in a management position out of necessity. They needed someone to step in as a manager, and I needed to stay employed. In the end, they almost worked me to death, and I still have very little to point to in the way of marketable skills. There was no training to speak of, only pointing me towards a goal and telling me to get there any way I knew how. When I was wrong, I was pounded. When I was right, I was ignored.

When I was a DJ, I was directly in control of the room. Management set 'em up -- by getting the people in the door -- and I knocked 'em out. That kind of control is so absent from the management process, and that sort of feedback only comes second-hand. You have no successes as a manager, since those belong to your subordinates. You have only failures, and part of my stress came from not passing that feeling of failure along, keeping it bottled up.

The bottom line is this: was I just meant to be an entertainer, whether it's as a DJ or MC? Isn't there more that I'm capable of?

I've wanted to try branching out into new career paths, make a better life for myself that didn't include drunken bachlorettes, smoke-filled rooms and 3:00 am Whataburger runs. Get insurance. Start saving for my retirement. Instead, I find myself back in a bar, trying to incite people to have fun in spite of themselves. Yeah, I'm good at it, but it's not nearly as rewarding as it was when I was 25.

Rest assured, I'll go back -- I'm at City Streets Thursday through Saturday nights this week. I'll swallow my pride and keep doing this, because it's "easy money" and I can fake my way through it all.

I'm just tired of faking it. And maybe I'm not only talking about my career.

---

Marty has some news to tell you, and it's not my place to break that news on this site. You need to let him know he needs to dish.

Quick Update

More later, but here are the highlights:

* Didn't get the Blockbuster gig (they put a hiring freeze on)
* Working weekends at City Streets in Fort Worth as a Karaoke Host, but not the DJ
* Gave blood today
* Still have mojo

Bigfoot Sings!

Okay, not really.  But Chance Munsterman, an Amigo in every sense, got the camcorder onto the field and shot the footage you're looking for.  Listen to the audio for the proof of the delay that I refer to.  There's more coming later, natch.

...We Ask That You Please Rise...

I wasn't nervous.

A full day after I sang "The Star Spangled Banner" before the Rangers - A's game, I'm still having a hard time putting the experience into words. Technically, I've performed in front of more people, but the National Anthem is its own unique beast. There's 20,000 people solely focused on what you're singing, and they all know when you screw the pooch.

The whole affair didn't start out smoothly. I was having lunch with Nik in Addison, and left there around 3:45 pm, due in to the ballpark at 6:00 pm. It took me two hours to drive 30 miles, with no fewer than four traffic jams impeding my progress. (As a side note, to any theoreticians who might be reading this, if you could figure out a way to diagnose what starts traffic jams other than wrecks, I guarantee you would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and get the grant you're looking for to cure cancer or invent a true artificial intelligence or the flying car. Get to work.)

I also had to pick up my polo from No Frills Grill, since I was going to wear it while singing (think of it as one subtle middle finger extended to my former employers), change into slacks, and set up all of the tickets at Will Call for the friends and family that were coming in to hear me sing. I finished up with the tickets at 6:07 pm and ran at a dead sprint from one side of the ballpark to the other, frantic that I was late and fearing I had been replaced for the anthem. Turns out I was in luck -- I wasn't going to be "late" until 6:30. The run did me some good, though. The cardio burst helped with my lungs and blood flow, and I felt more "open" when I was warming up.

Before you head out to the field, you wait in the tunnels of the ballpark, in the area where the Rangers hold press conferences directly behind home plate. I was tempted to step up to the same podium where Buck Showalter regales the leering media and announce that I had purchased the contract of Chan Ho Park for a peanut butter sandwich and a bag of bats, but it was frowned upon by Tammie, my babysitter for the event.

With 10 minutes to go, I looked over at Tammie and asked, "Is this where I'm supposed to start getting nervous?" She tilted her head and replied, "You're not nervous? At all?"

I wasn't. At all. Hadn't been throughout the whole affair. Exhilarated and thrilled, sure. But never "nervous." Nervous implies that there's some fear that I won't be able to perform in the way I need to. That was never a concern for me -- I've wanted to do this for ten years, and had been trying to audition for the last five. I was ten minutes from fulfilling a longtime dream, and the voice in my head wasn't about to ruin this for me.

"We can head out to the field now, if you want." Betcher ass, I want.

The tunnel the media takes to get onto the field comes out just to the left of the visitor's dugout. As you get closer, you hear it, sense it. You round one last corner, and there it is. You're standing on the field, and the enormity of it all washes over you. I look into the Rangers dugout and see the players getting ready for the game, adjusting equipment and doing stretches. To most of them, standing on this field has become routine, another facet of the gig. Not me, man. The only way I would stop grinning is if I were unconscious.

