This post contains the poem written about my night stuck at the airport hotel in Cincinnati. I suppose you could consider the last post to be the story behind the poem. If you haven’t read part 1, I would suggest you read it now. Whether you read the poem first and then read part 1 or whether you read the story first and then the poem is entirely up to you.

But they both go together, so if you haven’t read part 1, you may as well. It provides a lot of context for what is about to come next.

So here goes…

10 Dudes in a Bar

All by my lonesome, nowhere to go
Lampooned by weather’s crushing blow
A caged animal in this dingy hole
Beaten by forces beyond my control

You never know when opportunity knocks
When a wayward traveler wants to interlock
In a torrid night of passion and lust
Fueled by the desire for an anonymous thrust

I set my sights on the meeting point
In this most unconventional of pick-up joints
But to my displeasure and great chagrin
Musty testosterone permeated the den

Vagabond dudes packed the bar
Weary and hungry from traveling so far
I looked around in great disgust
Not even a cougar to satisfy my lust

It seems bad luck has put a stop
To my hopes of a rollicking, raucous romp
For in the entire bar there were only 2
And even now neither lady would do

One old and busted, toothless and coarse
I couldn’t stand it, she smelled like a horse
The other a socialite of Kennedy stock
Ashamed to rub elbows with this sordid flock

I shared a moment with 10 dudes in a bar
On an evening nothing short of bizarre
We drowned our sorrow in a pint of beer
All of us wishing we were anywhere but here

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, ramblings, rants, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.

I was traveling back from NY after Thanksgiving. It was raining in NY. Actually, it was raining in about 3/4 of the country. Flights were getting delayed all over the country due to weather. My flight got delayed…

…not from weather. The dumb fuckers working for the airline couldn’t get the hatch in the back of the plane closed. So we sat in the plane waiting to take off for over an hour. Just waiting on the runway. Waiting…and waiting…and waiting…

Finally, we took off. I had a connecting flight in Cincinnati to take me back to Colorado. Our plane landed in Cincinnati about 5 minutes after my connecting flight took off. Unlike everyone else in the country who missed their connecting flights from an act of God (read: mother nature), I missed my flight because the airline crew couldn’t figure out how to shut the fucking hatch. Fantastic.

The Sunday of Thanksgiving may possibly be the worst day of the year to miss your flight. Especially when bad weather was derailing every airline in the country. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people were scrambling to rebook on a different flight so that they could get home. After all, this is the busiest travel weekend of the year.

I was flying Delta. They couldn’t get me out of Cincinnati until Tuesday morning (2 days later), so they rebooked me on American. Unfortunately, the flight they booked me on was full. How ’bout that for great service.

The best American could do was get me on another flight the following morning. But I would have to transfer in Chicago, where they were experiencing a huge blizzard. So there was some question as to whether I would actually make it from Cincinnati to Chicago to make my connecting flight. But since it was Thanksgiving weekend, my options were limited. I had no choice but to roll the dice on a blizzard.

The gracious people at Delta tried to tell me they wouldn’t pay for a hotel for me, even though it was their fault that I missed my flight. I had to get into angry New Yorker mode and start raising Hell before they came around to my point of view. But ultimately, I was able to make them see it my way, and I was on my way to the Holiday Inn Airport Hotel in Northern Kentucky (the Cincinnati airport is actually in northern Kentucky).

If I had been stranded in a more happening place, I would have gone out on the town for the night. But seeing as it northern Kentucky on a Sunday night, I was pretty much fucked. I was stuck in the airport hotel with a free room and a $7 food voucher.

Some people might have looked at this as a miserable situation. Not me. I am an optimist. I viewed this as an opportunity. This was the busiest travel weekend of the year. There were major storms all over the country. Surely there would be others who missed their connecting flights in Cincinnati. If they were flying Delta, they would be at my hotel.

There are very few instances in your life when you have the opportunity to meet a woman knowing that you have nothing else to do all night but share her company till dawn and then part ways in the morning never to see each other again. The other option was to spend the entire night alone. This was my situation.

Anyone traveling alone who missed a flight would be stuck in my airport hotel, with nowhere to go. This was a deadbeat town. You couldn’t even take a cab to a downtown district to find a restaurant. You had one choice. The hotel bar.

