Lighted Fools to Dusty Death

"Might" - Archers of Loaf (mp3)
"Web In Front" - Archers of Loaf (mp3)

The two biggest goals of Generation Y are, according to numerous surveys and reports, to get rich and be famous. I would mock them, but lightning might strike me.

My mother comes from a generation of busy-bodies. I acknowledge that without a hint of mockery or scorn. For her and most of my relatives between the ages of 60-80, to be sitting and doing nothing is a clear sign of failure and pathetic to boot. Unfortunately, I also acknowledge their restless hunger to be productive without much envy. God how I wish I envied them, but I can no more manufacture envy than I could force myself to love someone.

Was it around the time the government injected our precious bodily fluids with that Commie drug flouride that our obsession with fame sprouted from the dirt? This particular plant -- a society's lust for fame -- might have spent its first few dozen years growing slowly, but it seems to have accelerated in the past decade.

The Baby Boomers and my generation -- "X" -- seem to fall somewhere between the obsessive busy-bodies of my mother's "Greatest Generation" and the glitz & glamour trappings of Generation Y. I think that mostly just means my generation prefers lazing above all else.

I distinctly remember being a teen-ager and feeling certain that Greatness awaited me. Greatness was my prom date, and my only purpose in college was to find out when and where the prom would be held, and where to pick up that hot slut Greatness so I could get what was comin' to me after a few dances. Does most everyone feel this way at one point, that naive sense that we're Bound for Glory? Aren't we all victims of the Lake Wobegon effect, even in matters of fame and fortune?

When I landed one of the five coveted spots as an op-ed columnist for UNC's newspaper, I felt I'd finally taken that crucial first step. Over the course of that year, on a very small but very real scale, I encountered Fame. I could walk into bars on a weekend and have someone approach me about one of my columns. I probably had a dozen or so people buy me beer or shots for no other reason than because they recognized me from my column. I had a fraternity offer to throw a party in my honor because of a column I wrote (this was both a badge of honor and shame). The chancellor of the school sent me letter thanking me for one. My Valentine's Day column on "Love v. Lust" netted me a half-dozen letters (this was before the email revolution) from females asking to meet me... and it also was the column that introduced my wife to the psycho she would fall in love with two weeks later.

The experience was so enthralling I ended up making my next career move in the desperate hope I could be the next Dave Barry slash Paul Krugman. (Unfortunately, there's a very good reason these two men are not the same person. Even more unfortunate, I'm neither as witty nor as world-wise.)

With all of my might I do this.
It's a waste of my time to pursue this.
I'm so full of self-indulgence to think that you'd like this song.

We hunger to be appreciated and yearn to be coveted, even though nothing good much seems to come of fame except a guaranteed stint in rehab and the chance to have your own moment in Reality TV five years after you've returned to meaninglessness.

Fame is heroin chic for the domesticated and lazy.

People perform in Karaoke bars for just a whiff of Fame, like the scent of sex on week-old panties. Many secretly fantasize there's a Simon Cowell sitting in the corner shadows, desperate to find that Next Big Thing. Others go to poetry readings where they sit patiently, making grocery lists in their heads while other people read their poems. Yet others write blogs, thinking just maybe some really influential people might stumble across their brilliance and offer them a book deal or connection to a newspaper.

(I'm guilty of the trifecta.)

Bottom of the Glass does not exist to bring us Fame. Might I have wonderful 3 a.m. fantasies that it brings us such? Natch! But I also have wonderful 3 a.m. fantasies that I play point guard for the National Champion UNC Tar Heels, that I am part of a platinum-selling rock band that gets critical raves while also filling arenas, that I write best-sellers that survive the scrutiny of generations.

The good news, for someone like me, is that the fantasy of Greatness is much cheaper than heroin and much more nuanced than mere Fame. And I can enjoy that little perversion while sharing some random thoughts and a few cool songs along the way, with friends both old and, hopefully, new.

