from: Bill Latham
to: Keith Rutledge, Barb Jordan, Dan Butler, Melanie Westerberg
cc: The Internet At Large

Dear Friends,

After years of friendship with the song “Tom Sawyer” by the classic rock band Rush, I decided to take the next step in that friendship and go all the way- well, sort of- that is to say I bought a copy of “2112″ [1976 Mercury Records]. By “sort of go all the way” I mean that I “thought the song ‘Tom Sawyer’ was on that album when I purchased it from Antone’s Records on Sunday afternoon.

Two things of great importance:

1) The song “Tom Sawyer” is not on that particular album.
2) I’m enjoying this album a whole heaping fuck of a lot.

Those two things stated, I guess it’s obvious where this is heading: I’ll have to buy the album [”Moving Pictures”, 1981 Mercury Records] with “Tom Sawyer” on it. From therein I am predicting an unhealthy long term obsession with Rush. I’ve seen all the signs manifest themselves in other guitar player friends and frankly I don’t know how I remain unscathed this long. I’m only half the shredder some of those guys were- maybe even a quarter- an eighth.

I’m getting off subject though. I apologize profusely for wasting your time. What I’m failing to outright say is this: I might just be turning into the guy who likes Rush a little bit too much. Should this obsession spread to Yes or Dream Theater, you have my permission to take me out behind the nearest barn and fill me with bullets.

That is all.

Your friend,
Bill

I get a lot of e-mail spam. I don’t know about you.  I thought they might look less obtrusive as fortune cookie fortunes.  Let’s preview:

Walk don’t run, by the way.

DEEPER. AND FURTHER.

Order meds online for an apple a day.

At last, now we’re getting sensible.

Straight through her vocal chords?

Just like candy…

AND SO CAN YOU.

Let bygones be bygones.

CHIN UP, SON. CHIN UP.

ME: Do you have any security software?

CUSTOMER: yeah- I downloaded V-A-G from the internet. I’m all protected by my V-A-G.

Oh man.  We had a huge ass storm last night.  It was pretty intense.   Golf ball sized hail that sounded like one of those industrial sized ice machines that restaurants use- only it was falling out of the sky and setting off every car alarm in my neighborhood.  At midnight.

The electricity went off at least four times by my count- I kept waking up and falling back to sleep.  It went off another three times this morning- once when I was calling 411 to find out what time it was.  The operator was getting ready to tell me right when the power went off and my cordless phone dropped the call.

My walk to the bus stop this morning was through a path of felled tree limbs, broken glass, and dead birds.  Yeesh.

1) I accidentally had my alarm clock set to the radio instead of the buzzer and woke up to “Little Willy” by Sweet blasting at top volume.  Now it’s stuck in my head.  Everybody sing along- “Little Willy, Willy won’t go home, but you can’t push Willy round, Willy won’t go…”    You can thank me later for getting that stuck in yr head.

2) On the way to the bus stop I thought I’d woken up in an alternate dimension ala all those Philip K Dick book’s I’ve been reading at a rapid clip lately.  I saw a van with a faded bumper sticker that said “Cheney & Ashcroft 2008″ and for a few minutes thought I’d died and gone to hell.

3) I started Arthur C Clarke’s 2001 yesterday and have gotta say that, the movie makes a lot more sense now.  I think I’ll have to rewatch that soon.  I should have read this book years ago.