Radio Dick – Memorial Day Weekend Edition
The other two Dicks are out carousing and eating meat (except for Brian, who’s probably grilling some protein-infused soy extract product due to his vegetarianism). I’m stuck here at Citizen Dick central campus after a really strange day. It’s Memorial Day Weekend, so I normally use this three-day vacation to catch up on all sorts of things for the office and try to hit a cookout or two. Mainly I put my feet up and relax as much as possible, but today I had to attempt to clean up a legal mess. I have to confess, for the last few weeks I’ve been a fugitive on the lam. On the way to Blitzen Trapper in Detroit few months ago, you may recall us mentioning that I got a nasty speeding ticket from Ohio’s finest along the way….
Long story semi-short, I got pulled over earlier this week for going 24 in a 20 and just as I was about to be let off with a warning, the little red sensor light must have beeped in Johnny-Q’s database because the great state of Ohio had suspended my license three weeks ago for never paying the ticket. Luckily, I had friends in the right places and I was given one week to take care of this situation to avoid being hauled off to jail for driving under a suspended license.
To make matters worse, I actually DID pay the ticket long ago, via personal check. See, the fine folks at the Ottawa County municipal building must not understand it’s now 2009. Nowhere on the ticket did it tell me, “We don’t take personal checks, only money order or cash.” I am well aware that this may be the norm in other places, but Ottawa County never sent a single notification to me that the check wouldn’t work. I know the bastards saw the check. Someone in that office had to open the mail, see the check, and then throw it away. My phone number is on the check. Why no calls? Why didn’t I get a letter telling me they were going to jack up my Tuesday morning run-in with the law? When I finally realized what a mess I was in, I contacted Ottawa County and they informed me that they didn’t take cards over the phone, either. Somehow I was going to have to make it to that place, pay the fine, and make it back to the BMV with a signed letter. I could do it all via snail-mail, they politely told me, but that could take up to a week or two to process. Screw that.
On Thursday of this week, I actually made it all the way out to Ottawa County and arrived at 4:22, eight minutes before they closed. Unfortunately, they WERE closed….eight minutes early. I even saw four portly ladies sitting at desks chattering away through the big glass window. I knocked, they looked up, and then looked right back down. I’m not certain, but if I would have had a crowbar, I would have jarred the doors open and walked right in….
So instead of being able to kick back and enjoy my normal Memorial Day Weekend, I’ve had to spend time driving to the farthest reaches of Northern Ohio and back again to deal with incompetent, lazy, and archaic court systems. Somewhere in there I picked up some Chick-Fil-A, watched a movie, and wrote this post. Screw the man. On a brighter note, however, I had a lot of time in the car and a whole bunch of freshly downloaded music. The May 26th and June 2nd releases are right upon us, and I used my downtime in the car to listen to some tracks that were dropped into my email this week, along with some favorites from the last couple of years that I can’t take off of my regular rotation. I was driving slow to make sure I didn’t get arrested, but if you could have managed hovering around 55 MPH and tuned your FM transmitter to 90.7, you would have heard a pretty good playlist, including a new Thunderheist remix, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Oneida, and Nurses, to name a few. Included is just a portion of my playlist. We’re a touch behind on our listening pile after all of the good stuff released over the last two weeks and I did a lot of god damn driving today. Look for full-on reviews for most of this new stuff soon.
++ John Vanderslice – “Forest Knolls”
Sunset Rubdown – “Idiot Heart”
Thunderheist – “Nothing 2 Step 2″ (Idiotproof Remix)
++ The Wooden Birds – “Sugar”
Nurses – “Caterpillar Playground”
Heartless Bastards – “Swamp Song”
++ Deparment of Eagles – “Waves of Rye”
Black Moth Super Rainbow – “Born on a Day the Sun Didn’t Rise”
Pretty and Nice – “Tora Tora Tora”
++ Animal Collective – “Fireworks”
Jeff Mangum – “Oh Comely” (Live at Aquarius Records)
++ Mika Miko – “Turkey Sandwich”
++ Dan Auerbach – “Trouble Weighs a Ton”
Cotton Jones – “Blood Red Sentimental Blues”
Art Brut – “Alcoholics Unanimous”
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