It's official. I can deny it no longer. I am addicted to This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow.

And on the third day Jesus rose from the dead, and the villagers came with their pitchforks and torches to run a stake through his evil zombie heart. But lo, before they arrived he rolled the rock back from his tomb as ascended into heaven, but not before he turned back to see his shadow, assuring us of another six weeks of winter.

It's been a long night and I'm tired as hell, but I must say this before I pass out: I love Bradford K. Ricks. He is a dancin fool, and thanks to him I executed the following syncronized moves: the jump, the classic chop, and the runaround. It's great movin and shakin with someone willing to submit themselves to that. Here's to many more, BK. (Brad, by the way, will soon be spending two weeks in the town Uncertain, Texas, which has no phones and is on a bayou.)

Update on the past couple days:

Today-
Miss class because of phone call. Tried to register for class (tomorrow my enrollement window closes) but find I have a hold on my record caused by $23 in library fines for a lost book. I went to go pay it with my credit card and found the one place in the world that does not accept Visa. I have no cash, so I'm clueless on how the hell I'm going to register for classes. Intended to do work but spend 4 hours doing nothing productive. "Update blog" added to list of things I'm doing to procrastinate. I have also had two beers and am opening a third, while staring at a Word document with nothing written in it. Either a sign of alcoholism or four years of college catching up with me. You decide.

Monday-
While walking home from Contemporary Theater (I went to contemp!) I see a mother ducking with about seven tiny little ducklings walking along the side of the theater building. Incredibly cute! I walk away and as I glance over my shoulder to see the ducks, mama duck starts leading her family across the 5 lane South Main Street during one of it's busier days. Cue heart to leap into throat! I jump into a lane of oncoming traffic and hold my hand out to stop the cars, and then do the same thing with the other lane of traffic. I was a wildlife crossing guard, and it made my day. This was followed by a trip to Klines on my bike with Andrea and Andrea (AN-dree-ah and on-DRAY-ah) for mint oreo, a photo shoot with the Breeze, dinner with Martha, Matthew Sheppard's mother with Diane, a great email from Mel, and a movie with Andrea.

Sunday-
Bill Howard's 22nd birthday! I woke up to a phone call from Bill, telling me that he just found out he was getting evicted. The landlord had posted a note on the backdoor that they never use, and it said they had 5 days to leave and was posted there 5 days ago. Uh oh! So, concluded Bill, he would not be able to go see Keller Williams with Andrea and I. Bullshit! we said! I bought you that ticket for your birthday, asshole, and you're going! No way in hell is your birthday going to be a negative experience! End it with a bang! So Andrea and I borrowed Andrew's truck, helped him move his stuff to his mother's house, and sped to Alexandria where we were only 45 minutes late and caught the tail end of his first set. I saw the setlist later and I was very sad to have missed One Hit Wonder, Here Comes the Sun, and Boob Job, but we did manage to enjoy Novelty Song, Freeker by the Speeker, and a kickass Breathe with percussion loop.

Saturday-
Very busy with Phi Mu Alpha stuff that included a visit from brothers from Hampton, Shennandoah, and Howard, as well as a bunch of chapter alumni. Kick ass party that night where one of the brothers from Hampton kept telling everyone that I was the "coolest nigga" he'd ever met. He was quite the ego booster. I had to stay sober to drive people home, but everyone else got HAMMERED, including one Bill Howard, who later had to wake up with a hangover to some bad news...

Friday.
Carbon Leaf.


And now, off to some more procrastinating...

