Too Tired For Two

Too tired for two Blogs tonight...so you get my Pathways Playlist.

WEVL Pledge Drive is in April.

TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 2008
Pathways Playlist March 18 & 20,2008
1. Phillips & Driver/Ready For Love/Togetherness


2. The Heavy Circles/Ready To Play/The Heavy Circles

3. Shawn Mullins/Homeless Joe/Honeydew

4. Eleni Mandell/Moonglow, Lamp Low/Miracle Of Five

5. Tony Joe White/For Ol' Times Sake/Tony Joe White Warner Archives

6. Ryan Adams/Lovesick Blues/Timeless, Hank Williams

7. Iron & Wine/Boy With A Coin/Boy With A Coin

8. Cat Power/Lord, Help The Poor & Needy/Jukebox

9. Paul Westerberg/Nothing To No One/Stereo

10. Greg Brown/Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone/Yellow Dog

11. Birdie Busch/Tombstone Store/Penny Arcade

12. Tom Waits/Lucinda/Orphans

13. Jack Oblivian/I'm In Love With You/Sunday Nights, Songs of Junior Kimbrough (Local)

14. The Waifs/Pony/Sundirtwater

15. The Wild Magnolias/Pocket Change/Life Is A Carnival

16. Kula Shaker/Fool That I Am/Strange Folk

17. Bell XI/He Said She Said/Flock

18. The Caribbean/The Go From Tatical/Populations

19. Rosie Thomas/October/In Between

20. Ana Egge/In The Backseat/Lazy Days

21. Over The Hill/Darling, What Do You Want Me To Say?/Over The Hill

22. Dan Montgomery/Rosetta, Please/Rosetta, Please (A Love Story) (Local)

23. Ray Davies/Working Man's Cafe/Working Man's Cafe

24. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks/Out Of Reaches/Real Emotional Trash

25. Jesse Winchester/Evil Angel/Gentlemen Of Leisure

26. Richard Thompson/I've Got No Right To Have It All/The Old Kit Bag

27. Kathleen Edwards/Run/Asking For Flowers

28. Ron Franklin/We Ain't Got No Home/Ballads Songs & Snatches (Local)

29. Linda Thompson/Blackwaterslide/Dreams Fly Away

30. Tegan & Sara/I Was Married/The Con

31. Mary Gauthier/Before You Leave/Between Daylight And Dark

32. Kaki King/Can Anyone Who Has Heard This Music Be A Bad Person?/Dreaming Of Revenge

Floyd Skloot

       I went to the reading today at the Jay Etkin Gallery on South Main. The writer who was to read was Floyd Skloot.  I really did enjoy his reading and his own personal story of recovering from brain damage caused by a virus he contracted 15 years ago. He has also had to totally change his writing technique. He has lost a lot of his memories and is having to piece it all together bit by bit. His reading were of his poetry, an essay and his memoirs. I enjoyed all of them, his reading style is very animated. This helps bring the characters he has written about to life for the listener.

       The Jay Etkin Gallery was a nice setting for an event like this. It is a very beautiful gallery with all the South Main and Old/New Memphis charm. The artists represented in the gallery had some amazing pieces.

Grown Up Daughters!

       Hooray! Rachel, my oldest daughter is finished with her ESL school in Berlin as of today! She is now a certified ESL teacher! This is so surreal to me. But then, life has been like a Fellini film for the best 5 or 6 months anyway. I am sooooo proud of her! The school she went to was like a boot camp. She said they worked all day in to the night including all the homework with lesson plans, etc. Her Aunt Nancy is a an ESL teacher and owns a language school in Columbia, South Carolina called Language Expresso. She used to be a professor at University of Memphis in the International Program. She had recommended this school because it was one of the best but very intense. Rachel did not know intense until she got in to it. There have been some tears and some euphoria over the past four to five weeks but she did it! She graduated from U of M in December and now she is a teacher! The feeling of following something through to its completion and then succeeding is a wonderful feeling. It is a fabulous way to start her adult life. If I sound as if I am bragging, I am. To me, Rachel and Ariel are my biggest and best successes in my life.  They are also blessed with wonderful grandparents.  They are truly a gift from God. I am sure I would feel this way no matter what they did with their lives but I really think they have turned out quite well. 