I realize that not all people think like me. Sure, you may be married, yet traveling alone. In that situation, you may not be looking for a one night fling. But chances are, if you were traveling alone over Thanksgiving and stuck in that hotel, you were more than likely to be single. And bored. Why not have a debaucherous, raucous, guilt-free, no-strings-attached night with someone else sharing your predicament?

I personally believe that most people, male or female, would share this sentiment. We all have needs, drives, desires. We all enjoy a little fun once in awhile. We rarely have an opportunity to indulge our desires in such a low-stress, carefree manner. This is a truly great opportunity. Anyone denying that they would think this way in this situation is a complete and utter liar.

I’m not going to be arrogant enough to consider myself the most jaw-dropping attractive guy out there. But I do think that I fit the range of attractiveness that many women would look for when sizing up a suitable partner for such a night. And, I am quite the conversationalist. For a night like this, I am a fairly good catch.

Of course, I am not holding out for some A-list bombshell either. I am looking for someone in the general range of average attractiveness or better. My age range is flexible as well. Let’s say early 20’s to mid 40’s. I mean, I’m not sizing her up for a relationship; just a good one night stand. And in these cases, older is generally better. She will most likely be more down with the cause.

So I’m playing the odds right now. Most likely, there will be some women stuck at this hotel. They all need to eat dinner. There is only one place to go for that — the hotel bar. So I head down there early. Don’t want to miss any prospects. Time is of the essence.

When I get to the bar, it is relatively empty. I order a drink and start watching the Sunday night football game. Eventually I order some food. Sure enough, the bar fills up.

But it fills up with a bunch of dudes. It’s unbelievable. All the people stuck at the hotel from missed flights are dudes. Inconceivable!

I was polite. I would respond to their mundane inquiries as to my predicament. They all seemed to be in a mood to share travel nightmare stories. I didn’t share their zeal. I wasn’t here for companionship. At least, not that kind of companionship. I would have rather sat in my room reading a book.

So I kept my eyes out for some lovely ladies. But there were only dudes.

Finally, a woman graced us with her presence. She was young (about 20) and decently attractive. She was a perfect prospect.

Or so I thought.

From the moment she walked in to the bar, she clearly tried to establish a distance between herself and the rest of the riff-raff in the room. She spent the first 5 or 10 minutes on her cell phone, and eventually sat down by herself at a table (instead of at the bar).

Her table was near my spot at the bar, so I tried to engage her in conversation. For a young girl, she was a hell of a snob. I don’t really know what she had to be so snobby about. At 20 years old, she couldn’t have done a whole lot to make her better than everyone else. But she sure seemed to think she was.

From our brief conversation, I was able to ascertain that she was VERY rich. Let me rephrase that. OBSCENELY RICH. She normally flies on her mom’s private jet, but for some reason, it was loaned out to someone else for the weekend. She had some strange provision in her trust fund requiring her to get her Master’s degree by age 25 in order to keep her inheritance. She was from a Massachusetts political family — the Kennedy family (or so she said). OBSCENELY RICH.

But a bit stuck up. She was giving me snippets of a fascinating story. She had me hooked. I don’t really know any people with her life. I was curious. Not in some weird stalker way. Not in some violent rapist way. Not in some deranged kidnapper way. But curious the way a writer gets curious when he meets someone with a life experience completely different than his own.

That’s what writers do. They observe and comment. I approach most situations from the perspective that it may be fodder for an interesting piece of writing. Because to be a true artist, you need to be able to find inspiration in the ordinary and mundane as well as the extraordinary. Both are equally viable sources of juicy material.

And here was my chance to get a window into the life of a person whom I have no business ever meeting or knowing. I had my chance to enter this world. At Penn, I met all sorts of people who came from obscenely rich families. But I never sought them as friends. There was no connection. They weren’t my people. I didn’t share their values or their interests. It wasn’t personal. We just didn’t connect. I could have been one of the people at Penn who desperately tried to break into this circle (and believe me, there were plenty of them). But it wasn’t for me. So I punched my exit ticket from that society and had no qualms about it.

