Because I'd Rather Blog About Beer Than About Me

You can read the exciting details here at the beer blog. 

Soon I will regale you again with stories of my battle with the post office, fierce deadlines and breaking news in Kansas City healthcare, and plotting my western travels in 2010. As for music - the best of 2009 will be quickly chased by the best rediscoveries of 2009 (aka shit I didn't hear before Jan. 1). 

I can finally ride the bike again without fear of death beneath the wheels of some hillbilly machine. It could still happen, but the streets are wider, no one parks in the bike lanes, and the rear entrance to the Shelby Bottoms Greenway is a scant two miles away (insert "Rear entrance to Shelby Bottoms" joke here).  

So a Thanksgiving bike ride should be just the tonic to break the funk I've been stuck in for the past week. A little foot injury has prevented my long runs, so I'm eager to return to the trails in one form or another. 

Sequential Faults (Remind Me Why I Kept Reading)

I think I've had it with mainstream comics. Some might say that's about 22 years past due, but I finally fee alienated enough to stop wasting the money. Since I moved to Nashville, I have visited the local shops almost every Wednesday, thrown down money in search of a good read, and become connected with other comic fans here in Music City. But I can't escape diminishing returns any longer, not at $3 or $4 a pop.

In short, every book I've come to enjoy in the past 2-3 years has skewed off on tangents I can no longer follow.

After killing Captain America two-plus years ago, he was replaced by his World War II partner, Bucky Barnes. Superheroes return from death all the time, but this one felt different: an heir apparent with a new attitude, myriad new plotlines and a supremely underrated supporting cast made the new Cap a can't-miss read.

Bucky's history since the war had years of storytelling potential, but Marvel pissed it away for Captain America: Reborn, which asserts Captain America didn't die, but became unstuck in time. No, they didn't drop Billy Pilgrim under the mask. They just took a noirish, street-level book and crossbred it with Lost. Maybe they'll keep two Captain Americas around after this plot-by-numbers story ends. The fresh one they shoved off the stage for the status quo worked just fine.

Then there's Batman and Robin - with longtime Robin Dick Grayson now in the Bat-suit and possible Bruce Wayne heir Damian as Robin (long story). After a first arc with uber-collaborator Frank Quitely, Grant Morrison's stellar writing gets bogged down in awful art. A great story can survive weak art, but Morrison struggles without a better foil (great art, of course, cannot hoist a weak story). Another problematic plot point to come: Bruce Wayne isn't dead but has been (ahem) .... lost in time.

After years of build-up, DC finally unleashed Blackest Night, a major plotline about the dark forces of the universe seeking vengeance on the light (aka the Green Lantern Corps, which maintains it quality despite the trainwreck of an event book it's inexorably tied to).

They swore it wouldn't devolve into another zombie story. Yet almost everything tied into it features the same plot - hero confronted by dead allies/loved ones/villains, they run, they try to reason with the zombies ... er, Black Lanterns, then come up with a last-ditch method to defeat them. The Green Lantern books had been among my favorite for the past few years - and Sinestro Corps War revealed how to handle a compact crossover. This one has spiralled out of control, what surprises that still remain have been dampened

So for weekly comics, count me out. Aside from the always-stellar Astro City, which combines 1960s comic innocence with modern flair, and the occasional work from Alan Moore, Morrison (not if it features Phillip Tan art, though) and Neil Gaiman, I'm ready to give up the comics ghost.

What scares me is how close this parallels my departure from the hobby in the 1990s. Collectible covers and variant issues ruled the roost, idiotic plotlines overtook my favorite books, Spiderman had been a clone for the past 20 years and Green Lantern became a mass-murdering despot.

Change a few names, and oh so little has actually changed.

Money Matters, But Not If You're Rich

You might have caught the middle-finger victory dance unleashed by Titans owner Bud Adams following an interception on Sunday. It's quite amusing and excessive, but what else would you expect from a quirky Texas billionaire without his six-shooters in easy reach? If the Rich Texan from the Simpsons had a real-world parallel, Adams wouldn't be far off. I even imagined him shouting "Yee haw" as the Titans turned the interception into seven points.

