This past Sunday was Hedgegeddon (pronounced Yardegeddon in the Jansonian dialect) and it was a complete and utter disaster. It rained all weekend (or so it seemed) and the rain didn’t stop for Hedgegeddon.

In the end Hedgegeddon Round 1 – You Win this Time Mother Nature! was a complete failure. There were 2 No-Call-No-Shows. 1 person backed out at the last minute. The ground was one cohesive piece of mud and wouldn’t give anything up. The chains and straps became wet and mud covered and slipped off the hedges regardless of technique. In the end, the ultimate battle between Man and Nature wasn’t even close.

The crew of Jason, Scottie D., Derrick and I were completely and utterly demolished. Even though Nature laughingly ran up the score on us at the end (like Tom Osborne teams of the past) by having my spade break in half in Derrick’s hands, our spirits are not crushed.

There is a reason that the most common signature at the bottom of my emails reads:

Man can be destroyed, but not defeated.

Hedgegeddon 2 – Suck It Mother Nature! (that is a working title) has already been scheduled. Barring rain, this time Mother Nature will feel the bitter taste of defeat. After all, the words before “A man can be destroyed…” are “But man is not made for defeat.”

Despite the Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland U. size of this last setback, the day was not without some small modicum of success:

There was actually a good thing that came out of Hedgegeddon. I stopped mowing certain sections of my yard in preparation for this unblessed event. When I stopped mowing a certain patch of the yard I found out that I have hollyhocks. Sweet!

I’m particularly proud of these hollyhocks because apparently these are a difficult flower to grow in this part of the Cyclone State. However, I can grow them without even trying. I truly am becoming a master gardener!

Here are a few other flower pictures from the Bennett Flower Gardens:

I’m hoping that there will be some moonflower and lily action in my backyard in the next couple of weeks. It also seems like the cherries will be ready for picking in the next couple of weeks as well!

I had my, what could theoretically become, annual Birthday Barbecue on Saturday.  I would like to thank all of the people that attended and made the evening special:

• Bardole, Shannon
• Bennett, Charlotte
• Cousin, Amy
• Daniel, Jeffrey
• Degeneffe, Austin
• Degeneffe, Melissa
• Degeneffe, Scott
• Dill, Colby
• Dill, Dan
• Dill, DJ
• Gorshe, Derrick
• Gorshe, Jen
• Henning, Monica
• Howard, Jesse
• Howard, Kalista
• Howard, Kelly
• Howard, Saydie
• Howard, Taylan
• Hugen, Todd
• Janson, Jay
• Jauhari, Andree
• Jenson, Terra
• Johnstone, Jack
• Johnstone, Jason
• Junck, Sara
• Kahler, Logan
• Kahler, Russ
• Kewer, Jeff
• Krause, Dawn
• McAlpine, Willy
• Nitchals, Peggy
• Parsaei, Nader
• Perkovich, Becky
• Roberts, Lori
• Roberts, Steve
• Runestad, Anders
• Stensland, Carla
• Stensland, Johnathan
• Wever, Ada
• Wever, Amanda
• Wever, Greg
• Yin, Amy

Next year, I will move the barbecue back to its traditional spot of the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.  Feel free to circle the date May 28 on your 2011 calendar that you have yet to purchase. It will perhaps be an even smaller and more intimate gathering.  I might start instituting a survivor type invitation policy similar to the fashion of invites that Jay uses for Symposium.

Special thanks need to be extended to the following people:

Sara for taking the pictures for the invitations.

Sara for providing the s’mores goodies.

Jay for making three desserts: chocolate raspberry cookies, key lime bars and apple crisp.

Steve for providing homemade salsa and chips.

Becky for making a pasta salad.

Scott and Melissa for bringing a banana creme pie.

Shannon for baking a fresh rhubarb pie with rhubarb picked from my personal rhubarb patch.

Johnathan for bringing over cornhole.

Logan and Russ for running the grill.

Mom for baking a cake and creating a watermelon fruit thing.

Derrick for being the fire-starter.

Andree for being the best dressed person at the party.

Shannon for opening the party.

Willy for closing the party.

There isn’t any photographic evidence to support that this party existed. I was too busy to touch a camera and Sara didn’t take any pictures this year. Maybe next year I will add “Party Photographer” to the list of Staff positions for this shindig.

If you wish to be hired for this position (no pay, no benefits, possibly a STAFF t-shirt*) simply send the answer to the following question to bennett@photography139.com:

Why would I make an awesome Party Photographer?

I suppose I should start planning Friendsmas now. It can wait a couple of months.

*That is not a joke. There will be staff t-shirts next year.

When I recategorized the entries in this journal, there is one category that was sorely aching to be added, but I decided not add it because I was a tad bit fearful.

You? The Great Christopher D. Bennett was fearful?

I know it seems an unlikely turn of events, but it is true. The category that struck me with a small degree of trepidation was food. Go ahead, go to the website. Look at the list of categories. You won’t find food listed.

Why? Because I’m scared to know how many of my little adventures circulate around stuffing things down my pie hole.