Archers of Loaf were hit their peak in Chapel Hill and in the national alternative scene at just about the same time. They tasted Fame, albeit an alternative post-grunge version. Their songs managed to be painfully off-key and catchy at the same time. Off-key with purpose and direction. "Web In Front" and "Wrong" are both off their first album, Icky Mettle.

A Contest. Prizes. If We Can Think of Any.

............................................... These bastards ruined Springsteen's "Blinded By The Light."

Who came up with the bright idea that the Cure's "Lovesong" needed to be redone? That Roxy Music's beautiful "More Than This" needed a makeover? That the best chance for a hit lay in revisiting Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi?"

Well, I guess someone smarter than me because all of those did become hits of one sort or another. And I've heard at least two of those cover versions while shopping in the Food Lion on Brainerd Road, so they have probably insinuated themselves into the national consciousness.

But guess what? They all suck. They miss the point. I'd rather eat souse than hear them again. The first time I heard the original "Lovesong," I thought I had stumbled into a smoky club in East Berlin before the wall came down. When I heard the remake, I punched myself in the nuts. And I hope Adam Duritz is scraping the shit off himself somewhere right now for infusing Joni's song with all the depth of a GAP commercial. As for Roxy's original "More Than This," every understated musical note and Bryan Ferry croon was already recorded perfection, so why, why, why fill our ears with drivel?
But enough about me. This is actually an announcement about our first ever contest!

THE RULES:

1. What is the worst cover song that you have ever heard and why? How does it run afoul of the original? Send your song entry and explanation to bottomoftheglass@gmail.com.

2. If possible, attach the mp3 of the cover version with your entry. This is especially possible if you have a gmail account and are able to operate outside of a school or work network.

3. Contestants may enter as many times as the inspiration strikes them.

4. Entries must be received by 3:45am on Monday, April 28, 2008.

5. Winners will be announced whenever Billy's mom is ready to announce them. Prizes will be determined by the financial status of the bloggers. If possible, we will post the top three "winning" songs on the blog.
6. Bloggers and their immediate family members are not eligible to win, nor are employees of Krystal, which is little more than a cover version of White Castle.
7. In order to head off annoying clarifying questions, yes, Eric Clapton's covers of his own songs are eligible for the competition.

These guys got it right:
Fine Young Cannibals--"Suspicious Minds" (mp3)

The Waiting (or "The 44")

Tom Petty--"The Waiting (live)" (mp3)
Pretenders--"Mystery Achievement" (mp3)

Right now, sitting in the cupboard pantry that runs down my basement stairs, waits "The 44." The 44 is a homemade liqueur based on a traditional drink in Madagascar. You take a large orange, punch 44 holes in it with a sharp knife, insert a coffee bean into each of the 44 holes, add the orange to a glass canister containing a liter of light rum and 44 teaspoons of sugar, and store in a dark place for 44 days.

The symbolism of the number 44 did not make its way to me, just the recipe. I doubt that I'll even drink the stuff (I'm not much of a hard liquor guy), though they say it's pretty good over ice. Place your order now if you want some.

(UPDATE: I tried "The 44" Friday night, after 42 days, and it kicks ass, or at least mine.)

What I have enjoyed about "The 44" is the waiting. Of course, I had read about how sweet it would be chilled straight up or on the rocks, how it could be mixed with sparkling wine to make a real cocktail, how the coffee taste would hit first and then the orange aftertaste would linger on the tongue. But all of those things could prove to be untrue (they are true!). I have made any number of things that, followed to the letter, didn't yield the pleasures that they were supposed to--love, corned beef, reservations at Brennan's. Yeah, yeah, I know the waiting is the hardest part, as my own posted song reminds me over and over. But I like the waiting. I like the idea that I have to put something up on a shelf and not get into it for awhile, while I always know that it's there and that some point down the road, I'll experience it.

