Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Purple Shirt of the Week: A Good Cause

What's better than wearing Purple? Wearing purple for a good cause! My friend TravelingAnn called me yesterday to tell me that it was "Wear Purple for Alzheimers Day"!

But then I got really busy before i could get to my computer, so I forgot. Don't know what that says, but I'm guessing it's not good.

Unfortunately I don't have any of those rock star drugs that make you really cool and a role model to small children, because then I could blame my memory slips on them. Nope. 100% natural dumba$$ here.

So, let's see here....I got a couple of blog contributions this week, but they're on my other computer, so let's go with something from the unposted archives...how about a pair of gloves that TravelingAnn herself made!

So mark your calendars: 354 days from now, September 21, it's "Wear Purple for Alzheimers Day". Don't forget!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Purple Shirt of the Week: End of Summer


I've received a few submissions from my lovely Purple readers this week, but opted for this one. Why? Last weekend was Labor Day Weekend, the end of the summer season. Short story - went to a party, and later in the evening they pulled out a bottle of Three Olives Vodka: Purple. Not only was purple the name, and purple on the label's design, but it was tinted purple as well. This is my friend Johnny with his prize. Sadly, I did not get to taste any because I was driving home in a little while (there's a PSA for you, folks! Party as stupid as you want to, but be safe! Andrew WK would approve...) and the bottle was gone by the end of the night. <Sigh>




Friday, September 3, 2010

Purple Shirt of the Week: News Brief

Not feeling particularly uppity or clever today to accompany today's Purple Shirt (which look, it's an actual shirt! Thanks Kim!), i decided to plug in "Purple" into Google News.

(No, there is not a photo of purple briefs...get your mind out of the gutter.)

Rapper Ti arrested, along with his ever-so-classy wife Tiny, for drug charges, including evidence they've been hitting the cough syrup again...or purple drank, as it is known (aka sizzup). In addition to giving the color a bad name and exhibiting boring choices in illegal substances (cough syrup as a base? the bad breath and aftertaste alone...), he deserves to have his mic taken away from him and is a poster child of why you should stay in school. Learn to speak English, jerk, especially if your profession is to write lyrics. "Drink" is a noun. "Drank" is the past tense of a verb. It's not cute. It's as dumb as making up a word.

(Speaking of dumb and hip hop culture - watched a news report a while ago on Ghost Riding, where kids leave the car on idle to roll down the street, get out, and dance on the hood or next to the car, then jump back in the car, unless they've hit something or get run over, at which point i guess the game is paused. Anyway, the kids in the report referred to themselves as "going dumb", a term that is endlessly amusing to me. I'm sure that Charles Darwin is someone they've never met in their history class, so making a pun here would be over their heads.)

RIM now offers a Blackberry called Purple (but apparently only in the UK on the O2 network): http://www.bestcontractmobilephonedeals.co.uk/blackberry-8520-purple-deals.aspx

In other purple news, Katy Perry has made it onto the Hot-or-Not poll, thanks to her purple-streaked hair. I don't know if the blueberry wig ever made it into such a poll, but here it is, folks! And it looks like she's winning!

http://www.stylebistro.com/Hot+or+Not/articles/lKg7BOUl9Ve/Hot+Not+Katy+Perry+Purple+Blue+Highlights

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Purple Shirt of the Week: Elvis has entered the building

I'm a big fan of the show Austin City Limits. Even the artists I'm
not crazy about I'll watch, because there is something about the
intimate nature of the show, even though I'm watching a recording of
it, that just offers a little bit more insight into an artist. Here's
a classy rocker guy I saw wearing a classy purple chapeau.

It seems that some genres of rock just breed some artists more easily
that will grow old gracefully. After all, rock and roll, at it's
heart, celebrates youth and vitality. It is easy to make rock and
roll grandpa jokes about the Rolling Stones, because their songs, by
and large, are really only appropriate coming out of the mouths of
bands much younger than them. And come on, Charlie Watts starred on
HBO as the Cryptkeeper. (See what I mean?) Do you really want to SEE
the Beach Boys sing about Barbara Ann and fast cars? Though, to be
fair, it's probably now more like a group of men at the nursing home
reminiscing about their singing group and the girls back around the
Great War. Maybe this is why Robert Plant didn't reunite with Zep
long term. Is it more appropriate for a man his age to be singing
Black Dog or Living Loving Maid, or to be singing Killing the Blues
with Alison Krauss?

Love him or hate him, I don't think you'll ever get people pointing
fingers at someone like Leonard Cohen saying "hang it up". The man
just oozes class. He's 74 years old this year, and has done just as
many drugs and drank as many Red Needle tequilas as any other man
who's been on stage since the '60s. But the man can WEAR a suit. And
still tours heavier than bands a quarter his age. (Of course, one has
to when their business partner steals all of their money...)

Saw Elvis Costello a few years ago. While he did not wear this purple
hat (and I wish he had), he was still a spitfire on stage for an hour,
all by himself. But at no point did it seem questionable for a 55
year old man to do what he was doing.

So, while one can debate that growing old in the rock and roll world
can yield questions bordering on ageism, you can't deny that some are
taking the high road and removing themselves from the equation. Or
rather, didn't write themselves into a corner when they were younger.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Purple Shirt of the Week: the strength of Samson

Last week TtW played at a few Girl Scout camps. Enroute there and
back, we had a couple of meetings with the good folks at Samson
Technologies, who make a variety of music gear, some of which we
currently use. That's why we were there - one of my wireless units had
died a few shows before and we played the poor musician card and got
them to repair it for free. Which was good, because otherwise I was up
the creek.

We were going to visit them last time we were in Long Island, NY but http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=10962828&blogId=538046646
happened.

Our man Fritz was super nice to us and took care of us with no
problem. This was the entrance to their corporate headquarters. Can
you see why we want to work with them more??

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Purple Shirt of the Week: Hanging on the Telephone



So the last date of the Talking to Malls tour found us back at the same mall we started at, and due to our brakes snapping into pieces, it was not by choice (see the blog post on how we almost died). On the upside, we had done a signing at that mall at BestBuy Mobile (Sunrise Mall in Massapequa, NY) back in May; and afterwards they gave Nat a new phone (a Droid). Well, we were planning on stopping at BestBuy Mobile anyway that day so Laura could get a phone and Nat a charger, so since we had no where else we could go...

They gave me a new case for my iPhone for free, since mine shattered outside the Toads Place show a week or two before. Really nice guys over there. Tell Hector, Nicole or Ed that Talking to Walls sent ya.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Purple Shirt of the Week: Adventures of a Traveling Man

So between the band and the day job, I've been on the road now more
than ever. Which means I post less, but I get to see more.

So here are two Purple photos from the month of June. First off, my
friend Ann sent me a photo, after asking "Isn't it cool that the hotel
rooms are purple?" and I said "They are? mine's not!"

One can only assume they're updating the hotel and hadn't gotten to my
room yet. Because olive is not Purple. I called hotel management to
complain. Told them to pick up the pace, and yes, I would graciously
accept them moving me to the properly-colored room. And sure enough,
a bellhop showed up to my room, and took my luggage. But he must have
been confused, because he dumped it all on the curb...

A few weeks later, I was once again traveling and saw this tower in
downtown Denver. It's right in the center of town. Big Purple
clocktower, looking over the whole city. I knew I was home.