Yet, in the next few weeks I might be launching a second blog with my eating chum Scottie D.

A couple Saturdays back we arranged a lunch trip to BK’s in Ogden to knock down what we both consider to be the state’s best tenderloin. This was going to conclude a weeklong food vacation for Scottie D. He had spent the early part of the week visiting the Twin Cities eating Jucy Lucies. Then he took the family down to Kansas City to Blanc Burgers and Bottles to have what he considers to be the greatest burger in the world.

I’m not sure if Scottie D. really wanted to go to BK’s or if he was avoiding going to a birthday party where he might run into a guy by the name “The Sleeve”. If you know the tall tale (actually sick and twisted story) of The Sleeve, you know why Scottie D. was looking to avoid the shindig.

On the day that we were going to make the pilgrimage to Ogden for tenderloin bliss Scottie D. called me and wanted to know if instead of O-Town if it would be okay if we went with his friend “House” to Stanhope to try a restaurant up there that was getting rave reviews.
I’m always on the prowl for new places to eat, so I agreed to the change of venue. On the way up there House enthralled us with tales of a pizza joint just a tad further up the road in Kamrar that was excellent.
We ate at the restaurant in Stanhope and it was decent. They had some intriguing appetizers. We tried their Reuben Bites. They were good, but the cheese was not Swiss cheese. It was some bland tasting yellow cheese. Most likely cheddar. My burger was tasty, but Scottie D. did not enjoy his burger. He cited the steak sauce on it.
After we left the restaurant Scottie D. proposed the unthinkable – The Double Lunch!
I was game. I’m not sure if Scottie D.’s motivation was unquenched appetite or he just had a burning desire to avoid the lasciviousness that surrounds The Sleeve.
Either way, we continued our journey up Highway 17 to Kamrar.

We pulled up to the pizza place and saw this awesome sign:

Pickles Pub

The sign was attached to kind of a dump looking building and I had some concerns. It has been my experience that some of the best food is served at the biggest dives. I was hoping that this would be another one of those times.
We opened the outside door and it opened into an entry way. The entry way looked and felt like it was going to come crashing down upon us at any time.

I was definitely leery at this point, but ventured on inside to find…

Something rather shocking. The inside was roomy and beautiful. The woodwork was nice and fancy and appeared to have been recently done.

We ordered some Pickles Fries.

Pickles Fries

They were much tastier than this horrible phone picture portrays.

We also ordered up a taco pizza.  Their pizza was thin crust and this was easily one of the best taco pizzas I’ve ever had in my life.  The only thing that was strange about it was that they didn’t cover the whole pizza with lettuce, chips and tomatoes.  They only covered the center. 

It was a great pizza and I have already decided that Pickles Pub is where I’m taking FNSC when it is time for my birthday FNSC.

On the way back to Boone I was uncomfortably full.  I was further made uncomfortable when Scottie D. finally told me the story about The Sleeve became known as The Sleeve. It is a story that I have recounted to a few other unfortunate souls because I believe that misery loves company. 

After his tale, Scott declared that we should start a blog where we tell people where the best food is in central Iowa.  I agreed to take part in this experiment even though my experience with starting group blogs (see The Sports Proletariat) has been decidedly negative.

However, if I think positively, I will be buying a new domain name and starting up a blog with Scottie D. in the near future. Hopefully it will go somewhere.

The best way for it to go somewhere is to enlist the aid of others. What we need is scouts.  If you have tried an excellent place and you think we might enjoy it, let me know and we will let you know if you are right or not. 

Scouts that show particularly good taste in picking locations might even get to move up to the level of contributors some day.

Proust Quote:
“Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.”

Confessions Question:
Your idea of happiness

Confidences Question:
My dream of happiness.

Proust’s Answer:
I am afraid it be not great enough, I dare not speak it, I am afraid of destroying it by speaking it.

That Proust sure was a coward. “I am afraid of destroying it…” But he was from France and that is a country that isn’t exactly known for its courage.

However, I think there is some truth in the quote that happiness exists to make unhappiness possible. I think it is closer to the truth to say that unhappiness makes the experience of happiness richer. I would also argue that unhappiness is at its lowest depth before happiness arrives. But happiness is a much more powerful (although frailer) emotion than unhappiness. A little drop of happiness blows unhappiness out of the water.

There is a misery questionnaire question where I will repeat this basic information, but I think in general terms, the greatest misery is in waiting for a certain thing to happen. The greatest happiness is when that certain thing happens. That certain thing might not ever happen, therefore a person sometimes has to come to acceptance.

There are certainly things that make me happy. One of them ends frequently with the phrase “Sweet dreams.”

I have two friends that are diametrically opposed on the concept of dreams. One friend believes that dreams are an intricate part of life. They should be held up and examined every day and they should be pursued with every breath of your being. If you call his phone, the voicemail message will tell you that you have reached, “Dreams, Incorporated.” It is not a real company, so don’t give him any money. You won’t get it back. But your money will help him pursue his dreams.

This friend’s philosophy on dreams would best be summed up by the Marcel Proust quote:

“If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.”