Carbon Leaf tonight was amazing, which should come as no surprise. Bill and I left Harrisonburg around 4:30, since earlier in the week we planned to hang out at the Charlottesville Mall and catch the CountryMonkee.org fan gathering beforehand and down a couple cold ones with some fellow devotees. Unfortunately, the cold and rain kept us bundled up and indoors during our downtime, and I couldn't find any info about the CM.org meetup before we left. We poked around some of the drinking and dining establishments along the Mall looking for some fellow fans, but alas, our cold ones were downed without their merry company. It wasn't until after I got home that I found out the meeting was arranged last minute for the Corner. Hopefully everyone who went had a good time without us :)

We arrived at Starr Hill right as the doors were opening, and were soon inside and warm, and not long after we met up with Caitie, Steve, Diane and Dan. We found a dark corner to sit and relax while we discussed the merits of the new Starr Hill Lager in comparison to the old favorite, the Amber Ale. (The Amber Ale was decidedly superior). I dropped by the merch table to introduce myself to Stacey and offer my assistance, but business was slow so I left her to it. I located TJ's rig, but couldn't seem to find TJ. It didn't help that I had never met him before and didn't know what he looked like. Apparently he was wearing a long sleeve gray t-shirt, but too many people matched that description and I never found him.

Jump Little Children came on and played a really good set. I had never heard them before, and I definitely liked what I heard. After they finished we met up with some more cool peeps and worked our way towards the stage. We ended up on the far right side about ten people deep from the stage and right next to the speakers, so by the end of the night my right ear was kinda hating me. The lights went down, the crowd roared, and the band took the stage! I was pleasantly surprised to find Terry closest to me on stage, since the last time I saw them in Harrisonburg I was on the far left and Terry was the closest then, too. I love watching Terry play, because that guy definitely has a funky soul. The band starts off with a jam into American Tale, which is probably my favorite song off of Ether, and it was a very energized rendition- a great way to start the show! They went into Life Less Ordinary, a newer song, and the first time I’ve heard it live. It was excellent. Barry announces the new CD, and while he’s holding it up to show the audience what a CD looks like, Terry knocks it out of his hand and into the crowd. Yeah freebies! Next came Wanderin’ Around, which had Carter’s first jam of the night. Then Shine, one of my all-time favorites, followed by a rocking …For Your Violin. Barry dedicated Torn to Tattered to all the seniors, which was probably the only time in the night I felt a little sad. During Torn Jordan kicked off a jam with a smooth double bass solo, and unless my memory fails me, it was the first time I’ve seen Jordan really jam out. Then On Any Given Day, followed by Seven Brides for Seven Sinners (I like this song more and more the more I hear it), and The Boxer. The audience got really fired up when they heard the Mari Mac intro, and the band really smoked on this crowd favorite. I don’t know if it I was just really energized and excited, but of the six or so times I’ve seen this song performed, I would have to say this was the fastest Mari Mac I’ve ever seen. After Mari Mac Barry did a birthday shout out, and soon several members in the audience were announcing that today was their birthday, including Caitie, who I know for a FACT was born a little more than a week after me in September. Oh well, uhh, Happy Birthday, Cait. They sang a fantastic Gloryland for the birthday folk, and then went on to play Raise the Roof, during which Carter got down on ground and played this really spacey sounding jam. It’s hard to describe, but it gave the song a very different texture than what I’m used to hearing, and I’ll have to hear it again before I decide how I feel about it. After that they went into Desperation Song, and then surprised me with Galaway Girl, a song I had never heard before. I just put a couple ???’s on the little scrap of paper I was jotting the set list on and continued dancing. Then came Sloop John B, on of my least favorite Beach Boys songs, followed by the inevitable Home. I don’t remember what it was in particular about Home tonight, but I remember really liking it and feeling very satisfied at the end. Unfortunately, my bladder was also feeling very full and I had to give up my spot near the stage. While I was taking care of that I missed the beginning of What About Everything, another new song. I stationed myself near the merch table to help Stacey with the post-show merchandise rush, and watched the Encore from there, which consisted of Reunion Monticello, Paloma, (played in honor of Paloma’s first public performance at Starr Hill last September) and Crazy Train. It was the third time Carbon Leaf has sold out Starr Hill, and I’m sure it won’t be their last. And as if the night could get any better, after helping Stacey sell, oh, like maybe three or four CD's tops, she gave me a free copy of Five Alive! That was seriously awesome and unexpected. I was so pumped after the show that when I came down the stairs to leave and saw Bill hanging out by himself outside, I started funky dancin all over tha streets to whatever J5 tune they was playin, much to the enjoyment of Bill and I and perhaps some other folks who got to see it.

