String Cheese - Article Eighteen

Singers often sing in star-bangled manner

By ARYN CORLEY

Updated: 12.15.08

I hate watching someone butcher our national anthem. Whether it’s at a social event, sports game, or kid’s birthday party, when the performer steps up to the mic, I don’t know whether to feel patriotism or dread. It’s amazing to me that a song, depending on the success of the performance, can leave you feeling happy about America or wanting to kill the singer.

When massacred, the national anthem could inspire a hostile crowd to chant, “Eat the performer!” Okay, mob cannibalism is a little extreme. However, a riot is not entirely out of the question.

When Francis Scott Key was watching Fort McHenry getting pummeled by British warships, he grabbed his pen and starting jotting down some words. After all, if you can’t fight... write. Ironically, Key’s college roommate was with him and dictated to Key most of the events of the battle. He was an Argentinian kid named Jose who also wore very thick glasses. Several times during the skirmish Key would ask his friend, “Jose, can you see?”

The rest is history. Sort of.

The Star Spangled Banner is considered to be one of the most difficult songs to sing. Although, it’s not nearly as difficult to sing as Staying Alive by the Bee-Gees.

There seems to be some confusion regarding the correct protocol when the song is performed. Some people put their hands over their hearts while some keep their hands down to their sides. I find myself often putting my hands over my ears.

When I was in the military, we had to stand at attention, salute, and face the music at the end of every business day on post. Of course, if you were indoors this wasn’t necessary.

One day a kid in my unit, [ironically] named Scheer, almost scalped himself completely as he hit his head on a low metal beam supporting a stairway landing as he tried to run inside before the music played. Needless to say he saw stars, stripes, and paramedics.

When I was overseas, we had to wait for the host country’s anthem to play before ours. I sure was glad that no country ever adopted Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung.”

If you want to browse an interesting collection of mangled performances of our country’s anthem, then look no further than You Tube. You can relive every excruciating moment of Roseanne Barr’s rendition or go way back to see Jose Feliciano’s version, which caused him to go blind. Not really. My favorite is Michael Bolton, who had to look at a cheat-card because he forgot the lyrics. Judging from the crowd’s reaction, they wanted his spleen with their nachos.

Those videos illustrate the point I made. Anyone can sing the song out of tune, but forget the words and it’s off the gallows with you.

For all would-be National Anthem singers I make this plea: learn the tune and don’t forget the words.

By the way, the words are “... perilous fight.”

A “...perilous flight” is what you get when the pilot falls asleep.

Jump, Jive, and Wail!

Happy Holidays.

I've got another cheese posting tomorrow. Hunting season has had me pretty busy, lately. Three weeks to go. Whew. I think I can make it.

A fellow police officer was killed in the line of duty in Houston just two days ago. In fact, the incident occurred not far from where I work my "EJ". When things like that happen it really makes me extra careful and paranoid.

ITMT, I'm going to West Texas to visit relatives. Oddly enough, they live right down the road from that polygamist compound that was raided (Ironically, by co-workers of mine). I may do some updates from the road. It largely depends on the type of cell service I can get way out there. 

Thanks for checking in with me and I will have a new article up tomorrow.

When you get a chance, check out videos by Brian Setzer on You Tube. That lucky bastard got all of my guitar playing ability when I was in line waiting on a sense of humor.

Nuts.

String Cheese- Article Seventeen

Kids’ games drive some parents batty
By ARYN CORLEY
In any given city on any given school night, pint-sized warriors take the field to match skills and attention disorders.Tee ball was created as a contest of genetic superiority. There isn’t a better way to metaphorically declare “my kid is better than your kid” than to have them on a baseball field wondering just what the heck to do next.
Pageants would be a lot better if only they had more contact.
Sometimes I wonder whether or not the game is really meant for the younsters or us parents.
If the game were truly for the kids, the parents would be asked to leave. Heck, instead of T-ball it could be called something else like “Play-in-the-antbed ball” or “Hey-look-it’s-a-plane ball.” If you really want a kid to become interested in aviation, put him or her in the outfield. Game time is the perfect time for amateur botanists to examine specimens.
Getting two dozen kids to play an organized game is like herding cats. You’d probably have an easier time brokering a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.I love it because it drives parents crazy.
At one of my son’s games, I watched the parents instead of the kiddos. It was definitely worth the price of admission.At first I thought the moms and dads were cheering, but as I listened closer those cheers sounded more like helpless pleas.
“Throw to first!,” one mom yelled.
“Run, run, run!,”, a dad bellowed.
“Stop picking your nose!,” cried a legal guardian.
It was not long before exasperated parents began to threaten their kids. People’s children were going to bed early and having video games taken away left and right. Let’s face it — fear is the substance of childhood. Without it, being a kid would be meaningless.The mere possibility of my parents ending my existence kept me always striving to hide the evidence.
Some of the parents yelled out to their offspring. They shouted names like “Forrest,” “Bo,” and “Hunter.” It seemed less like a T-ball game and more like a trip to Gander Mountain.
It’s also easy to tell which kids have an aptitude for the game. Any kid who actually watches the ball is way ahead of the curve. If the ball looked more like the Death Star (a spherical weapon of mass destruction from the movie Star Wars), my spawn would be interested in it.
A kid’s only saving grace for a lackluster performance is batting. An infield homer washes away many sins. Saying a kid hit like a girl used to be an insult. However, these days the girls are the ones who are batting the runners in.
Ruth, the Babe?
Thankfully, nobody keeps score. Good thing. Otherwise, it would be hard for the bookies to work out the point spread.

