We Take That Which is in Our Way and We Turn it into Mulch.

And this mulch, my friends, we spread across our yards as a warning to all future obstacles.

We'll be laying mulch at my folks' place this weekend, AMF and I. I have this crazy idea, though, that starts with me going to the gas station after work and telling the attendant on duty to load me up with 40 bags of their finest mulch and ends with me laying it all down tonight. Night landscaping, it's in the blood of my people. We know not sleep, we know only toil.

I want to free up the weekend and have time for STUPID, ridiculous AMF time. A walk by the Riverwalk (that's what it's there for, afterall), ice cream outside in the sun with the bugs and the breeze and the sounds of suburbia, mayhaps drinking beer while I futz with the guitar again.

I talked briefly with my dear friend Ryan today, and he mentioned a shot he's got to play a show at a bar by his place in Brooklyn. I'm excited for him and living vicariously through this bit of good fortune. More than anything, it seems Right and Appropriate that he cover Dion's "The Wanderer." However, and I've tried to state this to him as clearly as possible, it must be performed with Attitude, with venom, violence, and vim. Should he leave out a single element-- and God forbid it be the vim-- he could have a living breathing train crash on his hands. This would be his Tet. The fire and resultant fury would leave him burned, charred, and ultimately incapacitated. Could he recover? Certainly, and he would. Ryan's one of the toughest fellows I've had the privilege to meet, a bare-knuckle boxer who's had to fight to eat in the past. He's got a gaze that I've seen scare subway rats, rats that grow to the size of cats, rats with a single purpose- to hunt and to kill. That said, and back onto my point: This is not an injury Ryan needs to bring upon himself right now. And, if he listens to me, he'll come out smelling like a rose. The crowd will walk out unable to make eye contact with one another. The men will have been virtually castrated, and the women will know, both in their hearts and in their loins that the man on stage is the only man who will ever be able to truly satisfy them.

God speed, friend.