Gina and I had to put our 10-year-old Golden Retriever, Ruby, to sleep tonight. She had had a baseball-sized tumor that she had carried with her on her right side the past couple of years, and it ruptured this past Monday, which not only meant that a very expensive surgery would have been required to remove it (in the neighborhood of $600), but that she, due to her age, plus having advanced infection from the growth (detected in a blood test), and also possible kidney problems, would also be in danger of never waking up from the anesthesia. There was also the added concern that a ruptured tumor indicated advancing cancer, and that even after it was removed, the cancer would continue to spread and her quality of life would have gone downhill rapidly and she may have only lasted another few months with us, anyway. So in considering all of the above, we felt it was just best to have her euthanized. At least our last memories of her were of her standing there looking at us lovingly and happily wagging her tail, as she always did.
She was the happiest, sweetest, and most playful dog I’ve ever owned, and she was my best buddy, always right there by my side no matter what it was I was doing. We will miss her dearly.
Recently I decided to try and do some updating of the Kopp family tree… not sure why, really. Guess I’ve always wanted to know exactly where my family came from. All we ever really knew was that our oldest known ancestor, Frederick (Friedrich) Kopp, came to the United States in the late 1850s with four of his kids. It was only discovered in the last decade or so what the name of the ship was and when exactly it arrived (they came in through the port of New Orleans and then traveled up the Mississippi River and settled in the St. Louis area, first in the area that is now Carondelet Park, and then in Manchester, where they began farming). So I thought I’d try to do a little digging and see if I could come up with some more information, and maybe find out what Frederick’s parents’ names were, and so on. Well, after digging for the past two weeks or so, I haven’t really found much out. But I was able to get some pretty interesting documents from an older relative, including some pretty incredible photos that I’ve since uploaded to my Flickr account.
One of the things that really bothers me about doing family history research is that all you can ever find are names, and, sometimes, exact dates. Not much else is known about any of these people. You MIGHT get lucky and find out what they did for a living, or if they served in the military (my great, great grandfather fought for the Union Army in the Civil War, I’ve learned), but aside from that, there isn’t anything else to tell you what these people were like, and that kinda bums me out.
Anyway, I’m going to continue with my research and hopefully dig up more information than my family currently has.
I decided to check the latest copy of the AT&T White Pages today, just to make sure that our home telephone number was unlisted like it was supposed to be, and wouldn’t you know it, there it was, plain as day, in the April 2007 issue. I couldn’t remember exactly when I had called AT&T to request that our phone number be non-published, but I figured it was at least a year ago. Turns out, I was right. I actually called in and requested they remove our number from the published listings back on November 1st, 2006. Yet for some unknown reason, it still managed to get included in the next print version of the White Pages as well as WhitePages.com. What’s even more aggravating is that no one at AT&T could tell me why! The person that was helping me was very nice and apologetic (she also sounded quite embarrassed), yet she could not reach anyone at WhitePages.com today because “they were closed for the holidays.” So she suggested I try to call them directly tomorrow to ask them why my number is still showing up on their site. As for who to call to inquire about why my number is still showing up in the actual book, I have no leads… So I suppose I’ll just keep calling back at the main number and asking them until I can get someone that can tell me.
I’m taking a break from the whole TIRC Productions show-promotion/booking thing. Why? Well, I feel like Bill Streeter and I really busted our asses to promote the Show-Me Blowout, only to have it not meet our expectations. I don’t mean that in terms of the quality of the performances of each band (they were all fantastic, as expected), but due to the very poor attendance both nights at Off Broadway (not even close to what I was shooting for, as a matter of fact). There were also dozens of people that I fully expected to see there (some of them from actually TELLING me they’d be there) who, for whatever reason, decided not to come either night (or show up at the free barbecue at Apop, for that matter). I don’t mind working hard to promote things that people enjoy and/or support, but when you work hard to promote something only to have it fail time and time again (and lose money doing it), it just starts to lose its appeal. It’s just not fun anymore. So I’m tired of it, tired of the disappointments, and am simply going to take a break. So don’t be surprised if you don’t see me promoting (or showing up at) any shows for a while. I just need some time away from music promotion and the whole local music scene in general. Whether or not this break becomes permanent or not is yet to be decided, but no matter how much I try to remain positive about the rock’n'roll scene in St. Louis, I keep getting reminded of how much it really sucks ass. Those two nights at Off Broadway were big, daunting, humiliating reminders of this for me.