The set list was a good mix of old songs, new songs, and even newer songs. I definitely feel that they’ve been good at using the songs in their repertoire to keep the shows varied and fun. Thanks to everyone who was there jamming out with me, it was a blast!

Check out what Steve and Dan have to say!

At the moment, I am currently in favor of Howard Dean for President in 2004.

100 Things lists: the cool thing to do. After reading Steve, Dan, and Tyler's list, I figured I might as well fall into line with the rank and file and be the born follower that I am.


1. I was born August 23rd, 1981, in Suffern, NY.
2. I am left handed.
3. I subscribe to the “disappearing twin” theory of left handedness, but most normal people who haven’t read a lot of embryonic development theory probably have no idea what that means.
4. My father has an identical twin brother.
5. I had a twin sister, named Leah Antoinette, who was born stillborn.
6. I had a younger brother named Kenny who died of cancer a couple days after his first birthday.
7. I felt like my mother was overprotective as I grew up, but I understood why.
8. Already, by number 7, my list has gotten damn serious. I will try to keep it light.
9. All of my boxers have a Looney Tunes character on them. I think I may have one pair without Looney Tunes, but that’s the pair I stole from my brother.
10. I just went and checked, and the pair I stole from my brother had Taz on it.
11. I’m really proud of my life accomplishments, but try to stay humble.
12. Sometimes I’m not humble, though.
13. I like people who are funny but can share the spotlight, and I try to be one of these people. I hate it when people Bogart the spotlight.
14. I spent all of this past summer heartbroken and isolated from a lot of human contact.
15. Coincidentally, I also spent a large portion of the summer stoned.
16. The summer after freshman year I worked and lived in London.
17. The summer after sophomore year I worked and lived in New Mexico.
18. I have no idea what I’m doing this summer and think about it a lot.
19. I love flying on airplanes alone. I’ve done this many times.
20. For two years I was the President of my music fraternity.
21. I think George W. Bush is the worst President this country has ever seen, and I hope the history books reflect that.
22. I once saw a truck run over and kill a mallard duck as it crossed the road while the truck was at a stoplight and the image is still ingrained in my head and still makes me sad.
23. Three guys jumped my friend Nate and me in September, and they busted my face up something awful.
24. Michael Moore is a damn fine American.
25. So are the Dixie Chicks, for that matter.
26. My first kiss was in tenth grade with my first girlfriend, which was also in tenth grade.
27. Out of my first five girlfriends, four of them were three years older than me. Too much for one person, you ask? It’s true. (Sorry, I made that intentionally confusing)
28. I lived with Bill Howard my sophomore year in Ashby Hall, and our suitemates were both named Jose. Our room was the messiest room I ever lived in. We had a third roommate for about three weeks. It was a mouse.
29. I have two cats, Zia and Kara, and I love them very very much.
30. Zia is named after the red Anasazi Indian symbol for the sun that is on the New Mexico flag.
31. Kara is named after the Sanskrit word “divaakara”, meaning “sunbeam”.
32. Their mother was named Sunshine and sister was named Little Ray (of Sunshine). The three were of the same litter and lived in the feral colony behind my house.
33. My mother caught Zia and Kara but could never catch Ray. Ray went on to have four kittens, and my family caught and kept two of them, Daedalus and Sunny. My aunt has the other two, and I forget their names.
34. All the aforementioned cats are orange.
35. I like to talk about my cats.
36. When I was about 12 years old, my parents brought me into their room. They were sitting on the bed looking very solemn and serious. They told me that they were both going to get second jobs and send me off to military school and my two younger brothers to a boarding school. They waited for my reaction. Then they burst out laughing. Then I burst out laughing.
37. I was a really smart kid growing up, but I think everyone else caught up.
38. Public schooling was one of the worst experiences of my life. I refused to respect teachers who were incompetent, and I had quite a few.
39. I supplement the food I buy with food from dumpsters.
40. I have seen many a grown man naked.
41. When given the option, I prefer to be naked.
42. When given the option, I prefer to sleep in the woods without a tent.
