Slates
Got a couple of responses from the recent missing-dog column. Don Walker e-mailed to say he’d found the missing Pomeranian a few weeks ago. “They tried to give me a reward,” Walker wrote, “but I was just thankful that my 6 a.m. call did make a difference and no one beat the crap out of me for disturbing them.” And I got an e-mail from a woman announcing that her Pepe, a 5-pound Chihuahua, is missing. “Pepe and my son are inseparable, and I would rather lose a limb than to be without him,” she wrote. She adds, “He has had many molars removed. He also suffers seizures and needs med. and frequent vet visits.” (We assume she is referring to Pepe here, not her son.) “Big” reward offered. Call 891-9089, 828-2052 or 321-3374.
Boy, that David Byrne fellow is one pretentious son-of-a-gun. He comes to town in his fancy caravan of buses and trucks, walks out on the Laxson Auditorium stage and starts making fun of us locals for driving “muscle cars.” “I saw a lot of Camaros,” he tells us with a trace of contempt in his voice. (At this point, I feel a bit conspicuous in my “Hot August Nights” T-shirt, and I begin to think of the Dale Earnhardt No. 3 tribute sticker I have in the back window of my Z 28. And I ask myself: Am I right? Am I wrong? My God, what have I done?) And then, as if to rub our collective lack of sophistication in our faces, Byrne sings Italian waltzes and arias and other wimpy crap in this weird crooner voice. He didn’t play any of the good stuff from the old days, even though I kept yelling suggestions like, “Uncle Lijiah,” “Hot and Nasty” and “When Electricity Came to Arkansas.” Say what you want about this new Byrne, I miss the days when he was playing guitar behind Jim “Dandy” Mangrum and the rest of the boys in Black Oak Arkansas. After seeing how far he’s traveled musically from his 1970s Southern country-rock roots, I seriously doubt that band will ever get back together. At least not with Byrne. How sad.
Just for the record, I know David Byrne never played with Black Oak Arkansas. That was a joke. Every hipster from the late 1970s knows Byrne was one of the founding members of Flock of Seagulls.