The other friend thinks that it is pointless to pursue dreams because dreams can’t become reality. He once noted that he couldn’t “grow bat wings” in reality. All this talk about dreams is a humbug!

This friend’s philosophy on dreams would be best summed up by the Baltasar Gracian quote:

“Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.”

My philosophy lies somewhere in the middle. I certainly believe that dreams are worth pursuing. To not have aspirations or goals leads to somewhat of an aimless existence, but perhaps I don’t follow my dreams with the type of vigor that Friend One does.

If dreams are (what I think they are) our ideas of perfect happiness, then these are a few of my dreams:

Some of these are attainable dreams. Some of them are in the “bat wing” category.

To hear Jay say, “Want to come over and watch a completed version of Games 2 tonight?”
To hear Willy say, “And this is my beautiful wife…”
To hear Shannon say, “Wow! You organized that really well. If this is the caliber of person that Iowa State University produces, I should root for their athletic teams when they play anybody but my beloved UNI Panthers.”
To hear Geri D. say, “Opening night for the One Act play you wrote will be…”
To hear Jen say, “Maybe the dogs don’t like being dressed up.”
To hear Derrick say, “Yeah, Pink Floyd called and they want to open for us on our European Tour. I told them we would get back to them.”
To hear Jill say, “I think I have changed my mind… feet are funny, not gross!”
To hear Sara say, “I looked in the mirror and decided, I didn’t need that Hello Kitty humidifier.”
To hear Monica say, “I just don’t have room for all these paintings I have done. Here, take about 5-10 of these off my hands.”
To hear Baier say, “I really shouldn’t be that emotionally invested in a pro sports team in a city that is 3 hours away from where I live. I think I’m going to take that wasted energy and train my dog to be less racist. Perhaps research unicorn blood in my spare time.”
To hear Russell say, “I don’t even know why I ever even question anything you say about sports, politics, movies or life. Mr. Bennett, I am in awe of you. In the future, when you speak, I will sit silently and keep notes. It is my greatest fear that some of your wisdom will be lost to the following generations.”
To hear Nader say, “The new Harry Potter movie was pretty good.”
To hear Andree say, “Maybe I have too many televisions. 7 is a lot for 1 guy.”
To hear Scottie D. say, “I apologize for ever questioning your commitment to tenderloins. You may hit me one time.”
To hear Eric say, “Dogs are really better than cats. I don’t know why I couldn’t see that before.”
To hear Jesse say, “I’ve thought about it. Maybe I should worship somebody that actually gets some playing time during the Olympics, rather than that creepy looking Finch girl.”

There are more, but I might be on happiness overload just thinking on my dreams.

The day before Halloween was a very special Friday Night Supper Club. It was special because I hosted it, The guest list was expanded, we had Casey’s taco pizza and Jay made the dessert.

Why these special things occurred can be traced back to one thing. At that FNSC I took custody of Sara’s pride and joy – Jupiter Moon.

Sara was heading to Florida for a Junck family vacation and she entrusted her 4 year old cockapoo to my care for a week. Sara decided to make the transfer at FNSC. I decided that it would be best if I hosted FNSC so that Jupiter wouldn’t just be dumped into a strange house without any familiar faces. Sara brought some additional familiar faces: Anirban, Cousin Amy, Jen and Derrick.

Jen put in a request for the Casey’s taco pizza and her wish was granted.

At about 11:30 the guests packed up and left Jupiter behind. He was not very happy to be left behind, but it began our week together. A week where I was reminded of the responsibilities of dog ownership that will face me in the spring. A week where I had an opportunity to man Jupiter up, just a slight bit.

The first night was a little bit rough. Neither one of us slept particularly well. Jupiter spent almost the entire night staring at the front door. He would occasionally join me in the bedroom, but he would just stare out my bedroom door for a few seconds and then return to his post in the living room. Staring at the front door.

Jupiter spent most of Saturday morning looking depressed. When Sara texted to ask how he was doing, I responded that he was suffering from Post-Sara Depression.

Sara texted back that she though all creatures suffered from Post-Sara Depression.

I took Jupiter outside and he helped me take down and store all of the yard furniture for the winter.

By the afternoon, Jupiter was less depressed and more or less just subdued. We listened to the Iowa State football game, made spiced apple cider and nachos.

Near the conclusion of the game, Jay came over and started his annual pumpkin carving. Jupiter seemed intrigued by this and enjoyed greeting trick-or-treaters.

After the trick-or-treaters, we watched a couple of old horror movies and went to bed. Jupiter tried to sleep with me, but he wanted to sleep on top of me. He figured out that wasn’t going to work and spent the night on the couch.

On Sunday, I got up early and tailgated for church. Only 3 of us showed up for the tailgate, but the revolution was definitely on. After church, I attended a Methodist Men Board meeting, where we discussed the upcoming chicken noodle brunch.

On my way home, my mom called and asked if I wanted to look over any of grandpa’s tools. I could have any of them that I wanted.

I was planning on taking Jupiter for a walk in the park and I knew that I didn’t want any tools, so I loaded Jupiter in the car for what I thought was going to be a quick look at some tools and then a trip to the park.

