I heard a folk rock song tonight about how god made stupid people too.

I used to think the whole “I hate stupid people!” thing was funny, but then I realized that it’s not possible for everyone to hate stupid people. Statistically, some of the people who hate stupid people must themselves be the very stupid people they hate. Let’s face it, the truly clever are pretty rare.

So, I stopped telling people how much I hate stupid people the day I realized that.

Well, I had a great weekend. I worked with the Sound Elevation boys on a sound gig at the Park Tavern all day Saturday. Five tribute bands, a packed house, and a long day for the sound crew. Money is money though, folks!

I completed the fastest pack up of a huge PA ever, goading my fellow crew into packing up the van as fast as possible so I wouldn’t miss the end of the Sam Thacker show. I had to pull the van and trailer into place to get all the PA gear packed into its home in the trailer. To do this, I needed the driver of a blue minivan to move his car. I ran up to the window and hurriedly asked the driver if he would move so I could pull the van up.

The driver was an off duty Atlanta police officer who not only refused to move his van, but screamed at me for putting my problems on him.

“I’m sorry, sir, I’ve just had a long day… ” I began to explain.

“Well I’ve had a long day too!” he said.

“I believe you. I made a mistake. I’m very sorry, sir.”

“Don’t you approach me like that. Don’t EVER run up on me and put your frustrations on me! It’s not MY problem you need to move that van and trailer!”

“Yes sir,” I continued. “I’m very sorry sir. I made a mistake, sir.”

Finally, after apologizing about 50 more times, he moved his van. I pulled up, and the boys and I packed up the trailer. Once it was full and the door was locked, I pulled it out of the parking lot and onto the street, trying to drive quickly but not wreck, which is hard with a heavy trailer. Then, almost home, the van’s transmission went out. I began to wonder what the universe had against me. It just wouldn’t get up the last hill to its parking place, and the engine was screaming.

I roared “MOTHER FUCKER” at the steering wheel. This didn’t help, so I rolled it and the trailer into something like a parking place, and ran the last few hundred yards.

I took the fastest shower in the recorded history of mankind, jumped into some clean clothes, and hopped into my car, breaking my favorite sunglasses in the process. I screamed MOTHERFUCKER a few more times, dropped the handbrake and sped off like a shot. I made it to the show for the last chords of the last song. HAH! TAKE THAT, UNIVERSE!

Whew!

Now I’m relaxing and typing about it all, but I’m still mad at that cop. This makes the only bad experience I have ever had with Atlanta police, and they have a reputation of not being very nice. Up until now I have defended them because I had a great experience with one officer a few years back. He was very helpful to me and my sister and he really didn’t have to be.

I guess you just have to grovel in the presence of local cops to get what you need some times.

Looking forward to a good mountain bike ride with my brother in law tomorrow morning, as I am back in Birmingham until Thursday or so. I’ll see you on the mountain at 7:30, fuckers!

Good god, our power is out. Sweet Jesus, Nooo!

Our apartment complex apparently was in the process of migrating a bunch of their users over from one power company to another, and they decided that the best way of doing that was just to turn off all the people who weren’t on the new system yet. So, our power went off this morning and they’re saying they can’t get it back on until tomorrow.

Seems like the kind of thing they might want to call us and tell us, but what do I know? Precious little, it seems.

I heard a nasty rumor that my friend Beau Hall might be taking a haitus from music for a while. This would be a colossal shame for music as an art form. Please stop by his page and tell him to reconsider!

Okay I am officially pissed at Scotland.

I have been reviewing songs over at Garageband.com. You have to review 30 of them in order to earn the credits needed to upload your own song and get it reviewed. I have done about 10 of them.

Some of the ones I had to review were pretty horrible cock rock 80′s metal type stuff. I tried to be constructive. Most of the other ones were okay, but this one by this Scottish band was totally bad ass. I gave it a glowing review, and joined the band’s email list.

They rated my review a 4 out of a possible 11! Assholes! DOWN WITH SCOTLAND!

UPDATE: Okay, I just got an email from them. Turns out I was wrong to accuse them, I merely misunderstood the ranking system. I do feel a bit sheepish! Here’s their reply to my accusatory email:

Jim its not us that rate your reviews its other user. What happens is when you unlocked a review on one of your song you have to rate another users review. So that wasn’t us, if you go to ur page you will see that we have actually honoured you with the signature rev iew and have named the day on which you completed it Jim Hodgson’s Day, a day of rest.

Peace Out

Whoops, I’m an idiot. Check out Merchant City‘s myspace page for awesome Scottish rock! :)

I went with my sister to a party a friend of hers was having to celebrate St. Patrick’s day a day late. It was great fun, and I was delighted to find that the host had a piano, but it was woefully out of tune.

I have played out of tune pianos before, but this one was WAY out. Chords were unrecognizable. If you took the sound that a large bag of cats would make if you sat on it and scored it for piano, that’s how this thing sounded.