Still Wading

To be totally honest, I'm just posting this to get the old post out of the way, and to let the world know I still loves me some of The Phish.

"How's that book coming?" you ask.

Slowly! (Duh.)

"How've ya been?"

Mehh...I'd say I've been better, but I don't think I have been. It's just that things look pretty messy on paper. The Imperfectitude of Life has been all over me like a cheap suit in the past three years (yes, literally), so getting "creative" has always seemed like a bit of fruitless frivolity, despite how completely absurd that idea might be. Call it "fusty home-training," bred into me by post-Depression-era immigrant parents. "Get a job, work the job, hate the job, be miserable, retire" is a tune I got used to...

Phish has, throughout the years, helped me alter that tune, little bit by little bit. Mainly, rather than seeing shows (which has gotten prohibitive for a number of reasons I haven't been able to successfully outrun, it seems), I've just been getting into the music. From a somewhat celebratory but often cringeworthy 2010, to a jubilant 2011, and a dominant 2012, the boys are back for what, so far, seems to be a real old-timey powerhouse of steamy, shimmering jams, somewhat jangly progressions, but more than enough potential for positive regression to the Golden Phish of Tymes Olde.

It always seems like I get nostalgic on days they play at Jones Beach (such as today)...and I'm especially nostalgic this year (and month) since it marks my 20th Phishiversary seeing the Twisting Troubadours. Like seemingly always, I'm much too buried alive to be dealing with my own life, much less that of Phish and the incipient circus that is Phish Tour. I'm moving house on Sunday, which is good enough a reason to knock me clean out the box for all of July. However, my appreciation for that bizarre, carnivalesque cyberphunk watering-hole known as COUCH TOUR has increased tremendously.

I may go so far as to say, in some ways, I enjoy Couch Tour a bit more than actual tour.

Heresy, you squawk? First of all, derr...couch terr is cheaper by far! The signal to noise ratio is excellent...it's just me, my laptop, jacked into the big speakers, and away we go into whatever cesspool (or aromatic ocean) of a stream we'll get for that evening, from whatever intrepid phan risks life and bicep to hold aloft their mobile device for that night's festivities. I always make sure to give thanks, to share links in the chat, and to generally be a good citizen...it makes for an arrestingly similar experience to being at a show, in miniature, replete with e-Lot, pregaming, postgaming, lifted "fingers" ("Who's got a link???" and "PM ME!" being the standard equivalents there), and all kinds of other sociologically scintillating corollaries.

Anyways, I could go on, and probably will, especially since I'll be back on the couch tonight, between puttering and packing, and chatting it up with the e-w00ks in Hoodstream-land, and many a night during this Summer Tour. I'd really love to get to Gorge, and since I'm the master of last-minute planning, I got all kinds of hookups and angles I could work to make it happen (including one particularly delicious guaranteed pancake breakfast). It's on the docket, I'm thinking about it, and we're hoping it's a go (that's the Royal We, by the way...it is, unsurprisingly, still only me -- what can I say...I'm an acquired taste, LOL). It would be a Gorge-ous way to mark 20 years following these very talented musicians, who are aging like a fine old oak monkey barrel on four wheels.

You'll also notice my new Twitter roll at the top right; I spun off a Phish-only Twitter account, to spare all my massive 300+ followers from the inevitable onslaught of arcane phististics...now I'll just bore them to death with mysterious meanderings and veiled mutterings to people who may or may not be listening, and absorption in whatever OTHER obsession-du-jour has got me on the run. FWIW, I've recently gotten deep back into dance music, particularly drum 'n' bass, which was a mainstay for me during the Dry Years, that awful first post-2000 hiatus. Now I have twice the phun...clubs, clubbing, new and deeper associations there, and the good old boys. Life's rich pageant, all over again.

So, tour on, bros and sisses, and dance them asses off! I'll see you on lot: actual, virtual, or otherwise.