The Boggs Blog Gift Guide for Guys

Having problems deciding on a Christmas gift for a guy? Does your dad, husband, brother, uncle, etc. already have everything? Tired of giving Home Depot gift certificates?

Look no further! The Boggs Blog is happy to present 8 can't-miss gifts for guys.

(Note to family members that read my blog, I will neither confirm nor deny that this is my Christmas wishlist.)

Band of Brothers on DVD. I can't say enough about this series or the book that it is based on. The story of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division from boot camp to VE Day is one of inspiration and, you guessed it, brotherhood. Great gift for WWII buffs and film fanatics.

Argyle Socks. You can't go wrong with argyle. Fashionable guys will appreciate the gesture. People like my brother will think they're funny...but will secretly enjoy them, too. Everyone likes a snappy pair of socks. I suggest J. Crew and bold colors.

Childhood Books as Journals. Nifty journals fashioned out of bargain bin books. Browse through the options - I promise you'll find a childhood favorite. (I would probably choose between "Charlie Brown Goes Fishing" and "The Tawny Scrawny Lion".)

World Of Warcraft Character. Why spend hours on end building your own WoW character when you can just buy a level 60 from some 13 year old Japanese kid on eBay? Your loved ones can spend the holidays warming by the fires of the villages they torch and pillage in Warcraft.

Dickies Cover-alls. A perfect gift to bring out the blue-collar in us all. My mom gave me a pair, complete with scripted "Eric" nametag, a few Christmases ago. One of the funniest presents I've ever opened.

Gram Parsons Music. I suggest "Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels", but you can't go wrong when it comes to GP. I'm convinced that everyone would do well to have a little more honky tonk music in their life.

A Sledgehammer. You never know when you'll need to knock out a wall, drive home some steel on down the railroad line, or pulverize a faulty printer in a vacant field. An axe would be an appropriate substitute.

Anything from MitchellandNess.com. Pick your husband/dad/brother's favorite childhood sports hero and buy their jersey from Mitchell & Ness. I suggest a Larry Bird, a Ray Nitschke, or a Jordan-era Bulls warm-up.

Gonna Fly Now

I've been on a Rocky kick of late, having recently visited Philadelphia and jogged up the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Rocky Balboa, the 6th film in the series, comes out this Christmas. I give it 2 to 1 odds that it sucks beyond human comprehension. Seriously, it has turd written all over it. The whole premise is completely absurd and the plot appears to be a scene-for-scene rehash of Rocky I. Outside of the opponent's cool name - Mason "The Line" Dixon - I saw absolutely no redeeming cinematic qualities from the trailer.

Still, I would be willing to take anyone's bet that the film makes a gazillion bucks and stands out as the "King of the Crap" this holiday film season.

45 year-old Rocky comes out of retirement to serve up a beat down to a young punk is a can't-miss formula. What washed up 45 year-old would not want to show today's professional athelete how they did things back in the day, back when men were men and everyone walked to school shoeless, uphill, in the snow, both ways? Plus, the "loves to relive the old athletic glory days" demographic, which includes your's truly, will eat this stuff up...

Yes - the whole Rocky franchise is kinda cheesey. But, you can't deny its genius. The irresistable American metaphor just works perfectly. Like Rocky, we all work hard and make sacrifices to beat the odds. We can take 100 blows to the head and still have enough steam to knock-out the opponent in the 12th round, all while wearing American flag trunks. Rags to riches, believe in your dreams, "Eye of the Tiger", Mr. T AKA "Clubber Lang", James Brown, stupid talking robots, "Adrian!" - all things uniquely American, all things Rocky. Heck - in Rocky IV, the Italian Stallion knocks out Ivan Drago to singlehandedly end the Cold War. (Cue the John Phillip Sousa, the flag waving throngs, and the "U-S-A", errr... "Rocky! Rocky!" chant...)

Only in America can someone start by beating sides of beef in a meat packing plant and end up beating Apollo Creed to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Also, only in America can we have a bufoon of a boxing promoter that makes millions of dollars by incessantly spouting "Only in America!" and that also inspired the shady Richard Gant character in the hopelessly terrible Rocky V.

I doubt I'll see "Rocky Balboa". As my wife will attest, I'm pretty selective when it comes to shilling out $30 to see a movie. (I'm a sucker for the popcorn and Icee combo.) That said, I'm still anxious to see how it reviews and how it fares at the box(ing) office.

Getting Phat In Philadelphia

No, not "phat" as in "cool" - "phat" as in "fat", just with a "ph" because I'm in Philadelphia.

I've had a doughnut (or two) and coffee for breakfast from the Dunkin Donuts on my corner for the past 3 days and I could not be happier.  I figure that the miles I hoof around the city during the day nets out the influx of sugar and God-knows-what-else I get with my ritualistic morning gut-shot.