Maybe it's because I bake bread. Once you start that endeavor, you learn quickly that the longer you stretch out each phase, the more flavor and complexity your loaf will have. So you ignore the advice to proof the yeast in very warm water, to let the dough rise in a warm place. Instead, you put the dough in the refrigerator, let it rise overnight, punch the dough down and let it expand three times instead of just two. Bread nutured and baked over the course of several days tastes as noble as the old world itself. And that's a good thing. People who want quickly-made bread deserve it.

It's an irony of life: as you get older, you should, arguably, be more in a hurry to make things happen. But you aren't. You're more likely to let them take their own time. Over Spring Break, I was driving a car that overheated if it was driven too long at too high a speed. Since I had to drive from New Orleans to Tampa, I lamented the fact that I would have to slow way, way down. But you know what? Once I settled into that lower speed, the trip became one of the most pleasurable that I have driven in a long time. No rush, no pressure, no stupid drivng decisions. The traffic roared past me, but I took my time because I had to. It took me a much longer time to get below Tampa, but the wait was worth it. I actually stopped and got the free sample of OJ at the tourist trap.

Waiting, letting things take their time, in this very, very fast world is an odd kind of luxury. It has become, simultaneously, both retro and the latest trend. There's even an international food movement that embraces the notion of slow food. They argue that food should be "good, clean, and fair," and if you explore their connotation of those adjectives, you realize that they are talking about growing and creating food that takes time. Anything that is handmade, made in small batches, constructed to order, microbrewed, grass-fed is taking that same approach.

So when I talk about waiting, I realize that what I'm really talking about is putting in an effort--to cultivate, to nurture, to oversee, to maintain, to protect, to repair --over a long period of time. And don't all of the best things, from relationships to wine, require that?

People often talk about what it will take to get from point A to point B in a linear representation of a problem or situation, but what they're really asking for is the quickest possible solution. In fact, the line between those two labeled points contains an uncountable number of other stops. If you think about it, that's where the life is, in the Big Waiting between point A and point B. Waiting reminds you both of where you are right now and where you can be in the future. Too deep? Make " The 44" and drink up. It's worth the wait.

"The Waiting" is from Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's live CD, Pack Up The Plantation. "Mystery Achievement," arguably the best song on one of the best rock albums ever, is from the Pretender's first. Both are available from Itunes.

The Fine Art of Beautiful Lies

Untitled Song - Buddy Miller (mp3)

According to my wife, who swears she saw this on Oprah or some such, all of us have the same amount of gas. Pound for pound, all humans have equal fart-ability. Such a study seems pretty dubious, but for the purposes of this entry, I'm gonna say it's food for thought. Just keep this seedling planted in your noggin, and I'll get back to it.

I lie to my children. I teach them to lie to other adults. But don't worry. Newsweek says it's OK, and if anyone should know, it's journalists.

The Newsweek article suggests that certain kinds of lies are totally OK to tell your children. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Other times it's totally OK to encourage your children to lie. Yes Auntie Gertrude, I just love that disco jumpsuit. I'll wear it all the time!

If those are the good lies, what are the bad ones? According to the article, lies that abdicate one's own responsibilites -- as a parent, as a friend, as a coworker -- are much less acceptable. These are lazy lies that come back to haunt you, karmically speaking.

All I did was help you tell a lie.
You never even knew it when I said goodbye.

A superb article from the New Yorker last summer explored our cultural fascination with lying and our over-inflated belief that we can catch others in lies.

In reality, we totally suck at detecting lies. We're only slightly better than 50-50 at doing so. Think about the significance of that for a second. If someone is lying to you, or telling you the truth, flipping a coin is almost as accurate as your "gut feeling." Much like most of us think we're "above average" in intelligence and looks and talents, most of us think we're above average at smelling bullshit.

In reality, our BS detectors are BS. We think so highly of them because we pat ourselves so heartily on the back when we catch someone in a lie, not realizing that for every lie we've caught, another one or two have snuck by us unaware, like small insects we unknowingly eat while sawing logs in slumber at 3 a.m.