43. I strongly believe that bathing on a daily basis is a waste of water.
44. When I was little I threw a ball at my dad’s head because I got mad at him for turning off the kitchen light while I was still in the kitchen. I still feel horrible and apologized when I was 16, but he didn’t remember.
45. I am a vegetarian.
46. My dentist told me in high school that my wisdom teeth that were coming in could fit in my mouth. Five years later, my teeth that were once perfectly straight are starting to get crowded.
47. I own a hookah, and feel immediate kinship with anyone else who owns and respects a hookah.
48. I hate it when people automatically assume the hookah is drug paraphernalia, although I understand why they would.
49. I’m a feminist, environmentalist, activist, and a couple other -ists that I can’t think of right now.
50. I am a mountains person.
51. Although I couldn’t tell you what sort of job I want when I get out of college, I can tell you that I do, at some point in my life, want to be a father.
52. Although this is my fourth year of college, I still have a couple more years (1.5-2) left.
53. I’ve recently been questioning how important graduation is to me.
54. I’ve also been thinking about how difficult it would be to go back to school and finish a degree after taking time off, too.
55. I’m addicted to live music.
56. For a brief period in my life I was addicted to nicotine.
57. I dislike most JMU hippies. For the most part the ones I’ve interacted with are unintelligent and use too many drugs.
58. I love changing the appearance of my hair, although right now I am content with a fro. Other hair styles have included shaved, dreaded, Mohawk, Justin Timberlake, blonde, red, brown, and whatever color my hair is now.
59. I hate it when people I don’t know come up to me and ask where they can get pot. I don’t fucking know.
60. I don’t like having class outside when there’s nice weather. It’s uncomfortable to take notes and I can never hear the teacher. If you really want to be outside, skip class.
61. I won a poetry contest in third grade with a poem about reading. I was then commissioned by the third grade teachers to write three poems about the environment to be read in unison by the entire third grade at a school assembly about recycling.
62. When I was younger I was constantly reading. I would read while eating breakfast, on the bus to school, during lunch, during recess, during free time, during the bus ride home, and all afternoon. I found reading much more interesting than homework, and I still do.
63. When I was in 6th grade my mother got rid of cable TV, effectively making the TV useless except for movies. For the most part, I was raised without television, and my younger brothers were definitely raised without TV. I was pissed at the time, but now I’m thankful. I’m a more interesting person as a result. (For the record, the ability to quote the Simpsons does not make you an interesting person)
64. My senior year of high school my English class had to read a book I had read in sixth grade.
65. My senior year English teacher decided to fail me and not let me graduate. It’s a long story. The combined powers of my myself, my parents, my guidance counselor, and my principal finally convinced her to pass me to let me graduate. It was a personal vendetta for a really petty offense, in my opinion.
66. I was the drum major of my high school marching band for two years.
67. I am an Eagle Scout.
68. I was kicked out of the National Honors Society in high school the semester before I graduated for having an 89.43 average. The minimum average to stay in was 89.5.
69. I still put National Honors Society on my resume, however, because I still have my induction certificate. I just say “Inducted into the NHS in 1997.” That’s not a lie, so it’s okay.
70. War rhetoric pisses me off to no end.
71. I once stepped on a rattlesnake and would have gotten bitten if the old saying “White men can’t jump” were true.
72. I used to be a very serious cyclist, and had an amazing bike that I would race in 25-50 mile tours in high school. The bike was stolen freshman year and I haven’t raced since.
73. I wrote an essay for my college applications about Frisbee as a metaphor for my high school experience and modified it to fit whatever question I was answering.
74. I know a LOT about Charlie Chaplin. I mean, a LOT. I have a large collection of his work and have read countless books about him. Almost every paper I wrote my senior year of high school involved Charlie Chaplin in some way.
