Nope, not ranting. I've just been thinking this since I saw the original post yesterday and I had to say it somewhere.

So this person posted that the part-time stable help decided to clean the poster's horse's water trough. And did so by pouring a bunch of bleach into the water and... walking away.

Poster's Horse came into the stall, took a sip, spat it out. Poster went to investigate, smelled bleach, freaked.

I can totally sympathize with this reaction.

In the course of the discussion a couple of people pointed out that bleach, in tiny quantities, is no big deal so the freakout was unwarranted, if understandable. A tiny amount of bleach can render iffy water potable.

However, everyone agreed you're not supposed to be able to smell it.

I heroically restrained myself from sharing the story about the time someone dosed the apple juice at an event in San Francisco attended by, among others, the Grateful Dead. (I don't think they were the culprits this time.) Phil Lesh described taking a drink of what he knew darned well was juice with LSD in it, and noticing a strange and unfamiliar flavour.

And then he realized, holy crap, there was so much acid in the apple juice that he could taste it! You're not supposed to be able to taste the acid!

Apparently it was the trip to end all trips, but although a number of people got "profoundly disoriented," as Bob Weir would say, nobody got hurt and everyone who wandered off eventually turned up safely.

You can see why I was tempted to relate this story, and also why it's probably just as well that I didn't. Even so.

And the horse was fine, too. I hope his owner had a chat with the barn owners about the staff, you know, rinsing out water buckets after treating them with chemicals, but hey. (And I also picked up the tip that Listerine is pretty good for cleaning dirty buckets, which is handy to know since there's a lot of iron in the water at our barn and the plastic water buckets do get stained.)

After accomplishing less than I probably should have, but more than I would have if I hadn't gone back to work last night, it was time to carry on to Tribeca to see how Gloryhound & the Skyhawks were observing Valentine's Day.

For one thing, by wearing black t-shirts, about which I have no comment. But they did bust out all the Valentine-red guitars they own (well, Evan's Gibson that looks like this one and Adam's Gretsch that looks like this.) Evan also played a new (to me, anyway) black Stratocaster (or at least Strat-type) on a few songs. And judging by the sound of things, the guitars just loved everybody last night.

You'll notice there are a number of missing titles in the set list--that's because I don't know and can't find the title anywhere. There are quite a few new songs making their way into the set these days, and I'm inclined to think they're originals. The band seems to have a pattern lately of playing the newest songs early in the evening and moving them into the second or third set as they start to sound more at home. I don't know if I'm imagining that but it seems to me that's what's happened for the past couple of weeks anyway. There have been quite a few new songs turning up lately, covers as well as originals, which is always great. Among other things, there's no danger of turning into Sha Na Na...

Okay, there's a mental image I probably didn't need this early in the morning. And neither did you. Sorry.

Anyway, really good show. And the cupcakes couldn't be beat, either...

Set List
Set #1

Swingin' (Tom Petty)

"She's not hard to please"

Hey Joe (Hendrix)

"Sure don't feel the same"

Meet Me In the Morning (Dylan; Evan: keys and vocals, Adam: guitar)

Witch Doctor (Adam: guitar and vocals, Evan: keys)

"Never really there"

Bright In the Dark

Break
Set #2

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (Bob Dylan; Shaun: keys, Adam: drums)

Out Of Hiding

From A Buick 6 (Bob Dylan)

What's Left

Walk Don't Run (The Ventures)

I'm Losing You (John Lennon)

Where I Lie

Break
Set #3

"You're not lost" (Harper: harmonica, Dave: lap steel)

Helpless (Neil Young, Harper: harmonica, Dave: lap steel)

Maggie's Farm (Dylan)

License To Kill (Dylan)

Before You Fall

Powderfinger (Neil Young, with a keys-heavy introduction that was new to me)

Wasn't Born to Follow (Byrds, Adam: vocals & guitar, Evan: drums)