And 10 years later, I’m face to face with one of these people. And I have as much to bring to the table as she does. Our lives are completely different, but I can share as much with her as she can with me. And as a writer and an artist, I want the whole story. If it leads to my desired carefree romp in my 3rd floor room, that’s fantastic. But at this point I’ll settle for the inspiration to a song, poem, or short story.

So I prod. Very directly. Is there any other way?

She wants no part of it, and makes it clear to me instantly. As soon as I pressed her in her family and background, she rudely responded, “Are we done?”

This was a golden opportunity for her as well. She could open up and share her life with a complete stranger for one night (or even an hour over a beer). She can be more honest with me than she’d even be with her shrink (if she has one). I’m a person who she’ll never see again in her life. There is no reason to hold back. And she did hint that there was plenty of drama and turmoil in her family. And I have the conversational skills to keep her going. If only she’d not been such a stuck up bitch.

So she blew me off. And instead of becoming the inspiration for a great song, poem, or maybe even a short story, she received 2 lines in a poem and a tirade in my blog. And she passed up a night of guilt-free, uninhibited sex to boot. Sucker!

Back to square 1. Surely there will be others.

Well, there was one other. A woman in her 40’s or 50’s. Toothless. Looking like a bag lady. Could barely get her words straight. I don’t know what her drug of choice is, but it clearly has had its effects on her. She wouldn’t do. And remember, I’m not about to be picky in this situation. But she wouldn’t do. Inconceivable!

And that was it. No more women came thru the bar for the rest of the night. Only about 10 dudes hanging around, coming and going, all thinking the same thing as me. Finally, one of them had the balls to say what was on everyone else’s mind: “Are any women going to walk thru this door? What do I have to do to get laid tonight?” Gotta love honesty. None of the rest of us were going to say it. But we were all thinking it.

And so I sat at the bar, sharing my frustration in the situation w/10 other strange dudes, all of us wishing we were anywhere but here.

I have completed a poem about this night. I will share it with you all in my next post. Part 2 of my Cincinnati saga.

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, rants, ramblings, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.

 

Lamentable, but true, I have the working man’s blues.

Not because my job is bringing me down. I actually enjoy my job. I get to learn and write about some weird shit at my job. It definitely stays fresh. No complaints there.

Rather, my blues are more related to what I call the great compromise of existence. In order to pay my bills and stay afloat, I’m forced to devote a considerably large portion of my time to my job. This severely limits the time I have to do all of the many things that in my opinion make life worth living. Hence the great compromise of existence. Working…a necessary evil for the responsible adult.

Like I said, I genuinely like my job. It is much better than my previous career as a middle school teacher. To quote one of the most brilliant literary minds of the 20th century (Bukowski), “I’d rather be playing ping-pong with the risen ghost of Hitler” than teach 8th grade English ever again. Harsh but true.

But in the interim between my life as an English teacher and my life writing web content for plastic surgeons (gotta love reading up on breast implants and labiaplasties all week), I had a stop-gap job as a substitute teacher. Not glamorous, and certainly not paying the bills. It was somewhat a waste of my Master’s degree. Whereas I used to be a real teacher that supposedly was impacting the youth of America, I had become a glorified babysitter making sure these kids sat in their seats pretending to be productive. I was making full use of my talents.

But seriously, there was one great aspect of being a sub. I have to admit, I truly miss this part of subbing (although I loathed every other aspect of the job). I had a ton of time to write. I would sit in these classrooms all day with absolutely nothing to do. I would hand out the assignment and then sit there while these kids pretended to work on it.

I had 2 choices — I could either sit there staring at the wall or I could take out a notebook and write. It was a no-brainer, I must say. In my one not-so-glorious year as a substitute teacher, I got a ton of writing done. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to call myself prolific. But certainly very productive. I more than doubled my completed pieces in less than a year. Not too shabby, I must say.

Since I have started writing web pages on breast implants and car accidents, I have had substantially less time to do my own writing. Tragic, I must say. After about 2 months, I can honestly say that it is getting to me.

I know, the real answer is that I must get more forceful and creative about carving out writing time after work. But when you are playing music with the band several nights a week, you start to see your time vanish in front of your eyes. Before you know it, there is one, maybe 2 nights a week to accomplish all of your other projects, and fit in some decompression time. Trickier than you think.