Now, reaction to the NFL's fine of $250,000 for the bird-waving has struck fans as extreme. I instead leaned back on my father's common refrain - "That's akin to fining me a dollar." Granted, he usually uses it whenever the newsrags gush about an athlete or actor giving a donation to their alma mater, but it applies with Adams as well. From the cheap seats, it seems like a large fine.

I stopped using the bird years ago - best not to give bad drives with gun racks an excuse - but an obscene gesture on a roadway might cost me a few hundred dollars (I'm purely guessing here, but Metro cops pull over people for far less). That hurts me far more than the bigger fine impacts the team owner with a 10-figure bank account.

It isn't as if that penalty is going to kill the Adams fortune. He writes the check and goes on with his life, and we can only hope the slap on the wrist doesn't embolden him - next week the Titans play Houston, and I don't want to know how Adams would react to the team now playing in the town he spurned. I wouldn't be surprised if he flashed them.

We forget that athletes and the wealthy don't subscribe to the same rules as us commoners. Personally, I long for the day when we can say, "Remember if you see any celebrities, consider them dangerous" (thanks to Kent Brockman for that).

Because I Won't Comment on the Cleveland Actas .... er, Indians

The return of an aging superstar to the second-tier American League club might usually elicit nothing but yawns, but this one earns a pass.

Thanks to Upper Deck, Ken Griffey Jr. has been the face of baseball for more than 20 years. Other players have evolved into all-time greats, but even as he approaches 40, I can't help but think of the bright-eyed teen on the first card in Upper Deck's inaugural set. Pulling that treasure from one of the first foil packs I bought was easily the highlight of my baseball card-collecting days. His father had a solid major league career, but placing a prospect who had yet to play an inning of major-league ball in such a position was a risk. Griffey Jr., of course, delivered on that risk.

Reds' fans possess less nostalgia for Griffey, who fare much worse during his second decade in the game. He never reemerged as the intimidating slugger, often injuring himself in attempts to make plays. The euphoria that those fans expressed at Griffey's signing (some people thought he would lead to World Series triumph) ended with a shrug, since the Reds had not challenged for a playoff spot for most of the decade. Unfortunately, Griffey injured his hamstring, and it plagued him ever since.

His return to Seattle felt right; Griffey had his best days there, and where better to close out his career than where he essentially saved baseball (only with a playoff appearance in the mid-1990s did Seattle baseball finally earn a following).

While his decline is stunningly apparent - the Kid only hit .214 last year, with 14 homers - his importance to baseball is not. Griffey Jr. was supposed to be the guy to break the homerun marks of Roger Maris and Hank Aaron, not the wave of muscle-bound sluggers who would overshadow Griffey during the steroid era. Few ever suspected him, and his mercurial rise in the 1990s and steady decline do not point to the juice.

Plus, his physique and hat size look about the same.

He might only unleash that fluid swing to an occasional highlight these days, somehow, I feel better for baseball knowing he will still get a few at-bats in 2010. When he goes, so does that last childhood link to a sport of haves and have-nots and mercenary ballplayers.

Catching Up Vol. 5: Random Ramblings

Rather than trot out a bunch of filler, here are a few scraps of fall that I couldn't throw away.

Walt moves over for Headless Ted
Fact: Walt Disney was cremated, and does not frozen awaiting revival in the distant future. Fact: I wish Ted Williams' family cremated him so his embarrassing saga could have ended. I can't remember the last time a final resting place drew so much attention then revulsion, but the sad saga of post-mortem Ted Williams got uglier this year.

The short version: Skipping a funeral, Williams' unscrupulous son, the late John-Henry, flew the baseball legend's body to an Arizona cryogenics facility, where the son would later be interred as well. Seven years later, allegations about abuse of the Red Sox great's head knocked him back into the headlines. I won't repeat those horrific tales of corpse abuse here, because I prefer to hold onto the last public memory of Williams - being mobbed by players on the 1999 All-Star team, where rejected all bureaucratic attempts to get them to clear the field. That spontaneous remembrance of baseball's rich history beats a head in a metal box any day.

Skipping American Government 101
The House bill is a gesture, and will looking nothing like the completed version. How many times did the Republican-led Congress from earlier this decade pass bills overturning the restrictions on drilling in the Arctic? How much new drilling has begun? Unless the Senate acts in kind, the House accomplishes nothing. This is Civics 101, yet people go ignorant.