75. One of my ambitions was to open an independent movie theater in a big city that only showed silent comedies and had a piano player in the theater play the music, just like in the old days.
76. I’ve just decided that I really like the person I was in high school, and really like the person I’ve become. I think if I could go back in a time machine the two of us would get along smashingly.
77. When I was about 7 or 8 I decided that when I turned 14 I would grow a moustache. To a 7 or 8 year old, 14 is damn near grown up (you’ve been a teenager for two whole years!). Little did I know I wouldn’t be able to grow any substantial facial hair until I was about 20 and that moustaches are lame unless you’re 40 or older.
78. I was just about to tell a really cool story about a friend from home, but then I realized if that friend somehow ever read it she’d kill me and probably stop being my friend, so I decided not to. THAT’S how good a story it was.
79. I did a magic show for my third grade talent show with my friend Matt, and we got in a little fight onstage. The big finale was when I ran a needle through a balloon without popping it.
80. Number of plays/musicals I did in high school: 11.
81. Number of plays/musicals I’ve done in college: 1, and it was for a class.
82. I’ve always considered the word “weird” to be an insult, and strongly dislike it when people call me that.
83. I hated the movie “Donnie Darko”. And recently a lot of people have called me “weird” and have expected me to take it as a compliment. I blame this crappy movie.
84. The word “dork,” on the other hand, has been reclaimed and can be used as a compliment.
85. Steve, Bill, and I often harken back to the good ol’ days of sophomore year. Those were good days, they were.
86. No offense to Jason, Bill, Matt, Austin, Zia, Kara, or Eli, but Andrea Winkler is probably the best roommate I’ve ever had.
87. I feel like my skills as a storyteller have gone downhill over the past couple years.
88. I have dug many a shitter in my time. The deepest was about 5 and a half feet deep and took a week for me and Felicity to dig.
89. I don’t take toilet paper with me when I go camping or hiking. I can recommend some great substitutes if you’re interested.
90. I am the oldest child in my family. I am older than all of my cousins. You’d think I’d get the good presents from the grandparents and great-grandparents as a result. You’d be wrong.
91. There are very few Woodhouse women. My grandfather grew up with three brothers, and had four boys himself. Of those four sons, they had a combined total of eleven children, with only two girls (counting my twin sister). Needless to say, I played a lot of baseball and touch football at family gatherings (although we’ve also had our fair share of badminton and croquet tournaments).
92. My favorite band is constantly changing. Over the years it has included Guster, Ben Folds Five, Dan Bern, Jamiroquai, Phish, Keller Williams, and Carbon Leaf.
93. To be honest, I don’t want this list to end yet. I can still think of a ton of things to say. Maybe I’ll make it 150 things.
94. I am fairly anti-car and pro-bike/feet/public transportation. It is ironic, then, that I now own a car.
95. My left pinkie finger is all small and deformed because it was crushed when I was three years old by a rock in the Rocky Mountains.
96. I intentionally read books in the dark to strain my eyes so I could wear glasses when I was in the third grade. This was one of the dumbest things I ever did, because I fucked my eyesight something awful and then realized that I looked like a huge dweeb in glasses and refused to wear them for about three years, fucking my eyesight even more.
97. Some people believe that I have this huge crush on Winona Ryder. This is only half true.
98. I have never, to my knowledge, been abducted by aliens. By the way, I decided to stop this at 100 instead of 150. It’s getting late.
99. When my little brother Greg was born, my dad took to me to Friendlys and we both got cone head sundaes. He asked me what I wanted to name my new little brother and I immediately decided “Henry”. That is why his name is Gregory Michael Henry Woodhouse.
100. Oh, that reminds me. I have a pet rooster at home named Henry. When my brother David was in third grade his class did an incubation project and David brought home two of the chicks. We named them Henry and Pot Pie. We’ve had Henry for six years now. Pot Pie, the hen, died last fall and was buried in the backyard.
101. Okay, so my list goes a little past 100. Sue me.
102. It took me two days to finish this list. I started last night and stopped at 41, then picked it up again tonight. That’s it. I’m done.