So the big question remains: Will there be a Show-Me Blowout 2? Don’t hold your breath.
Originally uploaded by Kopper
I was going through some of my mom & dad’s old photo albums at my sister’s house yesterday and came across some good ones that I’ll be adding to my Flickr account soon. Here’s one I don’t ever remember seeing before… it’s my friend Darrin Lowery and I taken in the driveway at my parents’ house in St. Peters. This would’ve been the week of Spring Break, 1988. Darrin and I were pals at CMSU in Warrensburg, it was my senior year, and since he had nothing going on (I didn’t either, really) and didn’t have any money to go anywhere fun, we just decided to spend the week wreaking havoc in St. Louis. While there, we got pulled over by the cops once for speeding (we weren’t speeding and we ended up not getting a ticket) and we even had cops in a completely separate incident pull guns on us and do one of those classic “get out of the car with your hands up, turn around and put your hands on the car!” scenarios where we had to get frisked and almost got our asses thrown in jail… for what, you ask? Spinning my wheels as we pulled into a gravel parking lot on Euclid in the Central West End. See what happens when you bring a black friend home with you for spring break?
I just wanted to post that I’m very proud to not have ever read one word of, nor seen one minute of, any Harry Potter story, and I’m OK with that. Very content, as a matter of fact, thankyouverymuch. This cultural phenomenon just goes right over my head, sorry.
Ya know, it’s kinda funny in that odd-feeling in your stomach kinda funny, not HAHA/HOHO/HEHE/ROFL/LMFAO/LOL kinda funny… but walking out of the movie theater a couple of weeks ago after going to see Ratatouille with my wife and son, I saw “Potter” above one of the other theater doorways, and a long line of people stretched out from it. The first thought to come to my mind was to blurt out, “Oh, look, they made a movie about Jason Potter!” Then I realized what it was and I was suddenly very sad and embarrassed. Fuck you, Harry Potter. Fuck you.
My house smells just like the zoo,
It’s chock full of shit and puke!
Cockroaches on the walls,
Crabs crawlin’ on my balls!
Oh, but I’m so clean cut,
I just want to fuck some slut!I love living in the city
I love living in the city
I’ve spent my whole life in the city,
Where junk is king and the air smells shitty.
People puking everywhere!
Piles of blood, scabs, and hair.
Bodies wasted in defeat,
Young people dying on the streets.
But the suberban scumbags they don’t care,
They just get fat and dye their hair!
I love living in the city
I love living in the city
Great song by Fear, eh? Brings back memories of college for me… drinking cheap beer, smoking clove cigarettes and driving long distances in beat-up, old cars to see punk shows in some dingy, faraway venue (usually in the middle of a cornfield). But as nasty and abrasive as the lyrics were in that song, I personally couldn’t wait to actually LIVE in the city, once I was done with college and could move away from the parents’ nice prefab house in the suburbs. All my life I’d been intrigued by city living, and when my wife and I moved back to St. Louis from Kansas City (where we’d also lived in the central city), we immediately began looking for an apartment on the south side. That was in the spring of 1994, and we’ve been here ever since. As anyone who lives in the city and has close friends or relatives in the outlying suburban areas can probably attest, you often have to defend your decision to live in such a “dangerous” area. It used to come up quite frequently with some of my family members early on, but hasn’t really been an issue lately. Anyway, I wanted to post a link to this great blog entry on 15thWardSTL.org called “Why I Live Where I Live.” I think it pretty much nails it for my feelings on why I live in the city. Please check it out.
