"Can't you see you're not making Christianity better, you're just making rock and roll worse?" - Hank Hill

The quote is apropos of nothing. I just thought it was funny when I heard it on a King of the Hill rerun. Yesterday when I went home for lunch a package was waiting. Nothing like a letter or a surprise package of music to interrupt the steady flow of bills.

In the spring of 2004 I was working in Tucson for about a month and when not working or disrupting Juche Child's quiet family life in Chandler I managed to meet some cool people workin at our site. R (and his wife M.) dropped a whole bunch of live shows on me, introduced me to the music of Calexico, and took me along to see Ramblin' Jack Elliott at the Congress Hotel. (Dillinger was arrested after a fire broke out in hotel or something strange like that.) Thankfully, no photos of that evening exist. The only evidence, a scratched up cell phone that broke my fall. Details are fuzzy but I think mojitos were involved.

We have sporadically attempted to trade more shows but I am lazy and disorganized and it can be a time consuming process especially when one is lazy and disorganized. Anyway, I did finally manage to send some live shows to them several months after I downloaded them.

It was still a pleasant surprise to open the box and find a live Neko Case disc from the All Songs Considered show in D.C. (still available here to listen but not broken into tracks so if anyone is interested I can burn it but see above for how long that may take.) Also included in the care package was The Raconteurs (lovely throw back looking website reminds of me of my old Compaq) Jack White's other band, also someone I had not heard of Marianne Dissard (Tucson based chansonnier a la Edith Piaf accompanied by one of the Calexico boys), and the pièce de résistance (to keep up the tortured French motif), a Grateful Dead set from the U of Iowa Field House circa 1982. R. also tipped me off in advance about the upcoming Calexico show at the Englert and I was able to snag good seats.

I will work on list of shows I have and put it up here in case anyone is interested in some live stuff. Keep an eye out around the new year at the current pace. I am currently scheduled to return to Tucson for an extended stay Oct-Nov, just in time to spoil JuChe's Thanksgiving or least his Halloween. Enjoy the weekend. I am off to take the kittens to their first vet appointment. Oh, Joy!