Jim White

I love Jim White. He's a charming guy from Florida who grew up Pentacostal but now writes kind of funny songs like "If Jesus Drove a Motorhome" and pretty songs like "A Perfect Day to Chase Tornados." He has a guitar, a drum machine and a lot of effects pedals that he uses to good effect, and in between songs, he tells stories in his southern accent. Southern accents make me miss AJ and the Writer's House. After the show, he sold clothes he had bought at thrift stores instead of tour t-shirts. Jim White said some people think he has a crazy imagination, picturing Jesus in a motorhome and all that, but in the town where he grew up, there were a lot of Jesus imitators and one of them drove a motorhome. Flannery O' Connor said something very similar about the different reactions of Northern people and Southern people to her stories. Both Jim and Flannery are called Southern Gothic artists, and I guess that's why. I wish I grew up somewhere weirder than a Los Angeles suburb.

The opening act was a band called Topless Opry. The guy I went with (who was very nice and polite) is good friends with the former bass player from Topless Opry, but neither the guy nor his friend knew that he was the former bass player until they saw on the Club Congress website that Topless Opry had a new very exciting line-up. The friend hadn't known there was going to be a gig. It turns out the new line-up is the old singer (who has a great country kind of voice) and his new girlfriend who wore two different outfits of lingerie and did stripper-type dancing and sang (she had an okay voice) a couple songs. About a year ago, the singer was in rehab for alcohol and crack and I guess he's fallen off the wagon. He was kind of a mess. And they didn't quite live up to the topless part of the name. But the woman did rub her ass on the stool next to mine when my friend went to get more drinks. So that was okay.

Veterans Day

These are the Knights of Columbus. They were marching down my street in the Veterans Day Parade, which was mostly like bad traffic with lots of American flags. Lots of old guys in cars. There were a couple of bands and Harley riders and teenagers in ROTC with sabers and a few Marines who were strolling with M-16s (or whatever you call those big scary guns). It was kind of nice in a nostalgic small town way, and it's nice of them to go "defend our country" even if our country is stupid. And our country is only partly stupid. And the Knights of Columbus wear fancy plumes on their hats and have matching capes. I felt bad for the guy in pink, but maybe he appreciated the God Bless Our Gay Troops hung on many of the buildings in my artsy-hippie neighborhood.