So lamentably, I have the working man’s blues. While I am grateful to have gotten a full-time job to help me pay my bills during the worst economic downturn of my brief lifetime, I do miss the perks of unemployment (read: lots of free time to get my writing done).

Of course, this has not adversely affected Jababa one bit. Will and I have diligently gotten together every week to continue writing opus masterpieces for the band. Sometimes we get bogged down for weeks or even months on one song, but when that happens you know it will deliver. So do not fret — there are plenty of new Jababa tunes looming on the horizon.

What has been adversely affected is my own personal writing. I have not written any new lyrics or poetry since I started my job. I have written a precious little music to complete my ever-growing stack of musicless lyrics. This must change soon or I will start to go nuts. But I am engaged in a delicate juggling act right now. And with ski season about to kick into high gear, my time will further diminish.

For those of you out there who feel my pain, raise your glasses with me and drink to the working man’s blues!

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, rants, ramblings, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.

I was going to write this blog post on last weekend’s Halloween escapades, but under the circumstances, that post seems a bit shallow.

I’m going to make a one-time exception to my rule of not writing political content on this blog. The events of this past week are just too important not to talk about them. I want to talk about what the results of this election mean to me on a more personal level. I also want to say upfront that anything I write here reflects only on me. I am not speaking for the rest of the band.

Sometime during the last 8 years, I lost my faith in our government and the American people. I became convinced that I lived in a country where most of the people didn’t think or believe what I think and believe, and I felt that those who I do agree with were too apathetic to make a difference. I also began losing faith in the intelligence and judgement of our citizens and our government to have the ability to do what is right. I don’t know if I can pinpoint an exact moment when it began, but I can certainly identify the watershed moment when I completely lost all faith.  

My loss of faith in the American people came after the 2004 election. While I will never say that John Kerry was someone I felt could become a great leader, he certainly was a much better option than Bush. And after Bush’s track record in his first term, I felt that this should be apparent to the rest of the country as well. But despite a rather large outcry for a new direction in our country, the American people validated the misguided direction we had taken under Bush. They responded to the fear and paranoia tactics employed in Bush’s reelection campaign, and by giving him 4 more years, signaled to the rest of the world that we are a bunch of douche bags who agree with his agressive, divisive, misguided, and destructive tactics.

I had really thought our country was ready for change. I had thought that the American people had a sense of what is right and decent, and would send a clear message that our current direction was unacceptable. But apparently, I had been wrong. And at that point, I had lost all faith in everything American. In 2000, we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into. We had an excuse (sort of). In 2004, we knew exactly what we had, and said, “We want more!”

By December 2004, I can honestly say I was embarrassed to be an American.

About 2 years ago, I was flying back to Colorado from a visit to NY. I was sitting next to a young girl on the plane. She was probably about 20. She was intelligent, passionate, liberal, politically conscious, idealistic, and very Muslim. Not fundamentalist Muslim, but very religious. To a large extent, her daily actions were dictated by her religion.

She was a HUGE Obama supporter, and this was when he was still relatively unknown and a longshot for the presidency. I must have spent 3 hours on this flight trying to explain to her why she shouldn’t waste her time getting excited about Obama. Not because he wasn’t worth getting excited about, but because we lived in a country that was too racist, backwards, conservative, ignorant, and closed-minded to ever consider electing a man like Obama president.

I was the jaded 30 year old who had competely lost faith in everything important and vital in our country preaching to the idealistic 20 year old who still felt she could make a difference. I should be ashamed of myself. Lucky for me my speech didn’t work, and luckily there were many more people like her.

I’ve thought a lot about this girl and our conversation over the past week. Most likely, I will never see her again (I don’t even know her name). But if I ever were to cross paths with her, I would thank her for her continued faith and idealism. For without people like her, we would most certainly be in for 4 more years of the same right now.

It might be the case that our country had to get as fucked up as it has gotten over the past few years for the general public to reach the point where they could make the statement they made this week. But regardless of the reason, the fact that we did make a big statement this week is momentous in itself and should be celebrated and applauded for a long time to come.