Here's to hoping I'm right...otherwise, I'm afraid I'll slowly inflate until I look like Ben Franklin.

Happy Halloween, Ya'll

Kelly and I hosted friends last night for "A Gaston County Halloween". Good times.


My handlebar mustache was awesome. Kelly's "Shawna Robinson" racecar shirt was awesomer.

The morning after I shaved my mustache, Kelly woke me up to say "Eric, can you run out to the Wal Marts to get milk for the babies and 50lb bag of dog food."

Hilarious because her delivery was impeccable and because she described a seriously redneck trip to Wal Mart.

(*Note - we have neither a dog nor a child.)



Andrew dressed as your's truly. Kelly let him borrow my high school basketball practice jersey. Gabby dressed like Kris Lang - former UNC basketball player and Kelly's 1st kiss, as Gabby's tat so eloquently reminds us. Highest of high comedy.

Sweet Honey in the Rock

I saw Sweet Honey in the Rock at Memorial Hall today.

Mesmerizing sums it up. Their lyrics were largely simple and repetitive - as are many gospel and spiritual songs. Yet their harmonies created a mind-blowing complexity and texture.

The highlight song for me was the number that portrayed the woman in Mali that so desperately wanted to have a child. The group shifted between English and African languages and used various traditional African instruments to convey a mother's pleading and eventual celebration. Nitanju Bolade Casel - middle right in this photo - seriously let it rip.

I've never heard any person or group so effortlessly use their voices as instruments. They simulated horns, guitars, wind, birds, and engaged the audience in a participatory round that replicated the sounds of a Central African rainforest. One of the singers, Dr. Ysaye Maria Barnwell, actually moved her hands as if she were playing a cello as she sang the bass lines for the songs.

Their music has a soul, a conscious, and, most importantly, appeal. No doubt, these women can sang!

Furthermore, the concert confirms that I don't hate a capella music after all. (I mean - The Beatles did a capella songs on both Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road. Plus, Rockapella used their vocal stylings on "Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego?" to help me learn geography as a youngster.)

I just hate lame a capella music.

Best Subject Line Ever

Email marketers, take heed. This is how to write an attention-grabbing subject line:


Also - note the "minor detail" they revealed in the message body. Geez. I wonder how their numbers would have changed had the sheep been pregnant in the subject line?!

In addition to the effective subject line, the message illustrates terrific demographic segmentation. I presume that National Geographic must know that I'm in the 18-30 male demographic that instinctively reponds to this kind of thing as there is no way in the world they sent this to their list at large. At least I would hope not...

For what it is worth, I opened the message right away. As you might imagine, the photo is absolutely disgusting.

I Hate Us

Looks like Carolina is going to lose to Virginia in Charlottesville again.

If the embarrassment on national television isn't enough, Virginia STINKS this year and we STILL can't put together a competitive showing.

I haven't seen tackling this bad since I played safety for the High Shoals Raiders when I was 8 years old. As of the 3rd quarter, Virginia - which averages 92 yards per game rushing - has racked up 170+ yards.

How does a school with UNC's facilities, money, brand, and history suck so bad at football?

Evan Boggs Report To The Press Box

My dad is the first-year PA announcer for my high school alma mater, the North Gaston Wildcats.

I was lucky enough to be in town for one of his games last week. I spent the game in the press box helping him spot plays and second guess the coaches, players, officials, etc. It was just like it was a Sunday afternoon and we were watching the Packers - all the way down to the Favre-esque interceptions, the arm tackling on defense, and the heinous margin of defeat.

I took a few quick videos over the course of the night:

Evan Boggs, report to the press box. We were testing the equipment and my brother Evan would not cooperate with my father's request that he step out into the stands for a volume check. Dad zinged him good.

Caleb Tidwell. This is how it went most of the night. Lots of looking around confused, trying to figure out who actually made the tackle, assessing down and distance, and then making the call.

Dominque Carter. I thought this was a pretty good call from Dad.

The other guys in the video are Dad's friend Ronnie Hudson and Dad's cousin Mark Hovis. They've had a great time calling the games all season.

White And Nerdy

Weird Al's "White And Nerdy" has been getting mad air-time at Bronto this week.

My favorite rhymes:

There's no killer app I haven't run.
At Pascal, well, I'm number one.
I do vector calculus just for fun.
I ain't got a gat but I gotta soldering gun.

Shopping online for deals on some writable media.
I edit Wikipedia.

Weird Al is truly the voice of a generation.

PS - To all ya'll gangstaz bloggaz out there, can a link to a GooTube video serve as my obligatory weigh-in on the Google/YouTube transaction?

