Dallas, TX (**********)

Happy Friday to all my friends rolling the grind stone and trimmin' the fat.

I have decided to stop downloading music illegally in order to focus more on supporting some musicians. This leaves me searching for ways to "stream" new releases before I go looking to buy them, and luckily there are many great resources out there to help me stay honest. I have established a few more rules for myself on this topic, such as:

1. I won't give a dime to the "Big Four" record labels and their subsidiaries (if I can help it).
2. I will buy directly from the Artist or Artists' distributor when possible.
3. I will buy from local record shops.

This doesn't mean that I won't support those few, good artists who are on major labels. For them I will try to attend concerts or buy merchandise, because, to my understanding, this money typically goes to the artist, while a vast majority of record profits go to the fat cats. Trying to be a smart consumer, so hopefully these are OK steps in that direction.

Oh boy, all this consumption has left me little room in my pockets for creation, but it's all alright. Feeling pretty good sitting on my stool with my tongue hanging out and my belly crawling out over my belt.

~Back in the world of the practical~
Without a single guitar, Will and I went to the Dallas Museum of Art last night for, what I thought was, free night. The man at the front desk asks for $10. Huh? No, no. Free night, right?
"No, not unless you have student I.D.s."
"But, your website says free night tonight."
The man says no, but offers to let us in for $5.
No I say, "I'm sorry, but we came a long way (we did not come from that far at all). Can I speak to a manager or somethin?"
"I am the manager, now if you can show me where on the website it says that, I will let you in for free."
I floated on my cloud of smugness around the desk and cracked my computer knuckles. Other museum visitors watch in line from behind us with a mixture of annoyance and anticipation.
"See, here it is right heeerrrre" I deflated like a whoopee cushion. Tuesdays are free, not Thursday.
I was embarrassed, but the manager was a cool guy and let us both in for $5.

The museum was great. As usual, I spent most of my brain cells in the European 18th/19th/20th century paintings. For the first time, Will helped me notice that there is one very important attribute to human paintings that make or break it, it's the peoples' eyes in the picture. We found a handful of paintings where the subjects' eyes make them look "zoned out". There must be a reason for this, perhaps the eyes are not focusing on the same point in the image, or the eyes are a different size. I have yet to figure it out, but I plan to. I am rambling, next time you are in a museum maybe you will look for it, and it will bug the hell out of you.

On our exit we saw that we had completely missed the special exhibit, "The Lens of Impressionism". As we were walking into the exhibit a lady stopped us. "You have to purchase additional tickets for this exhibit". No big deal, we were pretty worn out anyways so we were just going to head home. Before we left though, I wanted to do something to try to iron out all the wrinkles. I walked back up to that same manager at the desk and asked to make a $5 donation to the museum. "Thank you sir, but we do not accept donations by credit card. But here, take these for your generosity." and he handed me two tickets for the special exhibit and two "member" passes to the museum. I just could not win! This guy was too strong. So we drank down that special exhibit until our four visual cortices were only small, incongruous dots and lines serving as the artist's representation of the actual. It was Impressive.