i’m not going to mention the plumbing

i finished reading honky-tonk gospel “the story of sin and salvation in country music” by gene veith and thomas wilmeth a few days ago. it was more of a history of country music than i had originally expected. it did discuss the influence of christianity in country music, and tries to bring out some of the reasons that country music has such a diversity of themes, morally. i came away with the perspective that they felt it was country music’s poor southern origins — church influence, poverty, and a desire to be honest about all aspects of life. there were a few points in the book where i felt like the writers were probably high-church christians with fairly conservative views, but that was never directly stated. (i did note in the bios that both writers are college english professors at concordia.) most of the book was spent on the early history, but near the end they got into the modern stuff. they actually mentioned sixteen horsepower, which was nice. and of course they brought up uncle tupelo, bloodshot records, and the whole americana/insurgent/no depression movement. the book also spent a few pages discussing postmodernism, along with its effect on country music. the authors didn’t seem to think much of postmodernism, but i’m not a big fan of aspects of postmodernism myself. it was also obvious in the book where some of their personal interests lay as far as style of music and artists. sometimes i felt like i was reading something from a bit too genteel of a perspective for me. overall, i thought it was a decent recounting of the history of country music and how christianity has influenced it and continues to do so.
oddly, on friday i had four separate conversations about the existance of evil. all four of the other people had some sort of postmodern view of absolute truth, reality, and our ability to know anything. those are conversations i don’t have much these days…it kind of made miss who tamara was when we were together. but we’re not together, and that’s no longer who she is.
a couple of weeks ago i gave my brother my computer speakers, figuring i’d go buy some new ones. i didn’t want to do anything crazy since i’d rather spend money on real stereo speakers and equipment, so i wasn’t looking to buy a 5+1 or 6+1 or 7+1 set…just two front speakers and a subwoofer. i even thought maybe i’d buy the current version of the speakers i had. but of course, once i started looking i couldn’t help but get something more than what i had. i ended up buying the logitech z-2300 speakers: two satellites, 1 subwoofer, wired remote control, thx certification, and 200 watts rms (400 watts peak). the low-end frequency response is 35hz though, so don’t get overly excited about my bass.
thursday i went to a meet-up for houston podcasters. i don’t do a podcast at this point, but i’ve talked about trying to get one going with my brother. it’d be cool to a country podcast of Texas music and old/alt country. we’ll see if anything materializes.
a couple of days ago i was looking at my cat and i noticed one of her longer bottom teeth was outside her gum when her mouth was closed. i guess the root decayed or broke or something, because it’s loose. so now i’ve got a cat with bug-eyes and a snaggletooth. it really makes it hard to take her seriously. i hope she doesn’t understand that i’m laughing at her, because she looks pretty funny.
this morning i put my highway pegs and mounts on my bike. so now i have another option on where to put my feet when cruising. using extenders instead of putting on a crash bar or engine guard keeps my bike looking more lean. when i picked them up on saturday, i also went ahead and ordered a new tail-light kit. it’ll replace my stock lights and license plate mount. i’m going to move my inspection sticker somewhere on the side of my bike so it’ll clean up the look of my bike from behind. then i’m going to start giving more thought to getting my tank painted.