Pieces from the House bill will survive; the public option probably won't. The problem of a Democratic majority is it relies on moderate and conservative Democrats, many of whom won't go along with any step toward a single-payer system. Every votes counts there, unlike the shepherding common in the House.

Beating down the once-beloved Browns
For 10 years, football-loving people largely looked away from the Browns, chalking them up as blandly mediocre to downright awful. But as bad as it looked in 2008, the Browns have transcended all previous ceilings for awful football. The secretive, arrogant Eric Mangini enters, and suddenly the team transforms into an epic trainwreck, with Mangini and owner Randy Lerner each vying to play Casey Jones. It's so painful to watch the team of my youth, which too often had great seasons winnow down to heartbreak, collapse into this wretched mess.

But like everyone else, I cannot avert my eyes. Watching his puffy coach act like he's the smartest guy in the room when he clearly knows little about the game has proven more entertaining the football his lackluster team produces.

Catching Up Vol. 4: Welcome to Inglewood

Moving in is hard to do, but live among the boxes is just good enough.

For roughly a week, the commute has changed, and I have been getting settled in my new neighborhood. The quiet has been borderline deafening - the television goes nowhere near as loud now that it no longer competes with busy 51st Avenue South and I-40. Opening the door to eight lanes of highway every morning did nothing to improve my tinnitus. I can hear the wildlife again, and don't need a calculate to figure out the number of passing cars.

It was necessary to close that chapter of my Nashville years. I endured too many cold winters and blistering summers to stay another. After giving notice, finding an apartment on Craig's List and leaving Columbus in three short weeks, I finally uprooted from Nashville's West Side, trading it for a side-by-side duplex on the east side enclave of Inglewood.

While the commercial corridor of Gallatin Pike needs a loving hand (the closest restaurants and only ones within a mile are Sonic and Church's Chicken), there are pockets of commercial development, including a little swath of restaurants buried in the neighborhood and only a short bike ride away.

The change of scenery will help, but moving had a much more practical backdrop: I need to be on a lease to make tough decisions. I spent four years in an ugly roommate situation, and it only took a year back on a lease for me to leave Columbus, which remains in play if I depart Nashville.

But fear not, dear friends; for now, my only concern is getting this apartment looking right for a little Sunday afternoon housewarming.

I bought little of consequence for the Delaware Avenue place, and jury-rigged spaces for my surging record collection, my beer-making gear and other new hobbies. Rather than buy more storage, I found that Trapiche Broquel's wooden boxes perfectly fit 12-inch LPs. I still have to add a bathroom shelf for all those little wares that need a home, but home has mostly been established, despite me only spending a few hours a week there. Between jobs and gym hours, I barely do anything there besides read, sleep or fend off a cat made surlier by another move and long, lonely days.

The changes are immediate at the old place, of which I have cleared the final hurdle - the landlord returned my deposit, and I returned it to the bank.

I stopped by the mailbox to check for any lingerers and while finding no mail, I noticed an odd contraption on the front porch: the ancient furnace which spat out blazing heat in a 10-foot radius and had no further influence on the apartment's temperature.

On the coldest nights, I slept on the couch. Whoever lands there next might still face stunningly cold winter mornings - built in 1910, the place has no insulation -but they'll go without that metal hulk and its teasing heat. My new heater might not radiate any greater warmth, but at worst, it's only for a single winter.

Catching Up Vol. 3: Ringo Was a Great Drummer

For all the abuse Ringo Starr takes from fans and musicians, the newly remastered Beatles catalogue represents a validation. A generation of fans grew up listening to nothing but brittle CD transfers, not the bright, fleshed-out mixes that came out in September.

I have only gotten through With the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Abbey Road, but the instruments pop; no more does the awkward stereo mix push all the instruments either hard-left or hard-right. The Beatles finally sound organic; look for fingers sliding against guitar strings, Paul's bass galloping against Ringo's fleshed-out beat. Having listened to those albums innumerable times, it amazed to find they had so much new warmth and depth to offer.

