Will He Moscow...? Nay. Random Ramblings From The Cyber Pool Hall
A little grab bag of mental flotsam today:
For those of you looking for any Moscow pictures, I'm sorry to say I did not take any. I was pretty much over the trip by the time we hit Moscow, so my trusty Sony stayed sheathed. We flew in from St. Petersburg on what must have been an early '60's (it was old) jet that had tin tray tables and zero legroom. Doug Short, seated directly behind me, asked me how his knees felt in my back, and I replied that they went well with my knees in my chin. It was a short hop to Moscow, thankfully. Beats driving, I'd bet.
First order of business was food. We headed for MacDonald's (aka The Embassy), but were seduced by the sight of a TGIF. Of course in Russian it was a Bb3PATPH. Or something like that. It's easy to type Russian - just randomly tap your keyboard and be sure to hit a few number keys.
Happily, the food was very good, though it arrived at room temperature. Luckily, the room temperature was about 85 degrees, and if the many large air conditioning units hanging from the ceiling were functional, I couldn't prove it. Maybe they decorate their TGIFs with non-working appliances instead of pop culture artifacts. Tasty burger, though.
The venue was much improved over St. Petersburg, the upstairs where catering was set up housed a boxing ring that doubled as a lesbian night club. Talk about yer Sweet Science. I caught the early van back to the hotel, but later that night when the regular clientèle began to arrive, all reports indicate that the Soviet Sapphonistas were mostly of the lipstick variety. No Raging Bulls in that ring.
The flight home was rather painless, considering it is a 10-hour trip from Moscow to Atlanta. I had no Delta miles, so upgrading was not an option. I scored a window seat in coach and was quite comfortable and the in-flight food surpassed edible and was headed toward decent. Watched a couple of movies while I listened to my iPod (well, actually the wife has an iPod , I have the more Soviet-inspired Dell DJ. It works.).
I listened to a lot of Thin Lizzy. I have been re-visiting them, having shared a bill or two on this tour. Great songs, great guitar playing - everything I remembered that I liked about them still holds true.
Also checked out the new Wayne Hancock record, 'Tulsa", which swings and twangs in all the right ways. Steel guitar master Eddie Rivers plays on it. I worked with him live a few times, and he is on the super-scarce "Montana Blue and the Big Sky Cowboys" album that I was a part of way back in the day.
Still digging the Neko Case record "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" and a couple of her earlier records.
A brief bit of news on the wife's record. USA Today had it in their Top Ten picks a week or so ago, singling out the Psychedelic Furs cover "Love My Way". You can Google "Donna Beasley" to hear some of the cuts on her MySpace page or her website. You can also purchase it as a download from DigStation, and I really think you should or I will be forced to allow ads on this blog. Well, you might just like it.
I had a few days off, spent them re-connecting with friends and family. I was a little disappointed that after six weeks I only had three voice mail messages on my phone. I usually get that many "wrong numbers" in a week, but maybe everyone knew where I was.
Which leads us to tonight's hotel room, in the beautiful By The Airport neighborhood of Detroit. We head to Canada tomorrow. I have left my camera at home, so it will have to be sent to me once we are back in the USA. Or maybe I'll just do some pure, diary-like blogging until we finish up on the 27th.
For those of you looking for any Moscow pictures, I'm sorry to say I did not take any. I was pretty much over the trip by the time we hit Moscow, so my trusty Sony stayed sheathed. We flew in from St. Petersburg on what must have been an early '60's (it was old) jet that had tin tray tables and zero legroom. Doug Short, seated directly behind me, asked me how his knees felt in my back, and I replied that they went well with my knees in my chin. It was a short hop to Moscow, thankfully. Beats driving, I'd bet.
First order of business was food. We headed for MacDonald's (aka The Embassy), but were seduced by the sight of a TGIF. Of course in Russian it was a Bb3PATPH. Or something like that. It's easy to type Russian - just randomly tap your keyboard and be sure to hit a few number keys.
Happily, the food was very good, though it arrived at room temperature. Luckily, the room temperature was about 85 degrees, and if the many large air conditioning units hanging from the ceiling were functional, I couldn't prove it. Maybe they decorate their TGIFs with non-working appliances instead of pop culture artifacts. Tasty burger, though.
The venue was much improved over St. Petersburg, the upstairs where catering was set up housed a boxing ring that doubled as a lesbian night club. Talk about yer Sweet Science. I caught the early van back to the hotel, but later that night when the regular clientèle began to arrive, all reports indicate that the Soviet Sapphonistas were mostly of the lipstick variety. No Raging Bulls in that ring.
The flight home was rather painless, considering it is a 10-hour trip from Moscow to Atlanta. I had no Delta miles, so upgrading was not an option. I scored a window seat in coach and was quite comfortable and the in-flight food surpassed edible and was headed toward decent. Watched a couple of movies while I listened to my iPod (well, actually the wife has an iPod , I have the more Soviet-inspired Dell DJ. It works.).
I listened to a lot of Thin Lizzy. I have been re-visiting them, having shared a bill or two on this tour. Great songs, great guitar playing - everything I remembered that I liked about them still holds true.
Also checked out the new Wayne Hancock record, 'Tulsa", which swings and twangs in all the right ways. Steel guitar master Eddie Rivers plays on it. I worked with him live a few times, and he is on the super-scarce "Montana Blue and the Big Sky Cowboys" album that I was a part of way back in the day.
Still digging the Neko Case record "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" and a couple of her earlier records.
A brief bit of news on the wife's record. USA Today had it in their Top Ten picks a week or so ago, singling out the Psychedelic Furs cover "Love My Way". You can Google "Donna Beasley" to hear some of the cuts on her MySpace page or her website. You can also purchase it as a download from DigStation, and I really think you should or I will be forced to allow ads on this blog. Well, you might just like it.
I had a few days off, spent them re-connecting with friends and family. I was a little disappointed that after six weeks I only had three voice mail messages on my phone. I usually get that many "wrong numbers" in a week, but maybe everyone knew where I was.
Which leads us to tonight's hotel room, in the beautiful By The Airport neighborhood of Detroit. We head to Canada tomorrow. I have left my camera at home, so it will have to be sent to me once we are back in the USA. Or maybe I'll just do some pure, diary-like blogging until we finish up on the 27th.
posted by Tom Spaulding at 8:29 PM
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