New-Years-Policy?

I'm interested to hear if anyone has made any New Years Policies. Gohead and post them hear if you have any.......

Where I'm Calling From

Reading another Carver book. Is there anyone more real than Raymond Carver?
Who else would insert the line:

"She worked Wednesdays through Sundays."

on its own in between two paragraphs? No one, that's who.

Policy VS. Resolution

I dislike New Years resolutions. I've never made one in my life. Besides disliking the fact that they are temporary and are rarely kept, I dislike the word resolve because it is awkward-sounding to say and it started becoming popularized and excessively used in noun form (as in: I admire your resolve) by President Bush (and then the common American vinacular) soon after 9/11. But I digress.

I wanted to share with my readers some success I've been having recently with what I call "policies". I've been setting policies for myself regarding what I will and won't do in social situations. Most are won't-dos, but that's OK. It prevents me from being roped into doing something I dislike and it prevents me from feeling bad and coming up with lame excuses. Policies also prevent pretentiousness and create honesty and people like that. Policies are much more permanent than resolutions and are more about protocol, rather than will-power.

Here's a couple for instances:
- When someone says a word and I don't know what it means, I stop them and simply say, "I don't know what that word means." rather than pretending I do know what it means.

- I won't listen to "jam bands" or try to like them for someone who tries to get me to listen to My Morning Jacket or Phish or Dave Matthews or Greatful Dead. I don't listen to jam bands and I skip over the articles about them in magazines.

I have a handful of solid policies that help me navigate my social world and I'm creating more. Want to make a policy of your own? Here are some places to start:
* food
* borrowing/lending
* sharing opinions
* products you won't buy
* fashion
* vocabulary
* social norms

Remember, resolutions might be just for January, but a policy can be instated/amended at any time!

How embarassingly fanboyish I am!

Gob Iron (above) Jay Farrar (below)

Oh man. I went last night to see my rock idol, Jay Farrar (of Son Volt fame) play a solo set and then play with his side project Gob Iron (Brit slang for harmonica) at Slim's. Brilliant.

First of all, I've gotta say Hans and I had sucky luck at first- finding the place was difficult and then I thought I lost my wallet, but I didn't. Then the girl in front of me at the box office turned around and gave me a free ticket and said she won 2 tickets online and didn't need the other one. FREE. My luck had changed.

Jay played 4 or 5 songs from the upcoming (can't wait!) Son Volt album just on the acoustic guitar. Man, the lyrics are so visual and uniquely American and tragic and my brain was teleported to a far off place in my inner mind! Even with just those stripped down skeletal songs, Hans, who is not a Farrar fan, seemed affected by them. Either Hans was bored or blown away because his jaw had dropped.

That would've been good enough by itself, but guitarist/lapsteelist Mark Spencer came out and backed Jay up with a telecaster and it was just amazing. I'm not sure I've seen that many virtuosic performances of that level up close and personal. Spencer was out of this world and at times, it didn't even sound like a guitar. If I had a choice between some first-chair violinist slinging a Stradivarius and Mark Spencer, I'd choose Mark Spencer. Heck, I'd choose Spencer with his hands tied behind his back, he sounds so amazing. And you would too!

Gob Iron is a side project of Jay Farrar and Anders Parker (of Varnaline fame). They have reworked traditional folk songs with altered lyrics/melodies on their new album. They came on and played a great short set- basically played through the new album. The three guys traded between drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and lapsteel. Their encore was just sort of a jam session thing where they played covers and reworked each others' solo stuff. The encore was kind of sucky except that I love Jay's electric guitar solos and you don't get to see that that much in Son Volt.

But holy crap, what a good show!

The guys traded off on this guitar(above), belonging to Anders Parker. It's a costom made telecaster made out of pieces of his mom's barn. Click here to see more beauty.