But that hasn't been all this fall. Here is a roundup of my latest listens, short and sweet:

Noah & The Whale, First Day of Spring
I really like this band's debut, but this song cycle about a break-up never gelled for me. There are a few good tunes sprinkled in, but nothing on par with Five Years' Time or Rocks & Daggers. While ambitious, it stalls on too many bland acoustic ballad and none of the female vocals which spiced up their debut; unfortunately, the female voice belonged to the former girlfriend addressed on First Day of Spring, so the best feature of Noah & the Whale might have been stripped away.

Os Mutantes, Os Mutantes
Where has this psychedelic gem been hiding all my life? A newer incarnation of this Brazilian rock band now tours, but it all started right here on this self-titled ancestor to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.

Kings of Convenience, Declaration of Dependence: I awaited this third disc from the Swedish duo since I saw them perform the quietest show ever at Little Brother's in 2005. They don't swerve away from their delicate, harmonious sound, but they advance it enough not to sound repetitive. Os Mutantes defies easy description, so just grab a copy and prepare to be challenged.

The Flaming Lips, Embryonic: Love them or hate them, Oklahoma City's finest shake up their sound and restore the fractured pop they churned out prior to She Don't Use Jelly. A bold step for the Lips. Don't ask about tracks - I know they released a single, but the band hasn't sounded less commercial since Zaireeka. If you can't appreciate the music, at least appreciate that the band took a major chance after the middling, bland At War With the Mystics. Each of these tracks has a dagger for the soft belly of The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song.

Avett Brothers, I and Love and You: Thank Rick Rubin's production for avoiding the major label slump; the Avetts coming-out record has moments of lush music, tender lyrics and driving piano interludes. Just as the songs appear ready to decide to descend into pop-balladry cliche, the Avetts turn away and reward your faith. This is a natural progression for their bluegrass-tinged rock.

Lou Barlow, Goodnight Unknown: This record resembles Barlow's home recordings more than the gentle folk-rock of Emoh, his previous long-player. While that record never faltered, his reversion to fuzzed-out rock on a few tracks puts his shortcomings on display and weakens the solid acoustic tracks dispersed within. But some of the best music Barlow wrote this year already appeared on Farm, the latest from Dinosaur Jr., so

Catching Up Vol. 2: Indians' Ineptitude Cannot Evade Spotlight

Any faithful Cleveland sports fan has to thank God for the Cavaliers, because I have never seen such chaotic, arrogant incompetence from the other two teams in town.

Here I won't touch the Browns, not even from 500 miles away. Enough have (rightfully) gouged Eric Mangini, and until Randy Lerner decides to sell, I can't allow myself to care.

But baseball is different; while there should be ample cause for watching a potentially epic World Series, I am stuck on the Indians.

Unfortunately, the gut-punch from the masterful choke in the 2007 League Championship never fully heals. I desperately want to forget, just as I'd like all memories of this disastrous season washed clean.

But I won't get that, not when Charley Manuel has the Phillies in a second straight World Series, not when the two Cy Youngs produced by the Indians, CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee, face each other in Game One, and certainly not when another on-the-cheap managerial hire leaves fans angrily scratching their heads again.

Sabathia just won ALCS MVP honors; in 2007, he couldn't find the strike zone with anything but meatballs the Red Sox were ready to pummel. The Indians left Cliff Lee off the playoff roster before he went onto his magic 22-3 performance in 2008. He pitched just as well this year, but for another spit-and-duct tape Indians team of super-utility players, injured players ready for the scrap heap (see Hafner, Travis) and headcases (see Carmona, Fausto).

First, they take a page from the Randy Lerner playbook and pick a coach nobody wanted aside from the equally inept Houston Astros. I want to give Manny Acta the benefit of the doubt, to overlook that atrocious record with the Washington Nationals, but my gut rumbles with the same uneasiness I had when the Browns hired Mangini. Hearing him talk about Travis Hafner coming back from injuries ... well, I don't know any Indians fan who think the damaged slugger will do more than hit the occasion single between rehab spells until his contract lapses and he retires.

Baseball people rave about Acta's preparations, but let's face it - so long as the Dolans own the Indians, Cleveland won't be a desirable stop for a manager. If they had fired Mike Hargrove in 1997 like John Hart wanted, there would have been no shortage of candidates. Dick Jacobs looks so much better all the time.