Back to the discovery that we're all equally full of hot air. Hot, stinky, noxious air. Most of us don't like admitting that our shit stinks, or that we're full of shit. But lying is more about the fumes we expel than actual substance. Lying is more flatulent, less fecal. And more often than not, our lies are the Silent-But-Deadly type. Besides, it's somehow less of an insult to tell someone they're full of fart.

All humans have in them this need, this natural-born drive to tell lies. As much as I'm a religious fella, I believe this need, in and of itself, is neither sinful nor evil. Lying is a dangerous weapon, but it has its good and proper uses, much like money, which is only the root of all evil when it is held too close to the heart.

All our words are written down in chalk
Out in the rain on the sidewalk.

At the risk of coming across as a frightening sociopath, lying is what makes us human. It's one of the most complicated and nuanced facets of our lives and one of the easiest ways to separate us from less-sophisticated animals. It is to humans what flight and X-ray vision is to Superman, a power we uniquely possess that can cause tremendous destruction but also help us navigate life's treacherous SpyHunter-esque highway (and no, Tom Cochrane, that's not always a road you want to drive all night long).

Let's use an embarrassing example.

I'm 17. My parents are out of the house at a dinner party. One of my precious and rare female pals calls. "Whatcha doing?" she asks innocently. But what I'm doing is touching myself and watching one of my dad's not-so-well-hidden dirty movies. So when I said "Um, nothin'" rather than saying "Watching one of my dad's porn movies and imagining you and me doing what these people are doing to each other"... was I really doing the world some kind of disservice? Is this the kind of honesty our world needs or wants?

(NOTE: I have never ever in my whole life touched myself in such a way. Nor do I know anyone else who would do such a repulsive thing. I was just using something that happened to a friend of mine. As an example.)

Here's a more kid-friendly example: I believe in Santa Claus. That's a very complicated lie for me, and one I'm not ashamed to state. In fact, I bet even a lie detection machine would say I'm telling the truth on that one. (By the way, even the most biased studies in favor of lie detectors put them at around 90%... how would you like a 1 in 10 shot of being put on trial for a capital crime because that damn machine read you wrong?)

Lies can be complicated, nuanced, delicate things. Lies can be beautiful. They can save marriages. They can bring people to Jesus. They can reunite long-exiled family members. Lies can save innocent lives.

Picasso said, "We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." The word "Lie" is Legion, three letters possessed by a thousand different demons and arguably a few dozen angels. If we don't see lies for all the good -- or non-bad -- they can do, how can we properly fear and respect their power to do harm?

This Buddy Miller song, written by his wife Julie, is neither on any of his albums nor available in any form that I know of. But I highly recommend sifting through Amazon.com's MP3 collection of Buddy Miller (or Buddy and Julie Miller) songs and showing this renegade Nashville couple some luv.

Tend Your Garden

Colin Hay--"Beautiful World" (mp3)
Hot Tuna--"Water Song" (mp3)
We stand poised at one of the most perfect times of the year. The grass isn’t growing too quickly; the mosquitoes are still slumbering or groggy, yet to hear the call from the mosquito god to “be fruitful and multiply;” the dogwoods have just a day or two until that ephemeral moment when the white or pink on their branches become a natural Impressionist painting.

It is the time when all is possible from the ground. In the spirit of this hopefulness, you should plant a garden.

Seriously, when was the last time you got down and dug in the dirt? When was the last time you kneeled to pull weeds, saw a triangle-shaped white insect you've never seen before flee to new cover? When was the last time you scooped sopping mud from the bottom of a hole you shoveled so that you could plant your tomatoes a little deeper? When was the last time you had that impressive outline of dirt around your cuticles that makes it look like you know how to change your own oil or something?

With a garden, you can pretend you’re a landowner, even if you are one. At dusk, you’ll stroll arm-in-arm with your lover to the boundaries of your property to survey the day’s growth, pausing to brush aphids from the leaves of your tomatoes and to stake that pepper plant that’s been struggling a little too much in the wind.