Got a call from a detective at the SLPD… they got a match on the prints lifted from our house after the recent burglary! They belong to some 16-year-old kid. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. Book ‘em, Dano!
Just been kinda busy lately. Trying to finalize the band lineup on a two-day “garage fest” for St. Louis in October has become increasingly difficult due to miscommunication and possible scheduling problems with one band in particular, which just so happens to be one of the potential headliners. All of the bands will be from Missouri and I was thinking of calling it the “Show-Me Blowout,” named after Deke Dickerson’s old MO-based rock’n'roll fanzine of the late ’80s/early ’90s. By the way, the dates for this thing will be Friday and Saturday, October 12th and 13th, if you want to clear that weekend on your calendar NOW so that it won’t conflict with anything that may come up in the meantime. Bill Streeter, Jason Potter, and a couple of other people are helping me with this. It’ll be an official TIRC production. However this thing shakes out, it’ll be fun. I just hope it’s successful. I’d hate to get the bands all lined up for this thing and sell only 50 or 60 tickets each night. That would suck. Realistically I’m only really expecting to be maybe 100 people there each night. That’s because historically garage-type shows in St. Louis don’t quite pack in the crowds like I think they should. The venue will be Off Broadway on Lemp, which has an excellent sound system and great sight lines for watching the band from just about anywhere you happen to be in the place, from the balcony to the bar…
I’ve also been busy inviting people to a new “social network” site I created for GaragePunk.com called The Hideout. It’s very similar to the one Bill Streeter set up for his site, The Circuit. Please check them both out, and if you haven’t joined yet, please do so! These things aren’t nearly as cheesy or sleazy as Myspace…
Still waiting on the arrival of our new camera, the one that will replace the Sony we had stolen in the recent burglary. I went ahead and took Bill’s suggestion and bought a Canon Powershot TX1. Now we just have to wait for it to get back in stock so it can ship (I guess it’s kinda popular right now… go figure, me buying something “popular”… weird). We’ve already received all of the accessories we bought for it. Hopefully I’ll get it in time for our son’s 4th birthday party which takes place in our backyard a week from today.
The TIRC-STL Google group now has a page detailing most (if not all) of the more rock’n'roll-friendly venues in the St. Louis area. You can check it out here. I wanted to get that page updated since there will be quite a few new venues opening up in the city in the near future. And if you live in St. Louis and love garagey-type rock’n'roll, please join the TIRC list if you’re not on it already!
Speaking of TIRC… Jason Potter just finished up with a new episode of the TIRC Podcast (number three). I hadn’t done an episode since February and was trying to find someone else to take it over for me, since I really didn’t have the time to do it anymore, what with Savage Kick and all. Click here to download, listen, and enjoy!
About a week ago I received my first T-shirt ordered from the GaragePunk.com store on Spreadshirt.com, and I was VERY happy with the quality. This shirt rules! I bought one of the simple “iPod & Crossbones” tees with “GaragePunk.com” printed in small text on the back just below the collar. I got the burgundy heavyweight cotton shirt. The print is white, and the texture of the transfer is thick and soft like velvet. It completely rocks. I didn’t think I would like it more than I like traditional screen printing, but I do! No shit. So now I’m trying to set one of these shops up for TIRC, with a few of those logos on different-colored tees. As soon as I get that finished up I’ll post an update with the link. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, buy one of those iPod & Crossbones tees!
As some of you who are friends with me on Myspace may have noticed, I have a birthday coming up very soon. Number 42, in fact. It doesn’t really bother me as I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to being a 40-something and accepting the added aches and pains and general lack of energy that comes with it (let’s just say, now I know why very few professional athletes continue their careers into their forties). By the way, no, I won’t be having a party, but if you’d like to send me a present, I won’t refuse it…