As it turns out, this was actually a clean everything out of the garage mission and while I didn’t take any of the tools, I took several things out of the “garbage” pile.

Jupiter got to assist in the manly work of cleaning the garage. Unfortunately, by the time we finished, there was no longer any time for the park. I took Jupiter back home and headed to Prairie City with the Degeneffes to try the state’s reigning tenderloin champ.

Shortly after returning from that pilgrimage, I got my basketball gear together and heading to Ames for our opening games of the Ames Rec League. To start the season, we were schedule a double header!

I got home dog tired. I showered and fell asleep. Jupiter slept that night at my feet.

I always skip bowling on the first Monday of every month for my Trustees meeting. The meeting this month was fairly short. We mostly discussed cutting a pew off at one end and nothing else that I can remember.

After the meeting I took Jupiter for a walk. We walked about 1 mile. He peed (or at least stopped to lift his leg) 12 times.

Tuesday night I took Nader out for his birthday with the Baiers. Because I got home so late, Jupiter and I didn’t do anything manly.

Wednesday night I go to open gym to work on trying to recover some semblance of what used to be my basketball game. I also got home too late to do anything very manly.

Thursday night I took Jupiter to Jen and Derrick’s for a dog playdate with Bailey and Jackson.

Dog playdate didn’t go as well as we had hoped. Jackson and Jupiter seemed to get along well enough. At least they were able to ignore each other. Bailey and Jupiter did not end up being the best of buds. Jupiter was a little growly. This ended in a tiff where Bailey and Jupiter had words. Gyro Guy pizza ended up flying through the air and some smashed into the kitchen wall. A terrible waste.

Derrick took Bailey into the other room and gave her a lecture. I don’t know what he said, but Bailey was on good behavior rest of the night. Jupiter and Bailey never got all that buddy-buddy, but they didn’t come to blows. More importantly, no more Jeff’s Pizza had to be wasted.

On Friday I went to FNSC at Golden Corral. This was the first time that we have ever been to Golden Corral for FNSC. It was okay.

Afterwards, Jay came back to my place and we watched a cheerleader movie with Jupiter. I think this might have undone much of the work I had done in trying to man him up, but Sara insists that cheerleading is a sport, so it it okay.

Saturday morning, we woke up and did a little more work around the yard. I was glad to see that some of my hard work had paid off. Jupiter was actually enjoying being outside now.

I concluded my alone Jupiter time by watching College Game Day with him.

I picked up Logan and went to the Iowa State-Oklahoma State game. After the game, we met up with Sara and Anirban at Great Plains.

Then Sara came back to Boone and re-claimed Jupiter. He is back in Beaverdale, but I am posting a few pictures from his week with me.

On Sunday, when I got home from basketball, it dawned on me that it would have been really nice to have Jupiter waiting to greet me at the back door.

I texted Sara to let her know that I missed Jupiter. She texted me back that he missed me too. I asked her to watch football with him. She declined.

But to honor the week I spent with Jupiter Moon, he has become the first 4 legged creature to be featured in the Friends Album in the Snapshots Gallery!

On Sunday Scott, Melissa, Austin and I loaded up into their truck and headed for Prairie City to visit Goldie’s Ice Cream Shoppe. The winner of the Iowa Pork Producers Best Tenderloin in the State of Iowa for 2009.

This could very well be blog 5 of the 5 groups I’m in with matching shirts, but it isn’t. We have yet to make our shirts, but we do have a motto to put on those shirts when they get made:

“Tenderloins Don’t Eat Themselves!”

Truer words will never have been put to cotton.

I have actually been to Goldie’s once before in my life. On the famous 2006 The Road Trip, we stopped there after visiting the Neal Smith Prairie Reserve. It was not open, but Jesse posed for a picture in front of it.

But since that day, the business has come under new management. A few pictures from the trip:

The new fancier Goldie’s sign.

Goldie’s

The state’s reigning tenderloin champ!

Scott displaying the state’s reigning tenderloin champ.

Scott’s last bite of the champ!

Scott and Austin basking in tenderloin glory.

Austin surveying the menu.

Even though Melissa begged to come on the trip with us, she embarrassed us by ordering a Chef Salad.

Scott and I with the proprietor of Goldie’s and the creator of the state’s reigning tenderloin champ.

We certainly took down lots of data and we did come to some conclusions, but I can not release that information until we finally crown our State Tenderloin Champ. If you contact me directly, I will release to you some of our findings, but you will have to sign a NDA.

I was dreadfully unprepared for this year’s Halloween. Including not buying pumpkins and candy until Saturday morning, not running firmware updates on my Blu-Ray player until Saturday night and not doing any decorating at all. Truth is that the lack of decorating was a conscious decision that I plan on repeating for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Although I have a feeling that a Christmas tree is going to show up in my house when I am not home.

Although if I do ending up holding a Friendsmas-Thanksmas-Christgiving celebration between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is possible that a small amount of decorating might transpire. But that is a pretty big if at this point in time. Mostly because I still need to convince myself that I won’t blow up the house while frying a turkey.