Spring Break

Spring Break? Was there one? What I did was work trying to make some money and then I worked some more on my Philosophy essay test (fourteen questions), I also worked on my English paper and I read for my class in Gender and Society. There is a lot of reading.
So, Did I do anything remotely fun and Spring Breakish? I took pictures of my daughter, Ariel, in the snow. I could not believe that we got that much snow on March 7th, even if this Memphis.
I also took my Mom to the Southern Women's Show. We went with some of my friends and one of their moms. It sounds hokey but it was fun and my Mom enjoyed it. I try to get her out because she won't do it in her own very much, except to go to the store.
My friend, Bev got Botox while we were there. Yep, she had poison injected into her frown lines. I told her to go for it because she had thought about it for a long time. She is not a vain person, really. She works hard all the time so I thought she should do something for herself. Who cares what everyone thinks? I am about to go meet her now and see the results, she has to go to the Spa and get some kind of filler. Her family has been out of town (she became a first time mother after the age of 40) so we are going to tell them to go out of town more often because it takes years off of Beverly to have that alone time.

#451.59 ????!!!!!!

Never, never, never, I repeat never trust MLG & W to do the right thing! I think they have special training for their customer service representatives (HA!) on how to be rude and condescending. I recently moved to a condo and the only utilities I pay for is electric. The rest is covered in my association dues. The first month was normal, then the second month the bill was almost $200.00. For just electric? Come on..... I let it go because the bill was for over 30 days and I turned my thermostat down. Plus I only ran the dishwasher every other day, the tv is hardly ever on. There are only 2 of us here now so we do not use a lot of hot water, I do laundry in cold water. It was still very cold downstairs but we stay upstairs mostly. The bill for January was $87, better. It was an estimated bill so they did not come out and read the meter but they still showed a breakdown on my account website.
The month of February went by with no bill showing up so I sent a couple of emails inquiring into the reasons. It took almost 2 weeks for anyone to respond. I checked my account everyday and there was nothing. My neighbor came over one day and said his bill was over $350 and he lives by his self. He had been on the phone with them and was livid. I started getting worried...Finally, a Miss Beasley called me today but I was driving so I asked to call back later. I got home and checked my account and it said I owed $451.59!!! That is insane! I still could not look at the bill details, the only current information was pay this bill. Like Hell...I am not accepting this! After 30 minutes on hold I finally spoke to a live customer representative who proceeded to let me know that I was ignorant and just did not understand how things worked. When I requested someone to come out and read my meter again, she explained they do not do that. Well someone in an MLGW truck came out here last week after my neighbor had ranted and raved for an hour. I told her I wanted the meter checked out and she told me they could do that but if THEY found out it was ok they would charge ME at least $80.00! I lived in my last house for over 11 years paying electric and gas and never had a bill this high. She tried to tell me it was because they estimated my January bill and because of the extreme cold. Extreme Cold? When? I asked for a breakdown of the charges and she told me they could not get breakdowns of previous months which was counter to what she just said about the fact that when they actually read my meter they found out I used more electricity in January then they showed on my bill. More BS! I think we need some kind of energy revolution or at least some competition in the utility business. I was so pissed after talking to her! I need to go talk to my neighbor.

What Year Were These Words Written?

Many household live on the edge of financial ruin” and “Number seeking bankruptcy protection on the rise throughout the Mid-South.” Some of the contributing factors that were pointed out as leading to this situation were “Weakness in the American farm economy”, “Easier availability of credit”, “Expensive medical care and rising insurance rates” and “Direct-mail advertising by Memphis lawyers

Propaganda Analysis

      Since I am writing my paper on credit, debt and bankruptcy I thought that this ad was an appropriate piece of propaganda. The reason I believe this is so is because American culture has become very self-absorbed and obsessed with having the biggest and the best right now.  The ad has the visual of a photograph of a little girl right in the middle of it. This would make people connect with the idea that Capital One is a family friendly company. They also chose words such as "your". It's your rate, your rewards, your design, it's all about you. You can have this credit card designed to your own needs. Capital one is all about you, the consumer. I think they use a main color palette of calm blue and white because these colors are easy to look at and somewhat serene. Everything about having a Capital One credit card makes one's life easier.

       This artifact is all about American culture's need for instant gratification. It suggests values of having everything you want right now at your finger tips. And you can worry about paying for it later, it's so easy.