Ten years later, Larry Dolan's line about a string of championships couldn't feel more ridiculous. Profits taking precedent over playoffs (I know the Dolans claimed losses of $16 million this year, but team ownership is generally a break-even proposition at best outside of NYC). Why would Don Mattingly come here knowing Joe Torre might retire after 2010? Why would Bobby Valentine commit when he had an ESPN gig waiting him?

Every fan wants to think the best coaches want to turn their teams around, but the Dolans have given no inclination they will support it with resources. This team's future is so muddled that the likely Opening Day starter could be a guy who hasn't pitched in two years. Otherwise, pick a name out of a hat.

Pitchers and catchers don't report until February, but the path of baseball in Cleveland already feels too bleak.

Catching Up Vol. 1: The Columbus Half

[Time to catch up on blogging after two relentlessly crazy weeks. As Elton John once quipped after coming onstage 45 minutes at a concert my parents attended, "Sorry for the delay. I'll make it up to you."]


Forget the shivers and cold legs; runners love it anytime a race starts at dawn with a temperature barely above freezing. Once packed into the staging area, it warmed considerably. With a barely audible start gun, I bid good luck to Jason Main, who I knew would disappear from sight before we ran a quarter-mile, and finally got to work on a promise I made to myself not long after I started running three years ago.

Finally, the October Sunday arrived, and I was charging down Broad Street with 12,000 other runners, shedding clothing and tossing my Team Zissou ski hat when it became impossibly hot after the first mile.

Of the six I've run, this was the friendliest half-marathon I ran. Getting out of the Main's van at the starting line, a woman ran up and asked if I was from Tennessee because I wore my Murfreesboro Half Marathon shirt. It turned out she was the race director. On the course, somewhere deep in Bexley, I got into a brief conversation with a couple from Knoxville, and that was just one of many. People were chatty that morning, enhancing the neighborhood feel of the race, which zigzagged through Bexley, Olde Town East, German Village, the Brewery District and most of Downtown's highlights.

My body betrayed me around Schiller Park - folks, regularity is overrated on race morning.

And note to the guy playing TLC's Waterfalls on acoustic guitar -Never disrespect a runner at Mile 11. We might lack the full marathon inclination, but you like a pie-eating contest champion. Don't call someone "the day's first androgynous runner when bundling up for the cold race start made their gender a question to you. And don't expect respect in return when you ask a chafed man with throbbing calf muscles.

Pain shepherded me through the final paces, when stopping felt so right. It got so bad I missed that Columbus finally tore down the awful pedestrian bridge from the derelict City Center Mall. Even on a Sunday after devastating Ohio State loss (you can't rationalize that Purdue victory in any way), give Columbus its due; its residents poured out onto the streets and made the race the welcoming event the city needs, not the black marks it receives for drunken fans harassing those from visiting teams.

Aside from the Marine Corps band playing in front of the Capitol building's William McKinley statue, I hardly noticed anything at all. That only lasted until the final turn came into view; full marathoners must try hard to ignore that - the turn happens at Mile 13, when 1/2-Marathoners have just a few hundred yards to finish. Thanks to the bathroom stop, I had no chance to set a personal best, but 2:26:45 beat my 2009 Country Music mark by a cool nine seconds.

I couldn't find Jason and his family at the crowded finish, so rather than stand still and cramp up, I walked all the way back to my buddy Mike's house in Victorian Village. So I tacked on another 1.5 miles to the half-marathon, which was surprisingly fun; the full marathoners pass Mile 25 on that stretch of Neil Avenue, so I got to see some especially fast runners cruising to the finish.

I limped and tossed my way into Cap City Diner for brunch and celebration of a new law - the Ohio Legislature finally broke down the last of the blue laws, allowing restaurants to serve at 11 a.m. That made the bloody Mary taste that much better. Although my legs tried not to cooperate, I made numerous visits around the city, catching up with my core people in Columbus, grabbing a beer at Bodega (God, I need a bar in Nashville like it) and enjoying a slow pace in the big city for one.

That Sunday was one of the last pretty falls days to hit Central Ohio. Between clumps of pinkish red leaves fanned on the pavement, I saw one large ant sluggishly navigating the cracks. At dusk, he had little time to reform before the elements claimed. Why focus on something so insignificant, a single insect racing against the fading season? On a different scale, I just saw another anonymous runner pursuing a finish line, concentrating only on his journey, not the rest of the field.

