Sorry, I haven’t been around. I was on vacation last week and really sort of stayed away from blogging, in general. I’m not exactly the only one. It always seems like right at the cusp of a major season shift -Winter to Spring, Fall to Winter -bloggers start dropping off for a while. Some of my favorites have slacked off. I slacked off, but after shaking off whatever poison potion we all seemed to have swallowed, I think most everyone is getting back to business. Tomorrow, I’ll even mention a new blog you should take a look at. No foolin.

A couple of unrelated updates in the world of all things strange… (more…)

Donutbuzz is one of my regular guy blogs. He writes about his family, his politics, what he believes in and what he cares about. Not a lot of profanity with him. He doesn’t toss a lot of grenades… or like me, accidentally alienate a certain group of fans of a particular singer. (Word to the wise:  never call anyone fat. Just don’t do it.)

Reading Donutbuzz is like catching up for a couple of minutes with the guy who invites you to his backyard barbecues, who invites just about everybody to his backyard barbecues. That’s particularly cool because nobody invites anybody to backyard barbecues any more — at least, not to any that anybody would want to go to.

Talk amongst yourselves… that’s kind of the thing over at Donutbuzz.

Word is circulating: the Big Footers will be searching for the West Virginia version of the elusive hairy guy around the Greenbrier river area (which may lead thme to Greenbrier County’s options for fine dining, luxurious accommodations and compulsive shopping at the many quality downtown establishments in Lewisburg). They’re doing this April 10th through the 13th, which is also a good time to visit Lewisburg for their Chocolate festival.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops will be playing Friday and of course, there will be ample opportunities to totally tweak out on chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate mousse, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake… you name it. Chocolate chocolate.
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In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d connect you to the one of the two Irishman I know. Iremonger is an Irish transplant living in West Virginia who is coming up the hard way. He’s kept a variety of un-fun jobs, but at least they give him time to read, write and expand his mind.

True, dat.

Anyway, he’s got an all-singing dancing blog called “A Sort of Homecoming” tricked out for podcasts. It’s interesting reading about a regular guy from across the waters who is into music, movies and books. Check it out and say nice things.

Not that this is necessarily a music blog or anything, but I checked on Mountain Stage’s next few shows. It’s been a while. I haven’t physically been to a show since the season opener a month or so back. They’ve been out of town for a few weeks with a show in Morgantown and one in Ohio.

The next few shows are at Tamarack, in Ashland, Ky., and back again to Morgantown. Not a terribly big surprise, I guess. They’ve said something to the effect the show is Charleston-based, but really a West Virginia show. They want to take it around the state some, promised to do that last year and ta-da… that’s what they’re doing. I can’t argue with that, but I went ahead and asked if there were going to be any more shows in Charleston before FestivALL.

Quoth the Executive Producer, “no.”

Aw man…

Blogs are not entirely the realm of family friendly discourse. A lot of blogs have kind of an over the kitchen table, having coffee with the next door neighbor sort of feel to them. There’s a little bit of gossip and a little bit of telling stories.

Buzzardbilly’s blog is like that, if your neighbor happened to be in touch with her inner rock star and at some point hung out with Freddie Mercury … yes, that Freddie Mercury. She ranges from profane to profound with posts about her life and some of the things she cares about. It’s intelligent without being detached and entertaining without pandering.

It’s definite must-read stuff in the Mountain State. Meanwhile, in honor of our lady, here’s a little Queen and a lot of cheese.

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Well, proving things are tough all over. Rocklahoma announced their big line up of musical acts. You may recognize a few familiar names on the list.

Evidently, the concert promoters are trying to put together some music the young people will enjoy. 45 is apparently the new 20.

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I’ve got a strong suspicion this is part of the problem with festivals like Regatta, where the people involved with scoping out potential booking haven’t turned on anything but country radio in a while. Jo Dee Messina isn’t the top of my list of performers, but she’s released material since my children started school.