String Cheese- Article Sixteen

Halloween Memories Can Be Frightening
by Aryn Corley

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.
When I was a kid I'd enjoy dressing up in strange costumes and accosting my neighbors for something sweet and bad for my teeth. My parents weren't at all concerned with the pagan origins of the holiday. Also, we didn't have a whole lot of cash laying around to spend on costumes.
They just thought it was funny to watch me dress up like some low-budget ghoul. In fact, the operating budget carried just enough money to buy one bag of candy and that was to go to other kids who came to my house.
Life is so cruel.
I didn't know it at the time, but it was no coincidence that we always got the candy my dad liked and it was usually gone by the time kids started arriving.
Anyway, back to my costumes.
Other kids were dressing up as pirates, sports figures, some even as biblical characters. Some of them had elaborate get-ups that were store bought.
Not I.
I always had to be whatever was laying around the house. Ed Wood would've been proud of me. There was no rhyme nor reason to my look. It defied explanation. People would ask me what my costume was and I would just shrug. I was the "Dunno" for many Halloweens.
One year I had green oatmeal stuck to my face. My mom got the brilliant idea of mixing oatmeal with green food coloring and globbing it all over my kisser. I looked as if Linda Blair tried to give me a makeover.As I went from house to house I got some very strange looks.
"What are you supposed to be young man?"
"I dunno."
"You look like someone puked their breakfast all over your face."
To add insult to injury, the guy dumped about a pound of candy corn into my small bag. Ugh.
The streets of Hell are paved with candy corn.
I dragged that sack around like a bag full of fossilized dinosaur droppings. At least my dad was excited about my take."Candy corn! My favorite!" he exclaimed.
Now that I'm a parent, I've decided to spare my children the indignity of roaming the neighborhood as a pile of dirty laundry. Ironically, my father runs a chain of stores which sell, of all things, Halloween costumes. My kids received some really cool things from grandpas store. The Darth Vader costume that came was pretty elaborate and the lightsaber that goes with it is pretty cool too. Where was all that stuff when I was a kid?
Life is so cruel.
It's just as well that they got fancy commercial costumes for Halloween. I probably would have dressed them up as something completely inappropriate like an Al-Queda operative or Monica Lewinsky (dress not included).We probably won't go trick-or-treating in the traditional sense. Creeping around in the dark dressed as 12 point buck is a recipe for getting shot around these parts. We'll probably end up going to the kids' school or to some other local gathering. Maybe the kids would like to go to a bar that night.
Those kids have it so easy.

Twitterpated

There is a website called TWITTER which lets users post small messages and stuff. It's kind of like text messaging. These days communication happens very quickly.
If you join TWITTER. Be sure to 'follow' user named ArynCorley.
That's me.

STRING CHEESE NOMINATED FOR SNA AWARD

*BREAKING NEWS*

My String Cheese Article Nobody Loves Love Bugs Like Lovebugs Love Bugs has been nominated for two Suburban Newspapers of America (http://www.suburban-news.org/Default.aspx) awards for Best Opinion Column and Best Headline.

Wow!

This should entitle me to a line item veto of "honey-do" lists.

String Cheese- Article Fifteen

Desperate times call for desperate recipes

BY ARYN CORLEY

As I view the photographs of the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike, I’m reminded of my kids’ rooms. The chaos and disorder of both can be overwhelming. Luckily, we didn’t suffer any damage and nobody was seriously injured. Thankfully, many of my friends came out of this storm with only a few trees down.

As with all natural disasters, there’s the time afterward when we scratch our heads and say to ourselves, “Now what?”

The hurricane damage in Southeast Texas ruined many planned events like Brad Paisley’s concert and the Texans football game. You know things are bad when the NFL has to reschedule a game. The Lord himself could come back to take us home right at halftime during the Super Bowl, and the NFL will ask him to kindly wait until the end of the game. That’s after checking to see if he’d bought a ticket.

However, East Texans weren’t going to let a little wind damage and power outage put a damper on doing what East Texans seem to do best: drinking and grilling.

The silver lining to this dark cloud is that we love food and whether it’s a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or flash flood, we’re going to “get our grub on.”

In the moments leading up to the storm, I saw hundreds of people scrambling around making preparations. I consistently saw the same things in the shopping carts as they rolled by: hot dogs, buns, chips and beer. It looked like people were getting prepared for an Astros game than a hurricane.

Liquor store parking lots looked like airports as scores of people were clamoring about to get in and out.

When the lights went out, the fires started. Across the county, the smell of lighter fluid wafted from one end to the other. After all, there was a fresh supply of smoking wood laying all over the place. For the next several days, barbecuing broke out instead of riots and hysteria.

It was pure heaven.

Everywhere I turned, someone was either sticking a rib in my mouth or stuffing a piece of grilled chicken in my shirt pocket.

People started cooking the meat from their freezers in order to prevent it from going to waste. Filet mignons that had been reserved for a special occasion had now become casualties of the storm. Where there’s barbecue, the beer is soon to flow.

At the POD (or point of distribution, as it was called), where I was working to hand out water and MREs, we were also doling out bags of ice like they were melting. Well, they were actually. As car after car came through, we popped open coolers to find they were filled with several different brands of sudsy brew. Nothing will keep the froth on a Miller Lite longneck bottle like a bag or two of government ice.

Let’s face it. When you’re dealing with insurance companies, you’re going need a drink. There’s no better time to “tie-one-on” than when your place is already trashed.

One guy even asked me if FEMA was going to bring any beer to the POD.

Fat chance.

Alas, all good things come to an end. The power coming back on was a bittersweet reunion. I wanted to ask SHECO if they could hold off on the power restoration.

At least until I could get some more jalapeno-stuffed dove breasts and a Miller Lite.