Despite the lack of preparation, Halloween went just fine.

I ended up with 46 trick-or-treaters. I think I would have been able to breach 60, but Jay turned off the light for about 15 minutes, causing a loss of who knows how many trick-or-treaters.

Despite getting a couple of garbage pumpkins, Jay still made two spectacular jack-o-lanterns.

A few pictures from the night…

Jay cleaning out a pumpkin.

The Davis Family. Holden was awesome in the respect that after every picture, he would come over and want to see it. Good thing I wasn’t using film.

Austin was not a fan of the hood part of his sweet giraffe costume.

Holden was a big fan of my front stoop. If he makes it to my birthday barbecue next year, I anticipate I will find him sitting in that exact spot on multiple occasions.

Austin was happier without the hood.

A Howard paying homage to a CBS television show?!?!? Shocker! Saydie is not wearing a wig. Taylan as Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Jay working on a pumpkin for my mom.

Jay’s 2009 Masterpiece!

I think I will have to schedule my social calendar lightly next October, so I can get into the spirit of things and maybe even visit a pumpkin patch. I didn’t get a chance to do that this year.

Rarely when I publish pictures do I explain the thought process, the technical information or the inspiration. If somebody is confused by a picture or intrigued by a picture I want them to come to their own conclusions.

I feel by telling people too much about a picture, it cheapens the experience for them. That being written, I am going to part with my traditional way of doing things and give a rare glimpse into what happened before I created a trio of images.

The story of these pictures actually starts with the story of the picture above.

As you can tell, I am very pleased with the shirt I am wearing. It is an awesome shirt and if it isn’t the greatest shirt I currently own, it is certainly a top 5 shirt.

If you can read and have an adequate brain, you probably have deduced that this shirt was purchased at the Beaverdale Fall Festival. Good for you Big Brain! This shirt was indeed purchased at the Beaverdale Fall Festival.

Sara invited a bunch of us down to her house for the Beaverdale Fall Festival. Jen, Jill and I accepted the invitation.

This is the first thing that happened to put these events into motion:

Jill picked me up in her sweet car.

Picture actually taken on the day that the idea for Alligator Shirt Day was Born.
More on that at a later date.

We swung out to Ledges to briefly interact with Jay, Monica and Jeff.

Then we met Jen in Ames and went to Beaverdale to meet up with Sara.

At Sara’s house we were treated to steamed asparagus and the company of Cousin Amy. Jen gave Jill and I beaver tats with a sharpie to symbolize the importance of the event.

I know a lot of people that are really good at a lot of things, but I don’t think I know anybody who is as good at a given skill as Jen is at drawing beavers. I think she should go into business.

After a small amount of time digesting the asparagus we made the short 3 block walk from Sara and Jupiter’s home to the Beaverdale Fall Festival. Jupiter was left behind in the basement. That is the life of a dog, no matter how pretty.

Our first stop was a table where an elderly gentleman was selling Beaverdale Fall Festival swag. He regaled us with tales of past Beaverdale Fall Festival shirts. My heart was particularly broken because a couple of these shirts sounded at least as sweet as the Beaverdale Night Fever shirt he was hawking this year. One was a parody of album cover of “Let it Be”. The other was a parody of the album cover of “Abbey Road”.

2003

2005

But if I live by one rule it is this: Don’t waste your time lamenting the beaver shirts that got away. Be thankful for the beaver shirts that you have.

Feel free to use my rule as the center of your life as well. I guarantee you it will serve you well.

Jen, Jill, Sara and I each purchased a Beaverdale Night Fever shirt. Admittedly, we should have picked one up for Derrick, but having to stand at Sara’s birthday party and take the picture of the 4 of us in our beaver shirts was his punishment for choosing 35 South over us on that night.

Jen and I declared that we would wear our beaver shirts at work on Monday. Sara gave us no indication when she would wear her beaver shirt, but Jill announced that she would wear her shirt to work on the following Friday.

Jill works at one of those companies that has “expectations” and “standards” about the clothes that their employees wear. But on Fridays, they let there employees get all casual.

Monday came and I arrived at work sporting my sweet new beaver shirt. I had Jesse take a picture of me with my phone so I could picture message Jen and find out if she was also sporting her sweet beaver shirt.

Jen was sitting in her office explaining the beaver shirt story to Jessica (who is the person that is organizing the Knocker Walkers team) when my picture message came through. This apparently amused them both.

On Friday, my work soundtrack consisted entirely of John Coltrane music. I decided to follow-up on Jill to see if she was wearing her beaver shirt. As I was typing out the text message I had a strange flashback. I remembered sitting around Jen and Derrick’s living room this summer before their wedding.

They asked the guests of their wedding to pick a song for the reception. We were going through the list of songs that people had picked and I had stopped on Jill’s song. She had chosen Naima by John Coltrane.

It was the only jazz song anybody had suggested. I remembered that.

Jill texted me back that she was wearing the beaver shirt and enjoying the many jealous looks she was getting from her co-workers.