In the mornings, the path to those plants will be nothing more than dark green footprints pressed into the dew. And soon, you boast of eating locally when all you've done is to nick a few vegetables while walking the dog with the sun half up, when the basil holds its fullest flavor and the green onions are noticeably taller than the night before.

I guess you've figured out that by garden I mean stuff that you can eat. As a man and a not-particularly-fussy one, I like to grow things that are pretty good at fending for themselves and that have something to offer--that means yields of peppers, tomatoes, onions, basil, sage, rosemary, chives, thyme and basil.

And don't be deterred by a lack of space. We’re not farmers; we’re not out to maximize our partial acreage with the highest potential yield using genetically-modified seeds and the latest fertilization techniques. An herb garden can grow in your window; a jalapeno pepper plant will thrive in an 8-inch clay pot on your deck. Heck, if on Halloween you carve your pumpkins in the yard and drop a few seeds, you'll have your own pumpkin patch right in the grass by the following August.

Don't forget the simple fact that rules all of life: seeds and plants want to grow. You have to work harder to stop that from happening than to keep it happening. Plants have all kinds of built in ways that will help them.

Even if all you do is to dump some water on them when the weather isn't doing its part, you'll be fine. You may not have the greatest crop in the world, but you'll have plants that are alive and that will pool every genetic resource they have in order to yield something for you, something that has seeds.

Plants do want to return next year, somehow and somewhere, after all. Don't you? Do your part.

"Beautiful World" is from the former Men At Work frontman's solo CD, Going Somewhere. "Water Song" is from the classic Hot Tuna CD, Burgers.

Our Strange Musical Loyalties

These Days - R.E.M. (mp3)

Sometimes our ties to music are stronger than the bonds of logic or love. If you have ever found moments where music became a timestamp on your life, you'll understand.

I had a roommate in college whose first sexual encounter with a girlfriend happened while Don Henley's "In a New York Minute" was playing on his stereo. That song became their song. So what if the song is about a family man jumping in front of a subway train. Yes, a song about suicide, imploring us to enjoy each fragile minute became, in the minds of two people for a short time, a song about the way they felt towards one another. Deep down, he knew it was screwed up to have this song as their special song. But they bumped fuzzies to it, so logic and lyrics flew out the window.

(Obviously the relationship was doomed. All those couples who thought "Under the Bridge" was their special song have long gotten divorced by now, too. Hell, I didn't even go into the bad choice of choosing a song titled "In a New York Minute" for your LuvMakin' song. Why not use "Mack the Knife" while you're at it?)

In an odd way, a 25-year-old Athens band has just such an irrational hold on me. R.E.M. is like the church I've attended my whole life but for whom I would rarely evangelize. Stipe's quartet is so interwoven into the fabric of my adolescent life that, even if I could somehow manage to admit I didn't think they were all that stupendous, I still couldn't dissect myself from them. This kind of musical attachment is proof that nicotine and alcohol aren't the only substances that can instill lifelong addictions if we start young and impressionable enough.

In 8th grade, the first girl I ever kissed introduced me to R.E.M. Technically, I didn't kiss her. It depends on what your definition of "kiss" is.

She was the girlfriend of a classmate. They prank called my house on a weekend night, and I amused her so much she called me back after her beau left. And then she invited me to visit her the very next night. She would be mere blocks away, babysitting.

Having never been invited for such a rendezvous, and having no clue just how over my head I was about to get, of course I went. I was so excited about it I don't even know if I slept that night. After she got the kids down, we sat in this living room and talked about our lives while listening over and over to her brand new LP of Life's Rich Pageant. A lot of guys at school talked about R.E.M., but I wasn't cool and was still listening to radio crap like Lionel Richie and Tears for Fears. By the time both sides had played through several times -- with a few extra spins of "Superman" for good measure -- it was time for me to leave.