A Southern Serving of Literature

Given the disparity in their subject matters – the brutalized poor in the Deep South and the need to reinvestment in space exploration – it was a surprise to hear Rick Bragg and Buzz Aldrin make the same point.

But the chronicler of the South’s forgotten people and the second man to step on the Moon both managed to note that America might not be in the this financial quandary if it’s only remaining industries weren’t focused on making money from nothing.

It was interesting to hear such different men criticize our system for the same failing. But at the Southern Festival of Books, interesting is the order of the weekend.

While a fair number of people ventured outside to Legislative Plaza on this gloomy October Saturday (fall presented itself in a major way), the speakers validated this literary gathering, the one non-musical event in Nashville I managed to miss the past two Octobers.

While Aldrin meandered and struggled with a few non-sequitirs, he hit numerous high points, including a jab at people who point out their BlackBerry or iPhone (Aldrin owns both) has more computing power than the Apollo spacecraft guidance system. “I get a little resentful about that. But I can throw this BlackBerry in the air and it’s going to crash,” he remarked. He also delved into his need to file an expense report for a rental car after Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific.

When not working on Magnificent Desolation, his latest autobiography, Aldrin stays busy promoting space exploration these days. His urging toward Mars went beyond simply a visit and a return; he draw parallels to the Pilgrims, saying colonization should be a goal. “That is a valuable opportunity for someone who just won a Nobel Peace Prize,” Aldrin concluded.

While Aldrin aimed for the stars, Bragg stayed firmly tethered to Southern soil (like Aldrin, he was promoting a new book, The Most They Ever Had, chronicling the plight of cotton mill workers and their dying industry. “These people don’t have much of a champion anymore," Bragg said.

He took turns praising how far Southerners can stretch a can of potted meat, excoriating people a generation or two removed from the working people who turn their back on them, and explaining why his works don’t fit with Hollywood’s slanted perceptions of the South. “Do you know what Hollywood does to stories? They would have my mama in a leather skirt and a beehive hairdo, speaking in a Savannah accent,” he said.

Finally some light shed on the Vultures

With only a handful of veiled performances to their name, Them Crooked Vultures came to Nashville's War Memorial on Oct. 5 with high yet unanswerable expectations.

There was little to divine from the crowd - with no knowledge of the music to come,
only age divided up the audience, with its mix of 70's (the Zeppelin fans), 90's (Foo Fighter frontman Grohl united with his drumkit) and Double Aughts (Queens of the Stone Age).

Aside from a few camera phone shots and mumbled song names, they had given up little about themselves. But the members needed no introduction ... well, rhythm guitarist Alain Johannes did.

The main trio got an uproarious when singer/guitarist Josh Homme introduced drummer Dave Grohl and bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones. The other two got their share of cheers, but even Homme seemed shocked at the decibels added for the Led Zeppelin bass player. All he got out was, "I know," as he still felt surprised to share the stage with Jones.

I can't say if this band is merely a chance for Homme to play with his dream lineup, but he put on such an electric show with Jones and Grohl that it didn't matter.

"I think this is our tenth show together. No one knows the music so everyone has to listen. It's a little old school," Homme admitted near the end. Going in, nobody knew what to expect during the first show on the supergroup's brief North American jaunt.

Minus headphones, people might remember this as the concert where deafness officially set in. For those of us in earplugs, the trio delivered a slab of rock heavier than almost anyone.

Now, the music cannot escape comparisons to Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf, upon which Grohl played drums. Homme's clean vocal style gives the music a precision that most metal acts lack; Homme actually has range and doesn't resort to growling and guttural lows. But it also becomes an unbreakable link to his main band.

Luckily, the musicianship rose above their past accomplishments. Jones broke in with some nice harmonies and led a chorus or two. Homme's vocal drew eerily close to Layne Staley of Alice in Chains on a few tracks.

The music grooved as nothing from the Queens or the Foo Fighters could, the splashes of piano and keyboard orchestrated by Jones prevented any lapse into metal monotony. Back to the seat he occupied in Nirvana, Grohl looked wholly content when bashing it out as he played with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band.