I turned on the only copy of Naima that I possess and gave it a listen. The only version that I own is from the album Live at the Village Vanguard Again! It is 15 minutes and 10 seconds long. It is 110% chaos.

Now I know that the original is not chaos. The only other song on this album is a 20 minute 21 second version of My Favorite Things. It is also chaos. I have 3 other copies of My Favorite Things that are not chaos. This album is chaos. It is also genius.

I texted Jill and asked her why she chose the song Naima.

She answered back that it was her favorite Coltrane ballad.

I wrote back that I was going to need to find a studio version of the song because the only version I had was live and was chaos.

She wrote back that the studio version was “incredibly soothing and hopelessly romantic”.

I wrote her, “That is the single greatest description I have ever heard for a song.”

I told her I would find a copy of the studio version and give it a listen and then we could compare notes.

I did some research on the song to find out what album the original song was on. Turns out that it was Giant Steps. This was an album that I have literally held in my hands at least 10 times, but have never purchased because it seemed to me that I could wait for a remastered version of the album.

Ames is virtually devoid of music stores. I know that is partially because Ames didn’t support its music stores and partially because the internet and iTunes have so radically changed the market that music stores with inventory of not Top 40 (read crap) are not going to make it.

I remember when I was in high school – Bill, Lowell, Andy and I would load into Bill’s Ford Fairmont station wagon and drive to Campustown to visit the (not 1, not 2) 3 music stores located with a 3 block radius. There was Archives, Peeples and BHS Records. BHS Records wasn’t really called BHS Records. It went by another name, but we always called it BHS Records because it is where we discovered the Butthole Surfers.

Now they are all gone and if a person is looking for new, experimental, alternative music – good luck! I don’t know where this generation of kids is going to discover bands like Jerry’s Kids, Intense Mutilation, The Abortions, Dead Kennedys, Dead Milkmen, The Ramones or the Revolting Cocks.

The options in Ames for buying music are the big box department stores. That means virtually no choice at all.

But I wasn’t without hope. Best Buy has a small jazz section. Borders has a slightly bigger jazz section. Hastings has a slightly larger jazz section than Borders. But if you were to combine all of their jazz sections the term that would best describe the conglomeration is anemic.

That Friday after I left work, I did not have time to stop at Best Buy or Borders for reasons that currently escape me. After all, this was nearly a month ago.

Now I know what you are thinking… You are thinking that somebody that literally mines computers for a living must easily have the aptitude to download this song from iTunes, Amazon, Zune or illegally find it in one of the murky backwaters of the worldwide web.

It is true that I have that capacity. But I am also the guy who still wants CDs. I want liner notes and album art. I want to rip the CD to my hard drive. I want to be able to have a real CD (not a burned copy) to sit inside the 300 disc changer that resides at the bottom of my stack of audio equipment in my home.

On Saturday morning I had a fairly busy day scheduled. I woke up early and met Frank at the gym. This was one of his first times back to the gym since his NDE so it was a fairly light workout.

I left the gym with enough time to stop at Best Buy and Borders before I had to meet Sara in Beaverdale for our jaunt over to Prospect Park to watch Jen rip it up in the Des Moines Regatta.

Derrick and Jen at the Des Moines Regatta

I can write what I am about to write with a clear conscience. The dude that runs the Best Buy in Ames is one of my best friends and although he is not a reader (his term) he still is a loyal subscriber to this blog.

Scott and Jesse and my living room ceiling fan

Best Buy broke, no, shattered my heart into a million pieces. Not only did they not have Giant Steps, they didn’t have a single Coltrane album. I could understand that they didn’t have Giant Steps. Even though it is a fairly seminal jazz album. I mean I don’t own it, so I shouldn’t judge Best Buy too harshly. But they didn’t have a single John Coltrane album in stock. I know, pretty unforgivable. I mean to have a serious talk with Scott about this tragic oversight the next time that we are knocking down a tenderloin. (Yes, I realize that music and movies are loss leader items for stores like Best Buy and in a tough economy it is smart business practice to keep as little on hand stock as possible, especially items that aren’t exactly flying off the shelf like 50 year old jazz albums. But we’re talking about Coltrane, man!)

Borders used to have a fairly decent jazz selection. Unfortunately a few months back they decided to lower their inventory levels and concentrate on selling Top 40 (read crap) music. Now their jazz section is a disgrace on multiple levels.

Their first disgrace is the size. It is only about 1/3 of its previous size. Their 2nd disgrace is that their discs are randomly “organized”. I literally went through every single jazz album they had in stock to determine that they did not carry Giant Steps.

Disappointed I made my way down to Beaverdale to meet Sara for the Des Moines Regatta.

I was hoping to have time to hit a music store in Des Moines while I was down there, but it wasn’t to be. The Regatta ran a touch longer than expected and then after the portion that interested us had concluded, we ate at Zimm’s.

Sara contends they have the best nachos in Des Moines. I argue for Skip’s.

I left Des Moines at 3 and had to be at the wedding of Mindy Vickers in Boone at 4. I got stuck behind the Army football team on Highway 17, so I was not able to make record time, but I did get to the wedding only a handful of minutes late.