I’m not sure what the budget for Regatta 2008 entertainment is, but I have to presume it’s more than what the Monkey Bar promises bands like Blues Traveler, Saliva and Powerman 5000 or what the V-club can offer Billy Joe Shaver (Shaver is one of the last of the Outlaw country guys, hung out with and wrote songs with the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, was also up for a Grammy this year) or Pete Best (Best was replaced by Ringo Starr in a little band called The Beatles).

I’m not suggesting Regatta should have booked any of the above acts, only that their fee is probably within the budget of whatever the city of Charleston is offering (though I will be the first to consider Morris Day is working for table scraps). They probably could have pulled someone a little more current and a bigger draw than what they’ve got.

Of course, I could be all wrong… There might be a lot of closet Morris Day fans out there (just not one at this desk). Anyway, I’ll get back on how they chose who they got.

The recently announced lineup for the 2008 Charleston Sternwheel Regatta continues the City of Charleston’s proud tradition of booking acts few people remember or cared about that much to begin with. So far, we got two “majors” for the free-for-all shows. But as you can guess… you get what you pay for.

Article one: Morris Day and The Time

Morris Day and the Time were famous for about ten minutes back in the ascendant years of Prince (circa 1984), back when being a pansexual purple people eater was sort of novel and not one of the usual archetypes in pop music. Day came in on the coattails of Prince. He was a high school buddy of “the artist formerly known as,” and became a kind of comedic foil and musical punching bag for Prince to work on. Prince always looked that much more brilliant, artistic and somehow almost normal next to the goofy and completely over the top Day.

The Time had a couple of good hits, including “Jungle Love” and “The Bird.” Both were dance club regulars during the long, dark era of big hair, which officially ended in West Virginia about a month and half ago. Chances are, in some dead end bar in the state, you’ll still find one or both on the jukebox.

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Article two: Jo Dee Messina.

Jo Dee Messina is slightly more current and exceedingly more relevant as a performer. Over the last ten years, she’s racked up several number one hits, a few gold and one double platinum album. She also hawked sweat pants for Hanes for a while, but sadly, she’s been in sort of a decline the last few years.

Messina arrived during a time when mainstream country went shallow and superficial (more so, than usual). Undeniably talented, she couldn’t keep up with the level of stupid required to maintain her status as a female country star. And at 37, there isn’t enough Botox in the world to keep her in the pocket of what the recording industry currently thinks is the right age group for a female musician.

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Neither show will completely suck, but as far as serious draws to the city for a show, both are on par with having the Easter Bunny at the Town Center Mall. For sheer entertainment value, Messina will have the edge over Day. Messina released more material and racked up a few awards along the way.

Meanwhile, Day will probably have already toned down his formerly sexually charged clowning to something about the level of what you’d expect at a Gaither Homecoming. If not, well… that could make for some fun people watching, a few outraged citizens and extra happy letters to the editor.

There are still a few slots open for the Regatta. Here’s hoping the rock acts for the weekend are a little more promising — but not counting on that.

I like a lot of crazy things. I like stories about UFOs. Never seen one, but eerie tales about alien abduction are fun. (Except the ones that have the phrase “…and then I felt the cold metallic probe scrape against my buttocks…” That’s not so much fun.)

When I was a kid, I read up on the Loch Ness Monster, the city of Atlantis and the possibility of a third party candidate having a chance at winning a presidential election.

They were all fairy tales.

I was into werewolves and vampires and ghosts, but never Big Foot. Of all the possible wacky things to get behind, belief in a gigantic semi-humanoid wandering around, but avoiding at least credible video capture seemed the least likely for me. I didn’t even like the bionic Bigfoot character on the “Six-Million Dollar Man.”

So, allegedly… allegedly, West Virginia has got a Big Foot somewhere… The more the merrier, what with the Mothman and the Braxton County Monster. We could start our very own Monster Squad.

So, maybe I’m a little skeptical. Anyway, an excursion of Big Foot investigators is coming to the state April 10-13. I don’t have a lot of information about where they’re planning on exploring or whether there will be beer. Anyway, I’m working on it. I’ll let you know when I’ve got something.