I think that we have gone a long way towards repairing our image around the world simply by the results of  this election. Furthermore, we have reaffirmed the idea that in America, anything is possible IF you work hard enough and believe in yourself. Because let’s face it, Obama worked his ass off to accomplish this, and for much of his primary campaign, very few people truly believed he could win. 

But it wasn’t just about Obama’s hard work. There were millions of people around this country who came to be inspired by him and believe in him the way my friend on the plane did. And they spent countless hours of their time and energy working to help him achieve his dream. Considering the widespread apathy among young, liberal people over the past few elections, this is truly amazing. And I think that it’s obvious that Obama would never have pulled this off without the support and belief of his many admirers who poured their hearts and souls into his campaign. In uniting so much of the country behind his cause, he has shown us something that no politician has in my lifetime.

So at 32, I have turned a corner with our country this week. My faith has been renewed. I am no longer bitter and jaded, embarrassed of everything our country stands for. I am once again proud of our country and truly believe that anything is possible here, provided you believe in yourself and are willing to work hard enough to accomplish it. Obama has inspired hope in me for our future.

My faith in the American people has been revitalized as well. While I realize we are not perfect, we are a lot farther along than I gave us credit for. While racism, ignorance, self-righteousness, and closed-mindedness still run strong in parts of our country, it clearly no longer reflects the majority of our population’s beliefs. Many more people than I realized are ready to embrace the fact that we live in a multi-cultural and multi-racial world that cannot be governed by backwards religious tenets that only validate the views, beliefs, and values of a small group of people. I am hopeful that with Obama at the helm, we are ready to finally reassert ourselves as a beacon for what is right in the world, as opposed to the harbinger of the evils of power and greed that we have embodied over the past 8 years. This may be a bit melodramatic, but it is how I feel.

Finally, this election has renewed my faith in the power of hope. Obama won largely because he was able to inspire hope in the majority of Americans during a time when most people had no reason to be hopeful. This hope was powerful enough to combat all of the negative fear and paranoia campaigns designed by the Republicans to turn the American people against him. In previous years, these fear and paranoia campaigns were very successful, largely because the opposition candidate didn’t have the ability to inspire hope. In the absence of hope, fear is very powerful. But in the presence of hope, fear has no chance. I hope that many politicians recognize this and realize that the way to win a political campaign is not by inspiring fear against the opponent, but by figuring out how to inspire hope in the American people that you can soundly and successfuly lead the way.

So for me, this election was important because it inspired my hope and faith in the American people once more. For that, I must thank Barack Obama and the American people for helping me to find my faith.

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, ramblings, rants, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.

A few weeks ago, we went into the studio to record a few tracks for our demo. This was long overdue. While some bands try to get themselves out there right away and just figure it out on the fly, we’ve taken the reverse approach. We’ve been woodshedding it in our little hole in Laffayette for almost a year now, crafting our sound, style, and songs. Just waiting for the right moment to unleash ourselves on the Boulder/Denver scene. We’ve come above water a few times this summer to let people know what we’re doing — most notably at the Lazy Dog on Suz’s birthday and at the summer mountain festivals we played. But for the most part, we’re still a very well-kept secret.

But I think we’ve finally turned that page to where we’re going to actively try and put ourselves out there for all to see. This recording was a big part of that.

It was a simple set-up: we went over to Chris Addison’s house to record in his home studio. I really wasn’t sure what to expect going into the whole process. My only other experience with a home studio recording left a lot to be desired. But I must say, everything about the weekend completely exceeded my expectations. I think I can confidently speak for everyone in the band when I say that we were all very satisfied with the entire process and the results we got.

Addison decided to record all of us direct, except for the drums. This would prevent bleed in the recording. We had the option to rerecord our parts with our amps after the drums were laid down, but the tones we had going direct were all good enough to keep, so we didn’t waste our time messing around with the amps. The only exception to this was my organ. The tone I got going direct didn’t even remotely come close to capturing what I get out of my leslie, so I redid all of the organ parts using my leslie when it was my turn to overdub.

We were surprisingly efficient during this whole process. We chose some of our most challenging tunes to record, and there was the potential for us to get bogged down for hours trying to get any of these right. But we all managed to rise to the occasion and play very well when we needed to most (after all, time is money in the studio).