(Can we find something new to talk about please?)

Carl Stowe Comes Home

As many of you know, Kelly's father Carl Stowe was in a near-fatal automobile accident on March 29, 2006.

After miraculously surviving the initial trauma, spending 2+ months in intensive care, and then enduring 4 long months of recovery in a hospital and long term care facility, Carl is coming home on Wednesday, October 11.

Carl still can't walk - but he can stand and manage to transfer from his bed to a wheelchair. He'll have a hip replacement in early 2007 that will put him on his way to a full recovery. According to his orthopedic surgeon, Carl has very good chance to learn how to walk again and to live a completely mobile life.

It is difficult to describe what Carl's return home means for me, or, more importantly, for Kelly and her family. Thus, I'm not going to try - at least not right now. The end-all, be-all "Reflections On Carl's Accident" blog post is still percolating.

Suffice it to say for now, many did not expect this day to come. It is a miracle that Carl is alive and it is a miracle that he and we have experienced such an outpouring of love and support from our friends and family.

On to the call to action...

Kelly and I set up PayPal account to accept donations on Carl and Ginger's behalf. Click here to read how Carl and Ginger will use the funds and how you can donate.

(I had to embed the link elsewhere because WordPress strips out the important stuff from the URL.)

Thanks for anything you can give and thanks for reading.

Last.fm

I've enjoyed wasting much of today with Last.fm. Finally, a streaming audio site gets it right. (More than half of the time, at least.)

The Last.fm player lets you customize a stream based on genre tags - for example, a playlist of songs tagged as "honky tonk", "alt country", and "americana". Also, you can select a group of artists and enjoy a stream of their music and music from related artists.

This is a great way to dig new music. I've already added a few records to my "to buy on iTunes" list.

Plus - Last.fm "scrobbles" - (their word, not mine) - your listening habits such that you can easily make one of these things to broadcast the artificially generated depth, diversity, and intelligence of your musical interests to the world. This feature detects your listening habits in the Last.fm player, iTunes, and other players.

There is also a fairly deep website with wiki-driven artist bios (very cool) and a community element. I'm sure I could waste countless hours tweaking artist bios, thus, I intend to stay away from the site and just stick to the player...

It remains worth nothing that there are some (somewhat humorous) problems. For instance, "Magical Mystery Tour" just popped up on my "honky tonk" playlist. Not cool. (Perhaps The Beatles pop up on every stream because Last.fm is based in the UK?) A few tunes later, right after a Johnny Cash track, I get Dean Martin. What the heck? Just the beauty - or stupidity - of the community, I suppose.

I've been "testing" the community with other keywords and artists and, like so many community-based streaming services, the stream starts out on point, but eventually wanders into left field. Unfortunately, left field is littered with vapid, watered-down crapola like Coldplay, The Killers and, of course, the crappiest of all crapola, Aerosmith.

Despite it all, I strongly recommend Last.fm. It makes it so easy to wade through the world's great music.

Trucker Concert Review

Friday night's DBT concert certainly did not disappoint. In fact, I would venture to say that I've never been so thoroughly rocked. Read on for a recap of the evening's highlights:

6:15ish - Chris and I had dinner/drinks at Tyler's. Chris has two baby girls at home, so it was quite an ordeal that he was able to get out of the house for an entire evening AND not have a curfew. I suspect that he had to save up - and cash in - quite a few chips. For the sake of continuity, I'm going to leave out all of the times Chris called his wife Lori to "check in". (Zing!)

7:15ish - More beers at Tyler's. We were joined by fellow Bronto Adam and his friend Chris and his special ladyfriend Lauren.

8:15ish - Chris and I walked up to the Carolina Theater. Walking through Downtown Durham at night always proves dicey and this night was no different. We walked past a severely chemically-altered woman on the corner near the old Safari Cuisine that was either A.) quacking like a duck or B.) calling Chris and me "cracker". It was hard to tell...

8:30 - The opener - Bobby Bare, Jr. - goes on. Wow - did he suck. I mean, his band seriously did not sound good. To his credit, I checked his stuff on iTunes and it is actually pretty cool. Also, it is worth pointing out that they performed a song called "The Flat-Chested Girl From Maynard County" and that Bobby Bare, Jr. is the son of - you guessed it - Bobby Bare, country music semi-legend.

9:30ish (?) - Truckers on stage. They opened with "Lookout Mountain" (< link to iTunes snippet) - a great selection to open the show. Next, they played "Cottonseed" (a surprising selection), "The Day John Henry Died" (a GREAT one), and "Puttin' People On The Moon" (my favorite DBT song to sing on my way to work). They continued with songs from "The Dirty South" and "A Blessing And A Curse" - their two latest records - for the first portion of the show.