She asked me for a goodnight kiss. She might as well have asked me to rebuild a car engine, since neither was something I'd done before. To say I was nervous painfully understates it. I was practically wetting myself and truly vibrating with nerves. But I went for it. I closed my eyes, leaned towards her, and ended up firmly planting my lips just above her right collarbone.

The shame of my bad aim had me running tuck-tailed out the door and fleeing on my bike homeward. But not before my chain snapped going down the driveway, sending me sailing over the handlebars. Not only had I humiliated myself by being less sexually experienced than most first graders, but I had also caused her to further pity me with a move straight out of Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

It wasn't a perfect First Kiss memory, but it at least helped keep my future expectations with the fairer sex very low.

The precious silver lining was that she lighted my alternative rock path. Life's Rich Pageant was just the first step in my adolescent musical evolution, but a crucial one. The equivalent of the tadpole crawling up on the shore before sprouting legs.

R.E.M.'s significance doesn't even stop there.

Their Green Tour was my second concert. Ever. The Indigo Girls opened up for them, which meant Stipe & Co. were also responsible for introducing me to my favorite pair of songwriting lesbians on the planet.

Along with the Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun," R.E.M.'s "Radio Free Europe" was easily the most played song for our school dances, so I owe Stipe et al the few and precious opportunities to dance with girls, even if our dancing was more like bad scenes from The Breakfast Club. But even that was an oasis in my sex-starved desert of high school, so my gratitude is painfully valid.

Like my New York Minuteman, I was hopelessly devoted to R.E.M. The fact that Document and Green continued to amaze me (even as they began pushing away the cooler kids who claimed the band had sold out) only further cemented my loyalties. I remained loyal through New Adventures in Hi-Fi, which is easily one of the more underrated albums of the mid-90s. Monster sounded like the band really wanted to be cool like those young Seattle grungy people who had overtaken their hipness, but Hi-Fi sounded like they just wanted to have fun again, play around with sound and take some silly risks.

R.E.M. has always been at their best when their shoe-gazing and heavy lyrics are a secondary priority to making really catchy (and, preferably, primarily upbeat) music. I didn't buy UP because it was so decidedly not up. It was the first album of theirs I did not purchase. I have to this day listened to maybe two songs from it, not out of protest, but because I never got the feeling I was missing much.

I did purchase Reveal and spent the next month wondering why I did, so I sure as hell wasn't paying for Around the Sun. I was done with R.E.M. I had finally broken away from them and their pull on my nonsensical emotions.

So why the hell am I sitting here and typing this while Accelerate plays on my iTunes, you ask? Because they brought back these things called drums. And they brought back this thing called tempo. And they apparently realized that heavy-handed castor oil never goes down well without a spoonful of sugar. R.E.M. went and pulled a U2. They returned to the well from which they found their greatest successes. They accepted the painful reality that they can't be all things to all people, but that they also suck when they don't care about being anything to anyone but themselves.

You break up with that girl you love because she's no longer what you fell in love with, or because you've changed and she hasn't, or some other incompatibility bullshit. Well, R.E.M. started working out again. They lost all that weight they'd gained. They saw a therapist. They found themselves again and came back to my door asking for forgiveness, begging for a second try.

I bought Accelerate because sometimes our ties to music are stronger than the bonds of logic or love. Nine bucks to reward a nod to their glory days and reinvigorate a 20-year romance. Money well spent.

Leave - R.E.M. (mp3)

"These Days" is from Life's Rich Pageant. "Leave" is from New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Billy didn't include a song from Accelerate because he figures R.E.M. and the corporate giants for whom they toil have magic fingers and eyes, and we don't want to get spanked. But if I were to post a single song from the album, it would prolly be "Hollow Man. "Just sayin'. You can purchase Accelerate at Amazon for $8.99 or at iTunes for an over-inflated $13.99.

Does Time Equal Money?