I grabbed a seat in the back of the church next to my old boss, the Son-in-Law. After the wedding concluded, the Son-in-Law set up shop on the Senile Old Man. It was awesome! I could have listened for hours, but instead I congratulated the happy couple and headed to the ISU-Army football game.

After the game, I went to Dustin Jackson’s wedding reception.

Dustin and I – The World’s Most Dominant Egg Toss Team

I just want to note that I miss those sideburns.

I had an awesome time at the reception, before returning home to sleep.

In the morning I attended church and around noon the family took my mom to La Carreta for her birthday.

At this feast, Teresa asked me if I would take Logan over to the art festival in Ames. He needed to go for extra credit.

I agreed to take him because I was going to Ames to check out Hastings to see if I could find Giant Steps. I could use the company.

Johnathan decided he wanted to go, so we met at my house and prepared to load up the car. But before we got in the car Logan insisted that he get to choose the music.

I told him he could choose the music on the way there, but on the way back he was in my world.

He asked if I had The Beatles One CD.

I asked him if he meant, “Like the Greatest Hits Album”.

“Yes.”

I was disappointed. My sister had failed in teaching him one of life’s most valuable truths.

“Greatest hits albums are for sailors and housewives.” I think we all know what terrible taste in music sailors and housewives possess.

I gave Logan a long lecture on the evils of the “Greatest Hits Album”.

Logan having the good fortune of me being his uncle his entire life, listened and took to heart the wisdom that I imparted to him.

The first stop in Ames was Hastings. As we approached the door I noticed that it was plastered with signs proclaiming that Hastings was closing on Wednesday.

Interesting, I thought. Then I entered the store.

“Bennett.” I heard called out to my left.

Ungs was working the Customer Service Desk.

“What is this all about?” I asked pointing to the sign.

“Our lease is up. We are closing down forever. They held a meeting and told us a couple of days ago.”

“Did they at least give you burnt cheese and pretzels?”

“Nope.”

I was disappointed. When we had been told that Campus was closing down, the Senile Old Man had at least provided us with burnt cheese and pretzels.

I worked my way back to the jazz section and surveyed the Coltrane albums. Giant Steps wasn’t there. But as I examined the albums I noticed that Naima was on The Very Best of John Coltrane.

Fate was laughing in my face. I wanted to hear the song, but I didn’t want the indignity of buying a Greatest Hits Album. But sometimes a man has to swallow his pride.

I looked around to make sure Logan and Johnathan weren’t paying attention. Luckily for me, they were quite enthralled with a pimp goblet.

Might be what the Holy Grail looks like…

I picked up the CD and made my way to the checkout. They never noticed.

We headed up to the art festival.

They seemed to enjoy the art festival and after ambling around for an hour or so we headed back to Boone so Johnathan could go to work.

We dropped off Johnathan, then Logan and I made a brief stop by the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad so that we could see Thomas the Tank.

Then I dropped off Logan and went home to prepare my house for Rabbit Feast. By prepare my house, I mean that I was home.

Becky came over and began her preparations. Jay came over and prepared his appetite.

Becky served so much food that I can’t possibly remember it all. I do remember that it turns out that I don’t particularly care for rabbit, stud rabbits aren’t treated with nearly enough respect and Becky made some kind of peanut butter glaze that was incredible.

After the meal, I amazed Jay and Becky with my ability to play YouTube on my Blu-Ray player. All things considered, I am more impressed by the fact that it plays Pandora. But to show them the YouTube functionality, we watched several clips from Robot Chicken. Becky was not amused by Robot Chicken. I feel bad that she doesn’t appreciate the greatness of that show.

Jay and Becky left around 11 and I immediately crashed.

The next day I brought my CD to work to listen to Naima. This is not how I like to listen to music. I like to not have any distractions and be in complete darkness. I don’t know, light distracts my ears. Nothing I can do about it. I have to live with this brain.

While I was perusing the liner notes, I learned that the version of Naima on this greatest hits collection was live.

Fate was laughing at me again. This time, I had to laugh with the stupid jerk as well. Then I went to Amazon and downloaded the Giant Steps version of Naima.

I made a CD of the studio version of the song and the two different live versions of the song. That night as I went to bed, I put the CD on “Repeat Disc” and listened to the disc until I fell asleep.

I’m not going to go into details about my exchange with Jill about the song. It was mostly me making references to other forms of art and a discussion on what it means to be “hopelessly romantic” and whether or not that is a bad thing.

But I will share the one paragraph that Jill sent that inspired me to make these pictures:

I believe that you do not need to be an accomplished musician in order to be an accomplished music lover. Actually, I think knowing too much about the technicalities can ruin just purely loving to listen to music. I luckily never cared too much about music theory so I don’t think I’m part of that group, but I would much rather go hear music live rather than listen to recorded music. That is probably why my favorite genre is jazz because it’s so spontaneous and so great live. Unfortunately I no longer have any of my jazz cds, but I will slowly rebuild my collection. I’m not going to pretend to know a lot about jazz because I don’t. I played in jazz band only because it was just so much fun. I was never great at it by any stretch of the imagination but I simply didn’t care. I’ve heard a lot of it, but honestly can’t name every standard or tell you who performed them all. I do know what I like when I hear it though, and I can usually explain why I like it. I think that is all that really matters.