I start looking around, where I know my friends and family are. Wave. Bump my heart, a la Sammy Sosa. They all laugh. I'm not calm, but resolved. This is my time, and I'm revelling in it.

Chuck Morgan, the voice of Ameriquest Field (and, for my money, a baseball icon on par with Harry Caray and Bob Sheppard, announces the lineup for the Athletics, and I know I'm next. The blood starts flowing. My eyes get wider, and I still can't stop smiling.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, we ask that you please rise, as Devin Pike honors America with the singing of the National Anthem."

I hold the wireless mic with two fingers and a thumb, so I'm not giving it a death grip, and keep my other hand behind my back to get the posture just right. I fight to keep from closing my eyes, focusing on the batter's eye in center field. And I start singing.

The delay that I have worked so hard to ignore is there in my head, trying to screw me up. First I overcompensate, and in a split-second I know that I'm frelled. I keep going -- if I just hold the long notes a little longer, I can make this work. This works.

Until I listened to the tape this afternoon, I remembered very little about the actual song. The two things I remembered were thinking to myself after the second line, "Damn, I'm loud"; and stealing a glance up at the JumboTRON to see myself 24 feet tall.

Ninety seconds later, I'm done. The stadium is screaming their approval. And that's when the real adrenaline hits.

Rangers Captain, whom I know as Jim Tennison, comes over and gives me a massive bear hug, telling me I was great. The photos of me hugging a large furry mascot will follow me around forever, I fear. I don't care. I'm vibrating, and I float over to Section 18, where many of my friends are congregating. As I head in that direction, everyone's stopping me to congratulate me. A veteran tells me, "That's the way the Anthem is supposed to sound. Well done." A couple claps me on the back and tells me it was "beautiful." I stop for a guy to take a photo of me with him on his mobile phone. It's just this side of overwhelming.

Chance was shooting video, and Woody was snapping a whole lot of stills, and I'll have this all online tomorrow.

A Sizeable Chunk

After the Rangers got stomped by Toronto Saturday night, Woody and I went to Lizard Lounge. He was shooting the "Miniskirt Madness" contest for the club, and I didn't want to come home and finish the massive quantity of laundry I had.

Trick was, I was still in "Hank's Homies" regalia, since the boys were being named Fans of the Year for 2004. Ryan, D.J. and Chris threw out the first pitch, and it was a good time to be a Homey. So, I went to a trendy nightclub in a Rangers jersey, a straw cowboy hat and eye black.

I usually don't feel too self-conscious about going anywhere. I try to dress appropriately for the occasion, and generally look like I belong wherever I go. Last night, though I was clearly not an early-20something trendy club kid, I walked around like I owned the place.

At one time, I did. Lizard Lounge was one of my favorite clubs to go to in my 20s, when I was deep into the DJ culture that was prevalent around Dallas. I knew the staff, waltzed around through the DJ booth, and reveled in my youth. Of course, it didn't feel like my youth then. Funny how that defining line shifts around on you without you noticing.

Fast-forward a decade later, and I'm on the balcony overlooking the dance floor with a sore knee, watching the beautiful girls shimmy along to some great techno and trance (DJ Johnny Funk is a master of his craft, and that says a lot -- I generally hate techno spinners because they're not very imaginative). I should have gone down and danced, but instead I stayed upstairs, because I didn't want to be the "old man in the club" that Chris Rock warned us all about.

I'm fine with getting older. Hell, after all of the drama, there are people who think I'm lucky to be alive. I want to "age gracefully," but coming to terms with the person I am now isn't proving easy. In all of the ways I've changed since 1993, a sizeable chunk of the person I am is composed of that same cocky DJ.

Gimme Shelter

Apparently, the majority of my friends were just waiting for me to get fed up at Rawlings and leave, or get fired. The reaction I've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive, to which I'm really grateful.

The last two days have been busy, if for no other reason than I'm trying to get all of the stuff done that I've neglected over the last five months. I'm doing all of my laundry this weekend while Marty's down in Costa Rica. All of my bills are paid through the end of the month, and I should be in decent shape if the job I'm vying for isn't in place quickly.

I'm also enjoying the time off. While I've been busy, it's been busy at my pace, not the pace of management.

Look. I knew going in to the gig that it was going to be stressful, and it would be longer hours. It's not as if I was thinking the job would be a walk in the park, doing paperwork and handing out checks. The X factor in the whole thing was the treatment I received by the upper management and ownership of the restaurant. When I was in the dog house, which was often, the treatment I received was very rarely justified and wholly unprofessional. When I wasn't on their radar, I was often left out of the loop and isolated.

I will miss the crew there, and will miss driving in to work and looking at the ballpark every day. That part of the gig never got old. But I'll also enjoy sleeping more than four hours a day. I'll enjoy not getting screamed at for something I didn't do on a regular basis. And I'll enjoy getting appreciated for my work. That'll be nice for a change.