Rockin' In the Free World (Neil Young, Adam: vocals & guitar, Evan: drums)
I've heard that song performed by these guys once before but it was definitely unexpected. The ending spun out to the point where the logical next step would probably have been smashing things so... probably just as well they stopped where they did. And by then it had to have been after 2:00... so after a short conference they went into:

Dazed and Confused/San Francisco/I Can't Quit You/Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)

Oh, and one unrelated comment before we leave this post: when I leave Tribeca I generally drive to the end of Granville Street and turn up the hill toward Barrington. And lately I've noticed that when I'm going home at 2:00 (or, in the case of last night... considerably later...) there are all these people coming out of the building directly across from the mouth of Granville. They look like they're emerging from a club, judging by their appearance of... inebriation. And it's a large building, so I suppose there could be all sorts of establishments in there. But the sign over the door they're coming out of advertises two quite prominently: a Catholic bookstore and the passport office.

Which makes me wonder, what do booksellers and civil servants get up to in their off-hours?

Possibly, the same thing as librarians.

As Hercule Poirot used to say, it gave me furiously to think...

In looking up a lyric, I ran into the "Songfacts" page.

It's an interesting idea: you can enter the name of a song and find lyrics, notes on the history or interpretation of the song, listener comments, and a "Song Profile" that gives the song's "dominant colour" and the personality type and astrological sign of "most people who dig it."

And while I realize that last option is just for fun (and I have not looked to see where they get their info from) it may be interesting to note that of the songs I've searched there so far, the most common colour turning up in my preferences is blue, and the astrological sign associated most commonly with the songs I like is Leo.

I'm Aquarius, so make of that what you will.

Anyway, I cannot answer for the accuracy of the profiles, or indeed of anything else on the site, but it is kind of fun to play with.

The writers out there may have seen this already, but--there is a challenge afoot to submit a query that will never, never be accepted.

Mine's there already. No real publishers or agents are involved, so there should be zero fallout to your actual publication hopes. And it's pretty funny.

While we're thinking about rejection--here's a blog entry that will help you make sure it happens!

Yeah, like we need any help. But still--funny.

A couple of weeks ago the question was posed at a Gloryhound show, "Who wrote 'Long Black Veil," anyway?" At the time, I was convinced it was a traditional song. My only reason for thinking so was the fact that a line from the song was used as the title of the Sharyn McCrumb novel She Walks These Hills. It's one of her Ballad Novels and I assumed the titles were all taken from traditional ballads.

Incorrect! Long Black Veil was written in 1959, by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin, the latter being credited with, among other things, discovering Kris Kristofferson.

Wow.

So: always check your facts, even if you think you know the answer. Especially if you answer questions for a living!

And to make up for my initial incautious response--here's a video that ends up with a performance of "The Long Black Veil":

(Okay, yes, you have to sit through "King Harvest" first. Such hardship.)

Incidentally, one of the Ballad Novels whose title was taken from a genuine folksong: If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O is named for a line in the song Pretty Peggy-O.

There's a video for that one, too:

Oh, don't pretend to be surprised!

I think progress has been made on a couple of big-project fronts, but I'm still pretty relieved the only major activities on my schedule this weekend involve getting ready for the party.

I need to get to the barn and do laundry at some point as well.

Damn. One of these days work and the weather will be sane at the same time. In the meantime... cake!

(Edited to give credit where it's due)--I found this gem in a discussion over on bittercon)

Truespel, a system which seeks to simplify spelling and writing American English, "the world's most important language." It reminds me a bit of the theories of Melvil Dewey, father of my profession.

And it comes with an online translator! Melvil Dewey never had that! You can have hours of entertainment getting the translator to convert your blog into simple, logical, easy-to-understand Truespel. Only it's pretty slow when you do that, so you may prefer to cut and paste some text in the lower box.

In fact--hang on just a tick and I'll do it for you!

( So here is: 'Truckin', Artist--The Grateful Dead )

And now for the Truespel version:

( And now, 'Truckin', Aartist--Thu Graetfool Ded )

So, if anyone was wondering what it would look like if Lolcats wrote lyrics--now you know. "Wut u laung, straenj trip it's bin," indeed.