I have to hand it to Todd, he was straight up the man that weekend. He nailed the drum parts for all three songs very quickly, and that was crucial to our success. We couldn’t move on until we had solid drum tracks. Once those were laid down, Will, Brad and I could overdub any mistakes we had. But until the drums were solid, we would have to redo the song over and over again, waiting for it to come out right. This gets very time consuming.

But Todd was a beast that weekend. He nailed “Sandwich” on the first take. We ended up playing it another 2 times just to be safe, but we ultimately decided that the first take was by far the best and that it was good enough to move on. We then laid down “Suburban Jihad,” which could have potentially taken us all day. I don’t know if we’ve ever played a completely clean take of that song — there are just too many places where the potential for mistakes is great. But he nailed that one on the first take as well. This time, we knew what we had and just moved on. “Grease Fire” took two takes, but once again, not too shabby.

It was then time to listen back and see what needed to get overdubbed by the rest of the band. To our pleasant surprise, we discovered that most of it was pretty spot-on and could be used as is. All three of us were able to complete our minimal overdubs in about an hour per person. This left us about 4-5 hours for mixing and mastering.

Everytime I’ve done a recording session, I’m always amazed at what can be done in the mixing and mastering process. It can be quite time consuming, but the results are always worth the effort. It is during this time where the songs come alive and reach their full potential. I have to say, Addison did a great job . He was very efficient and did an excellent job getting our levels in line and our tones to come alive. I think we were all really happy with the final product.

At this point, I think we’re all pretty fired up to get back there and record a few more tunes. We’ve got plenty of others that we’d love to lay down and document, and after our first foray into the studio, I think we’re all confident that we can be a pretty good studio band given the proper time, money, and resources.

You can listen to the fruits of our labor on our website. All three tracks have been posted here for your listening pleasure. Feel free to check them out and let us know what you think.

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, ramblings, rants, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.

…..to the website

to a deluxe new blog space on our site

we’re movin’ on up

to the website

we’ve finally got a piece of the pie

 

For those of you who remember watching the Jeffersons as a kid, i hope you appreciate my intro.

This is the official shift from our band’s blog space from our myspace account to our new web page.  At first, I was a little resistant.  I already had a fully functional band blog going on our myspace page.  And it made me feel somewhat connected to the myspace community, even if very few people actually read my blog.  It’s ok, I realize that you need to write for awhile before people tune in.  And playing out would help me garner some readers as well.  Currently, Jababa is still pretty much off the radar. 

But I decided to make the switch anyway.  And I need to credit Todd with successfully talking me into making the switch to this blog.  Basically, the myspace blog is low-fi and ghetto.  At least, that’s been my experience with it.  Perhaps I just wasn’t savvy enough to work it to its potential.  But my experience with the myspace blog was that it is completely low-fi and ghetto.

Todd very compellingly explained to me that this new blog will give me vastly greater capabilities.  I will have the potential to legitimately make this blog cool, interesting, and entertaining (I suppose that gives me quite a bit to live up to).  So why not take the chance.  Make the upgrade and get out of the ghetto. 

I might look into ways to post my blog on both pages just to keep the other one alive and kicking.  But the reality is that I only have the time to maintain 1 blog.  And this one will be the one.

So welcome to the new home of “The Jababa Chronicles”.  I will try my hardest to keep the bulk of this blog to band content.  Hopefully, we are poised to make the leap to where we’ll be doing enough to ensure that this blog will mainly focus on band content.  But I’m not above using this blog to get out rants, ramblings, tirades, anecdotes, and philosophies that mirror yours truly.  After all, I’m the only one who is willing to make the effort to keep this blog running.  So what you will get is my point of view.  God I love a captive audience.

Immediately up on the agenda for “The Jababa Chronicles” will be a detailed account of our upcoming recording session.  That’s right, we are getting the ball rolling.  When it rains it pours.  Feel the power of Jababa! (Only those people who know the real meaning of jababa will fully appreciate that last statement.)

Yes, we are doing a recording session this weekend at Addison’s home studio.  No better way to kick this blog off than with an account of our recording session.  So until then…

“The Jababa Chronicles”:  All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, ramblings, rants, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.