It sure doesn't take much snow to freak Louisvillians the hell out. Three inches (at the most) on the ground and traffic is at a standstill. It's like everyone forgot what it was like to drive on snow and headed out at exactly the same time I left work to take a stroll on the Waterson x-way. Everything was bumper-to-bumper all the way home. And then nobody showed-up for the jam at the BBC!

What the hell is wrong with you people? I've driven though a foot of snow in Chicago while people drove 70mph on the interstate, just to go see a crappy concert downtown. It's just three inches. That's no reason to drive 25mph on the expressway. And if you want to drive slow, stay the hell off of the highway during rush hour.

Damn.

Posted 12:38 AM by Jackson Cooper |

Today is the anniversary of the legendary recording session featuring Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, aka: The Million Dollar Quartet. With all the guest appearances and collaborations in today's recording industry, we should stop for a second and appreciate what a magical moment in history it was when these four giants gathered in one studio.

My favorite bit from this recording comes from Elvis. He's describing to the other guys a certain performer he had seen doing one of his songs. He imitates the way the singer enunciated the words, with special focus on "tel-e-phone". Elvis says that this guy was the lead singer of some band called "The Dominoes" and that he liked this version so much that he might start doing it that way himself. Well, as it turns out, the singer Elvis spoke of was none other than the legendary Jackie Wilson.

Posted 10:26 AM by Jackson Cooper |

Bullit County Adventures: Part 2

After work, I made the long trip out to my mom's house to finish my laundry and eat dinner. My mom wasn't back from work yet, and the dog was going nuts to get inside. Luckily she had either buried or devoured the deer leg she had at lunch.

The house was freezing cold. It's a big A-frame on top of a hill, and relies on two wood burning stoves and a couple inconsequential electric baseboard heaters to heat the entire house. The fire in the stove was completely out, so job number one upon entering was to get that thing blazing. Just when I thought I'd lost them, the skills I picked-up as a Boy Scout came back to me to save the day. (The starter log and lighter didn't hurt either. The most important thing to remember when trying to start a fire is to cheat every chance you get. It's neat to be able to start a fire with nothing but a rock and a piece of string, but neat won't keep you warm.)

My mom got home not much later and was very grateful to see a fire already going strong. I set about folding my laundry and she started cooking some dinner. (My mom is an excellent cook, and has generations of recipes at her disposal.) Last night she apologized for having to throw something together at the last minute, only to come through with a kick-ass scalloped-potato and ham casserole. So you can see why I travel such long distances to do my laundry.

These trips also give me a chance to visit with my mom, who has always been there when I need advice, or when I need to vent. We talked about my failed trip to the gun range last Sunday, and my plans for going this coming weekend. She offered to let me use any of the several guns in her house. I had my choice of a snub-nosed .38, a South-African 9mm or her personal favorite, the 12-gauge shotgun. I opted for the shotgun.

In Bullit County, you don't need to worry about target ranges. This is especially true where my mom lives. They have several acres extending down a hill into a ravine behind the house. You can literally fire your guns from the back porch without fear of harming anyone or anything. So that's what I did.

I wanted to fire the shotgun before I took it down to the gun range. You don't want to get to a place like that without knowing how to operate your weapon. Those people can smell fear.

So I grabbed the 12-gauge and a handful of shells. I stepped out into the side yard and fired away. The flash of fire leaving the end of the barrel on a dark night was spectacular. And the idea of stepping a few yards outside your door and firing into the darkness was enjoyable in itself.

I also gave the .38 a few shots, but decided to take the shotgun with me to the range. At Knob Creek, you can take your own targets. Your choice of target, however, is not limited to the traditional paper or cardboard. No, at this range you can bring anything you want, as long as it doesn't have glass. That means a range littered with old cars, refrigerators and other discarded household appliances.

My plan is to take something of great symbolic value: something that, when fired upon, will foster the release of stress. So I plan on shooting, with a 12-gauge shotgun, one of my old computers.

If at all possible, I will document this stress-release exercise with many pictures.

(Pictures in this post belong to the knobcreekshoot.com.)

Posted 10:05 AM by Jackson Cooper |

Bullit County Adventures: Part 1

There are certain things which, when viewed in a strange context, can twist your head completely around.

I've seen plenty of deer. I've seen them run across a field, stand peacefully and graze, and I've seen plenty dead on the side of the road. I never think twice about it, other than to worry that one might run out in the road and hit my car. I live close to a rural area, and I know several people who have totaled their cars hitting deer. It happens.

But when I stopped out at my mom's place in Bullit County on my lunch break today, the sight of her dog running up to greet me with the bottom half of a deer's leg in her mouth caught me off guard. I was just there to do laundry. As I carried the basket to the door, the dog grabbed her prize and ran to me. She always shows me her latest toy when I come to visit. But the toys are usually fuzzy little things that squeak when squeezed. The leg was fuzzy, but I didn't bother to squeeze it.

Normally, a lunchtime visit from me means the dog gets a rare mid-day trip inside. She has plenty of room to run outside and is typically ready to go back out minutes after being let in. But a few minutes inside next to the wood burning stove on a cold day must have sounded pretty good. She was bound and determined to come in with me, and with the leg.

So while trying to open the door with one hand and pinning the laundry basket to my hip with the other, I tried to keep the dog and the leg outside with my feet. I succeeded, but the dog sat and barked at the door for the remainder of my visit, dragging her claws down the screen door.

On my way out I kicked the discarded limb off of the deck, onto the ground. It's remaining joint bent a little as it hit the dirt, attesting to the recently living parts still connected under the skin. The dog grabbed it and ran off to her doghouse, obviously dejected.

I have no problem with killing animals, whether it is for food, population control, or sport. I have no moral objection to hunting, or carnivorous behavior in general. But seeing a dismembered limb on my mom's porch while visiting to do laundry threw me a little out of whack. I guess I should be glad it was just a leg. The same dog has been known to come back from the woods with larger portions of deer, birds of varying sizes, and on one special occasion, a screaming bloody dying kitten. Now that would have made it difficult to concentrate on work. (Pic from thenaturalist.com)

Posted 2:10 PM by Jackson Cooper |

I'm not a big fan of the "Oh my god, there is nothing going on. I am soooo bored." posts. So I'll just say that I'm probably going to be on a temporary posting vacation that started unofficially last Wednesday. There haven't been many good concerts, and my trip to the Knob Creek Gun Range (which I venture would have been worth writing about) was postponed.

I've got a few pictures I'd like to post, so maybe I'll get those up here this week.

Posted 10:34 AM by Jackson Cooper |