Kieran Kane--"He Never Knew What Hit Him (mp3)
So I'm in TJ Maxx as often happens on a weekend, killing time while my women look at clothes, looking for some kind of upscale bbq sauce at a cheap price that I'll put in a cupboard and forget about until long after its expiration date. Armed with a mango-ginger-habanero dipping/grilling/sauteeing/marinating sauce, I drift over to the clearance aisle way in the back by the layaway counter. TJ Maxx claims that it's a different store every time you come in, but that particular aisle always seems to have the same kind of crap--pots without lids, candles with gouges in them, opened boxes of key lime cookies, obscure utensils, and imitation African masks that didn't make it into anyone's living room.

"I don't have time for that," I overhear.

There are a couple of black women there with me. They're picking up items and looking at the prices. The shorter, thinner one says, as she sets each one down, "I don't have time for that." Her friend agrees. "I can get that cheaper at Big Lots. I don't have time for that," she says.

I don't have time for that. In the language of the day, has the expression has come to mean 'I'm not paying that kind of money' or 'I can't afford that?' I had no idea that connotation had come into being.

But now the connection is made in my head explicitly: time and money are the same thing. I don't even have to ponder anymore if it's true.

See, what I'm grappling with most specifically is this idea of a pay raise. I don't want a pay raise. Or at least I don't want to raise my pay in the traditional way. Instead, I've decided I'd rather that they keep the money and give me an extra week off in the summer. That is a pay raise, too, isn't it? Pay me the same amount of money, but give me an extra week of free time. Now it isn't that I've got some whompin' huge salary and don't need the money. I do need the money. But I don't know about your raises; mine kind of suck and have for years, don't even keep up with key costs of living. So what it comes down to is this: if you could have $100 each month after taxes or an extra week off in the summer, what would you pick?

Me, I'd take the time. Let them keep the hundred bucks. That's nothing more than a big afternoon at Bud's. Well, a really big afternoon, maybe.

There comes a point, and it doesn't have to be driven by age (though my perspective is beginning to be) when most of us would rather have time and freedom than money, wouldn't we? How glorious would it be here at the beginning of April to have an extra week of no obligations to walk around the yard, trim this, plant that, clear out over there, and paint everywhere? How nice right now to walk down the hill and watch soccer for as long as I feel like? But that's just the start.

Time is a scarce resource, but few people mind taking it from us. They snatch it in small increments and big chunks with equal facility, and we usually give it away willingly. We trick ourselves into thinking that we can give up time in order to get time. Huh? Here's an example--your job requires you to work a Saturday night that you don't normally work, but you tell yourself that if you can just get through Saturday, you'll have earned the luxury to take your wife to lunch on Sunday or to go watch football with friends. So Saturday's gone but you've earned Sunday? Are we so short of time these days that we talk to ourselves in terms of earning time for ourselves?

We don't challenge the fact that we allow the people we work for to consume inordinate amounts of our time as long as we can stash just a little, just enough, away for ourselves. Maybe there's no way around that. And let's face it, in the modern world, there are a lot of other people who also want to take control of your time. It isn't just the delivery guy who gives you a 4-hour window when he might show up or the professional who bills you by the hour, but doesn't mind keeping you waiting. It's also the church that wants you to teach Sunday School or your son's sports team that needs a coach or the out-of-town wedding or the latest Walk for Everything and Anything or any number of other perfectly legitimate and valuable claims on your time.

My point is simply this: if you're going to give up so much of your time, you're going to have to find a way to take some of it back now, even for perfectly legitimate and valuable uses like doing absolutely nothing. If you don't take back the do-nothing time, you won't regain the do-something time. I used to spend a lot more time playing guitar, writing, even cooking than I do know. Now, I spend my time working and the time when I'm not working doing nothing but passively not working.

Here's the key difference between time and money: money can go into the bank for future use. It can be saved and spent later or even passed on. Time can't. It's not a renewable resource. When it's gone, it's gone for good.

I don't have time for that.

Kieran Kane's song "He Never Knew What Hit Him" is from his CD, Dead Rekoning.