On the catchy Scumbag Blues - one of the few audible song titles - Homme hit his high range in voice and guitar, with squealing notes at times resembling the late "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott from Pantera.

The keyboards were a little more difficult; Jones broke out a keytar on one of Homme's "love songs," and then mercifully traded it back for his bass. But he showed his adept skill on piano, gradually dialing down a 60's pop melody into brutality on par with No Quarter. One later effort saw Jones jump away from the bass in time to give one brutal song a slightly bittersweet piano coda a la Faith No More on Epic.

Them Crooked Vultures closed with a jam that took some proggy twists, where the three principals seemed to challenge each other technically, pushing the tempos to stranger heights while rattling the floorboards. Grohl grew extra arms, Homme switched from speed metal to skillful blues without a hitch, and Jones was the rock, never breaking a sweat. Rarely will any musician weave through such intricate basslines so effortlessly.

The shredding jam concluded in a few grungy chords, and they departed without an encore, the shortcoming of many a band with one album to their credit (one unreleased album, in the Vultures' case).

In one show, Jones, Grohl and Homme firmly established Them Crooked Vultures as their own animal. Recognizable songs were a luxury, but in the age of instant media, the supergroup preserved its air of mystery, if only for one show.

Bright Sky, Dead Headphones: Surviving the 2009 Middle Half

Important confession – I barely trained. Calling what I've done in the past six weeks does a disservice to hard-working runners everywhere.

Aside from a handful of 6-8 miles runs back in July and early August, regular long runs disappeared around the same time Grandma passed away. My running gear went to Montana, but the Tennessee altitude did not; when I ran there, I ran poorly, and never for more than a few minutes, much less miles. In eight days, my lungs could not adapt to these new heights.

The unshakable tired state I have lived in ever since taking the second job I doubted the 8 ragged miles I ran in Brentwood last week would do much to build my endurance again. I had bleak expectations for the Middle Half.

But muscle memory runs deeper than I ever imagined. Knowing the course in Murfreesboro probably helped.

What didn’t were problems that began between Mile 1 and 2. As I propelled along to Don’t Let Me Down by ELO (seriously, you can’t just walk to that song), the right earphone began crackling and died within, cutting out completely during Badlands. I ran last year’s Middle Half without any musical accompaniment, so I expected to survive this setback.

Broken headphones quickly became a minor quibble. The worse diversion was the unexpected deviation from certain morning routines took during this year’s Middle Half. Around Mile 3, part of my body felt wrong. Around Mile 6, I accepted the inevitable, but I held on until Mile 7, when necessity finally found a short line. Give me back the 15 minutes loss by standing in line, and I could have challenged last year’s time. At 2 hours 37 minutes, I challenged no one but myself. But through 10 miles I barely stopped, aside for the aforementioned necessity.

At Mile 10, I allowed myself a break, which evolved into a mistake. Walking for 100 feet unraveled the pace I resumed for the past three miles, and I struggled for the last three. Running wherever I could, and stopping with more frequency once inner thigh cramps forced me into abrupt stretching breaks after Mile 11.

I had no last minute burst of runners’ fury to spirit me across the finish line. I took my finisher’s medal, a plate of bananas, orange slices and power bars, then let my muscles stiffen during the 40-minute triumphant ride home.

I had conquered this flat course again, running anonymously aside from the shout-out my financial adviser offered gave as he tore into Mile 4. Anonymity often helps with big races – there’s no one to impress, and more than enough people cheering for all passersby.

I get redemption in two weeks. The Columbus Half Marathon, which once seemed so implausible a goal, awaits me on Sunday the 17^th. In 2006, I fretted over moving from 5Ks to 5 milers. Now, the signature race I wanted to run for the past two years finally crawls close on the calendar.

If I don’t get it there, I have less than six weeks from Columbus to December, when the St. Jude Marathon spills into the streets of Memphis. Like Murfreesboro, both downtown Columbus and Memphis are relatively flat, so those half-marathon will compare favorably.

With half marathons, the chance at besting an old time or fixing a flawed training program never sits too far away.

More importantly, I have chance to reschedule my bodily functions to keep them from knocking me off pace.