They closed out their set with my two favorite old school Trucker songs "18 Wheels of Love" - a song detailing the true-to-life FACTS Patterson Hood's mother's relationship with a trucker named Chester and their marraige at Dollywood...by a Porter Waggoner look-a-like - and "Steve McQueen" - Patterson's homage to his childhood hero. "Bullit was my favorite movie that I’d ever seen. I totaled my go-cart trying to imitate that chase scene."

For their encore, they played an acoustic set that included "Outfit". I convulsed with glee as I sang along. After all, it is (possibly one of) the greatest song(s) ever written.

They closed the show with a fury of "Let There Be Rock", "Shut Up and Get On The Plane", "Moonlight Mile" (Yes - the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile") and "Buttholeville". By this point, they were all completely drunk and had taken their rawking to super-human levels.

12:15 - By the time they closed the set, I was deaf and numb. I would rank the concert as #2 all time - just below the Stones in C-ville and just above the two nights of Wilco at UNC.

Takeaways:

  • John Neff should become the official 6th Trucker, or at least a permanent concert fixture. His work on the pedal steel added a great texture to the songs and helped center to the tonality while Patterson, Jason, and Cooley wanked on their guitars.

  • The acoustic set was a treat. It was a great change of pace, it highlighted the great vocal harmony in the group, and gave my ears a few songs to rest...

  • Jason Isbell is seriously talented. Not only is he the best natural vocalist of the 3, he can seriously play the guitar.


So that wraps it up, I guess. Thanks for taking part in my first ever "themed" week. I promise to return to more intelligent discourse in the very near future. I also promise not write about DBT again for a while...

More DBT

I had grand plans to produce a comprehensive exegesis on "Southern Rock Opera" - DBT's 3rd studio album and the only Southern Rock concept album that I know of. This is the album that Ben recommended a few years ago that initially sparked my obsession with DBT.

Unfortunately, I'm too tired/lazy/worthless to adequately analyze and evangalize the importance of the record.

Thus, I will lazily point you to The Sound of History, a well-researched piece on the Truckers from Dry Ink Magazine.

Enjoy.

Why “Outfit” May Be the Greatest Song Ever Written

Trucker week rolls on...

I wasn't the first to consider the greatness of "Outfit". I exchanged emails with Ben a few weeks ago and he made the "greatest song ever written" comment. (Ben is a friend from college and bass player for Atlanta-based honky-tonk outfit National Grain. I highly recommend their latest record.)

After careful deliberation, I'm happy to declare that "Outfit" is indeed (one of) the greatest song(s) ever written.

Jason Isbell wrote "Outfit" for "Decoration Day", which is arguably the Truckers' best overall record. You can hear a brief snippet of the song at Amazon.com. I recommend that you just buy the entire record from iTunes.

His thoughts on the song from the DBT site:

"This one focuses on the advice I got growing up, mostly from my father. We recorded the song just before Father's Day and I gave Dad a copy as a present.
I'm really fond of Cooley's psycho solo and Patterson's guitar harmonies toward the end."

A few selected lyrics from the song:

Well, I used to go out in a Mustang, a 302 Mach One in green.
Me and your Mama made you in the back and I sold it to buy her a ring.

Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t worry about losing your accent, a Southern Man tells better jokes.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, don’t give it away.

Six months in a St. Florian foundry, they call it Industrial Park.
Then hospital maintenance and Tech School just to memorize Frigidaire parts.
But I got to missing your Mama and I got to missing you too.
So I went back to painting for my old man and I guess that’s what I’ll always do

So don’t try to change who you are boy, and don’t try to be who you ain’t.
And don’t let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy-man’s paint.

So why is it great? Because it is dripping with authenticity. The father-to-son dynamic has certainly been done before. However, I can't think of another instance in which a singer expresses "don't make the same mistakes I did" so eloquently in song. Rich details - the Mustang model, tech school classes, and painting in Kendale - color the song and add to the sense of reality. Did Jason's father utter these exact words? I, for one, do not doubt it.

Furthermore, the song is universal. Everybody gets this kind of advice from their father, mother, mentor, etc., particularly in the South. Everybody knows the story of the unplanned pregnancy that derails one's life plans, for better or worse. "Outfit" encapsulates everything that is true and beautiful in American South. Parents struggling to make a better life for their children, praise for the blue collar man, calling home, Jesus - its all in there!

Musically, aside from the great vocals and guitar work, there really is not a lot of complexity. Straight I, IV, V, vi chords and straight melody and harmony. In my opinion, the simplicity serves the song. The lyrics and the singer are front and center and both stand on their own.

Also - the song is easy to strum and easy to sing. Just ask my wife...