Saw Dan Bern last night at Starr Hill in Charlottesville. Incredible. One of the coolest shows I've seen since, well, the last live show I saw. Sigh. I heart live music. I've been a huge fan of Dan Bern since sophomore year, so I was really really excited. We got there at 8, since that's when our tickets said doors opened, and found that we were the first ones there. The opening band didn't even go on until maybe 9:30. Before the show started, Andrea wrote a note on a slip of paper that said "Dan, please play Wasteland (one of the two bernstein songs Andrea knows) and Children of the Cold War (Bill's request, since it's his favorite song) We love you! Andrea, Doug, Jenni, and Bill" I took the note to the room where the band was warming up/hanging out, and slipped it under the door and ran away. Then I went to the soundboard to see if anyone was recording that night, and lo, an older yet enthusiastic fella named Alan was in fact patched into the soundboard, and gave me his card with his address and phone number, since he didn't have a computer with Internet to send me email or check out my trading list. This excited me to no end. We sat sipping our Star Hill microbrews and tolerated the opening act, and waited patiently for Dan and his band, The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy, to come on.

Then they came on.

I was jotting down the setlist, and it went like this: Black Tornado, One Thing Real, Earth Girl, Joe Van Gogh, Without You, Chelsea Hotel, Funeral Junkie??, Tyranny?? (I'm not sure of the names of those last two songs, since I never heard them before and he didn't introduce them) My Country Too, Another Rosita, and then.... I don't know. I stopped writing the setlist at this point, because Dan said something along the lines of, "This is bullshit. You are all too far away from me. Come up closer" and then he and his band unplugged their instruments and the drummer grabbed a hand drum and they came down into the audience, into the center of the room, and jamed out on Jerusalem and Tiger Woods, with everyone crowding around them, singing along. During Jerusalem Jenni and I sat up on the stage, and I played a maracca that was on stage into a microphone. I'm not even going to try to describe how fucking awesome this part of the show was. After that they jumped back up on stage and plugged in, and played Tiger Woods again and some other songs, which, as I remember them in no particular order: Two Hands (Ani cover), Fly Away, One Dance (where he pulled a girl up from the audience and slow danced with her), Marilyn, Superman, Chain Around My Neck, City, ummm, the first track off the new CD that I can't remember the name of (Bye Bye Baby, maybe?), and ended on Rice, where the band jammed out and the each left the stage one at a time, with Dan going first and the lead guitar and keyboards ending it. I was really hoping to hear Graceland or Albuquerque Lullaby, but he played so many of my favorite songs in that first set, I was happy nonetheless. Dan came out for an encore and did Wood Fuckin Racket solo. Sweet.

We couldn't help but notice they didn't play Wasteland or Children of the Cold War.

After the show Dan signed a poster that I tore off the wall, and Bill snapped a picture. We went out to my car, piled in, and as I backed out, BABOOM, I backed over a curb. We all got out to discover that I had totally fucked up my muffler. I pulled some duct tape out of my trunk and Bill and Jenni rigged it up so that it wouldn't drag on the road all the way home. Thanks, kids, I appreciated it. As we were fixing the car, Alan, the guy who taped the show, came out to the parking lot and we talked to him for a while. Turns out he's also from the Empire State, and went to school at New Paltz. We talked about The Last Chance bar, now renamed The Chance, where a lot of good shows come. He was telling us how he was hanging around to offer Dan and the band some pot, but they dissappeared before he could. He also told me he wasn't able to record the accoustic-in-the-audience part of the show, but he still thinks he had enough music for two CDs. We started talking about music, and he started naming all these bands that he thought we'd be into. He went to his car and gave us a ton of CDs, including a live Keller/String Cheese show, and maybe 4 other bands I had never heard of. (Andrea later claims he was giving the shows to HER, since he was handing them to her, but he was looking at me as he talked, so I contend that he was giving them to me, if not the four of us as a unit) We got home at about 2am, and, well, crashed. It was excellent.