Maggie and me with owners of Squashed Grapes, Adam & Josh.
Trey O’Toole, Andrew Hill, Franklin Murphy & Jacob Scesney playing behind us.
1. This past weekend the City threw their annual St. Patrick’s Day parade and I was invited to join Kat Merrick on her Totally Local VC float. The Dan Grimm band played with Jonny accompanying on air guitar. Maggie and I caught up with the crew from Squashed Grapes (see above) who won the Mayor’s Choice award this year. I have to say, I love a parade!
2. I would like to see the sunrise on the East coast someday. Love our West coast sunsets! It will be a nice bookend.
3. Ventura College has a terrific program for both Men’s and Women’s basketball. I love taking in a game whenever I can find the time. Well this year, the women took State on Sunday. Congratulations ladies, you rock!!!
4. All of a sudden I’m seeing Facebook posts, and blogs from women on how “I don’t owe you a smile” or “Stop telling me to smile” or discussing how asking is a form of harassment. In all honesty, I get it. I have felt passive aggressiveness before with a man requesting I smile. You know what actually works? Do something to make me smile. 🙂 If I felt like smiling, I would be!
5. Are guitars considered women? I saw a popular local artist post a picture of about a dozen guitars and his caption was “Hello ladies!!!” Plus doesn’t B.B. King call his “Lucille?” Jerry Garcia had one he called “Rosebud” which coincidentally was the nickname Craig Powers called me (my radio air name was Stephanie Rose).
A lot of people say cars are girls too, but I have a girlfriend who calls her’s Steve.
I use to have one of those voice activated hands-free devices which had a limited vocabulary in a female sounding voice. I called her “Beverly.” My daughter thought I was ridiculous. I call my breasts “the girls” but they don’t have specific names nor do I have a favorite. I haven’t named my car or my guitars to date, but I think I just might have to give it some thought.
6. Sydney recently sent me a text from Oregon which read, “Hey someone said you looked like an owl.”
To which I replied, “Who? Who?”
I thought it was in response to this photo. But sadly, she was just messing around with me. Yeah, Oregon is super slow paced.
7. I’m not normally one to read about psychiatric crap, but there was a blog entitled 12 Most Mind-Blowing Mental Delusions and Syndromes. Some of them referred to people who suffered from hearing voices, there was one where the person believes they are dead or are missing their internal organs. But my favorite was called the Paris Syndrome and I SWEAR TO GOD this is what it said about it:
Paris syndrome is a transient experience that affects tourists to Paris who find that the City of Light does not live up to their expectations. They may experience hallucinations, delusions of persecution, anxiety and other somatic symptoms. Paris syndrome may sound like a joke, but around twenty Japanese tourists a year are thought to be hospitalized with it.
The usual treatment for Paris syndrome is to go home.
Brilliant!
There’s one for Jerusalem as well where people start wearing togas and giving bad sermons. This is fascinating: “Estimates place the number of people who require hospital admission from this syndrome at around 40 per year.”
Again the treatment is to go home.
8. Here’s a Public Service Message to those who still smoke. Please do not throw your butts on the ground or out the window of a car. Dispose of them properly. Otherwise, they go down the gutter and directly to our ocean. That sucks and it’s not alright.
Of course quitting is always encouraged! 😉
9. I sometimes cut off the crust of my sandwich in the interest of shaving off calories and when I do I am reminded of being told bread crust will make your hair curly. I wondered if that was just my weird family so I Googled it. There are a ton of entries on the subject! In fact, not only does Snopes weigh in – at length – on the subject but this is what WikiAnswers has to say: “No, your hair shape is determined by the shape of the hair strand. The only way to change it is by getting a perm of some sort or sometimes as a person gets older their hair will change – or pregnancy. That can do it too.”
What a buzzkill. But what is interesting is the fact that this old wives tale dates back more than 300 years old.
10. VenturaRocks.com’s 5th anniversary is Monday, March 17 and I’m looking forward to celebrating at Bombay’s with family and friends!
11. From my Favorite quotes file, “He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” – Thomas Jefferson
Thanks for listening
A Couple of Things... 
Asking for a smile is no more sexual, harassment, nor sexual harassment than saying “hello” or extending a hand to be shaken. I don’t know where we are going, as a people, when we make excuses and/or hide behind accusations of harassment, racism. sexism, etc…to avoid anything. I will say that I like it when these people make their presence known. It makes it easier to weed out the riff-raff.
My truck is a girl. She is the love of my life and my first brand new purchased vehicle. My wife is very jealous of her. I have not bestowed her a name as of yet.
Looking forward to seeing you, tonight, and to celebrate 5 years of hard, selfless work. You deserve all the praise that you have received and more. I know that you are not in it for the purpose worship. That is the best part and the very reason that you deserve so much more. Congratulations and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
The problem with your assessement on the first point is that you would never harass a woman Rob! And yes, perhaps some women are overly sensitive, I’ll give you that, but I know from experience there are some men who are passive aggressive when they say that. It’s a form of invalidation. Most men are genuine about it though and only want to make the woman smile. That being said, just make the woman smile by smiling at her! If she is feeling it, she will reciprocate. But just like mean men, there are mean woman who won’t give a smile to belittle men. So it does go two ways.
I need to name my car. Will be male though.
See you tonight!!!
You’re right…on all points.