I should state for those that don’t know, Jill is an accomplished musician and played the most rocking piccolo solo I ever heard in my life this Summer with the Boone City Band.

I think you know that I am not an accomplished musician. In fact, I could hardly be described as a musician at all. But I do still have my old slide trombone sitting in my basement from my days at dear old BHS.

But after being inspired and somewhat liberated by reading those words, I decided to take a self portrait with my trombone in homage to a couple of my favorite musicians (Miles Davis and John Coltrane) and two of their seminal albums, Kind of Blue and Blue Train.

So that is the story that lead me to sit in my basement one Thursday night and make these images with a beat up trombone that has seen better days, but will never see better days again.

Kind of Blue Train Series – 001

Kind of Blue Train Series – 002

Kind of Blue Train Series – ‘Round About Midnight Riff

I know it is a lot to get through just to see 3 pictures.

I want to dip back into the archives one more time.

Monday night, Scottie D. and I hit the open road on our first foray out into the backwaters of Iowa to find the best tenderloin in the state. We had a little pre-season hiccup out to the Lake Shore Cafe, but now it was time to get serious.

Last year BK’s tenderloin placed second in the state according to the Pork Association. Well BK’s is in Ogden and Ogden is virtually Boone’s backyard. It seemed a very logical place to begin our quest.

However this tale was almost a sad tale. A sad tale that could be recounted with bitterness by an old man in a bar. “Yes, it’s very pretty. I heard a story once – as a matter of fact, I’ve heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. ‘Mister, I met a tenderloin once when I was a kid,’ it always began.”*

You see it occurred to me that many small town drinking and eating establishments close on Mondays. I suggested to Scottie D. that we should call over to Ogden and confirm that BK’s was in fact open.

Scottie D. thought it was a wonderful idea, so he called ahead.

At first it was bliss! They were open until 11 PM.

Then there was agony! They were out of tenderloins.

The place had been ransacked during Ogden Fun Days and the woman that made the tenderloins would not be in that day, but they would have tenderloins again starting Tuesday. Oh the humanity!

This is Iowa and we were not without options. I suggested we try The Suburban in Gilbert. Their tenderloin placed third either last year or the year before. However, I noted this was another small town restaurant. It might not be open on a Monday.

Scottie D. called up to Gilbert.

Agony again! The Suburban is not open on Mondays.

However, we were not to be denied.

Scottie D. suggested that we call back to BK’s and see if we could sweet talk them into making a special exception for us. We aren’t John Q. Public after all. We are the Society for Tenderloin Excellence.

Scottie D. dialed BK’s back up and gave the lady on the other end of the line a sad tale about 2 guys traveling the state looking for the best tenderloin. His sad song must of worked. The lady said that she would call the woman that makes the tenderloin and see if she would be willing to come in and make us two special tenderloins.

We gave them 5 minutes to make arrangements and called them back.

Oh sweet bliss! The genius behind the BK tenderloin agreed to come in and make 2 tenderloins special for us.

I can’t tell you too much about the tenderloin. Most of that will be saved for the final reveal when we proclaim one tenderloin to be the king of all tenderloins. I can share some pictures from the event though.

BK’s Sports Bar & Grill – Ogden, Iowa

BK’s Tenderloin with Waffle Fries

BK’s Tenderloin with Waffle Fries (Ranch Dressing is also homemade)

Scottie D. with BK’s Tenderloin

BK’s Tenderloin, the Awesome Lady that invented it and made it and Scottie D.

Enjoying BK’s Tenderloin

Downtown Ogden Near Sunset

I will tell you the following things. BK’s earned big time points for serving the tenderloin with homemade ranch and mayo. Of course they also get big time points for the tenderloin mastermind coming in and preparing us a tenderloin when she definitely did not need to do such a thing.

While we were talking to the owner of BK’s, we learned that it is a firmly held belief in Ogden that this tenderloin would have won the top prize from the Pork Association last year, but the mastermind wasn’t there to cook it for them. Sadly, the guy who did cook the tenderloin for the judges burned it. It still took second place though.

You have to love a tenderloin that is served with a side order of town lore.

*Also extra points go to anybody that knows what movie this references.

My memory fails me, but I think only Dawn picked up the reference last time.

I had a housewarming/birthday shindig on May 23. I made individual invitations for those that were invited. I’d like to share some of them.

Willy

The Kahlers

Nader

Sara

Shannon

The Roberts Family

The Hiatts

The Howards

Jay

Jeff and Yin

The Gorshes

The Baiers

Bethany and Rebecca

Casy

The Degeneffes

Geri

Geri requested a new picture of us be taken because she wanted a picture where she wasn’t looking at me as if I was the smartest person in the world. I guess I never noticed her having an expression different than what I’m used to seeing by the majority of people in my life…