Win One For The Gipper

I just walked to Cub Foods and back, through a blizzard, while listening to the Kleptones' A Night At The Hip-Hopera. I'm a big fan of walking while listening to music. The only time I really don't like to walk is during heavy rain or extreme cold. The benefits of walking with music are three-fold:

1. The walking
I don't get enough exercise, and when I do go to the YMCA I am inevitably infected with some sort of sweat-transmitted virus. Walking is easy on the ol' knees and back, and it forces me to appreciate how out of shape I am when I get out of breath and sore from goddamn walking.

2. The music
I don't listen to enough music, and when I do I'm always doing something else at the same time so I can't really appreciate the tunes. When I'm walking I've got nothing better to do but listen to the lyrics and memorize the chorus.

3. The beauty
I don't see enough sweet stuff during the course of the day, and when I do I don't have time to appreciate it. Walking gives me a chance to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. The snow was really pretty today, for example, and walking down the middle of fourth street during a blizzard at 9 p.m. after a Tuesday night orchestra concert is also good fun, as I learned last year. Why, just yesterday, when I was walking to the high school for my final pep band performance (sniffle, sob), I saw the wind whip two sheets of paper out of a trash bin and up into the stratosphere, and I watched a single cigarette ember blow down the street for quite a ways. Also, the music and the atmosphere will occasionally line up, which is wicked sweet.

Kubas, I think you should do both Pelkey and Christian Barnett a solid and get a real American Hero tattooed on your biceps. He'll smile when you flex?

Dr. Gary Vikan, Lade's friend who runs the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, has a blog now. It is new, but pretty good. It focuses, as one might expect, on art. Comments only appear after being "approved by the blog administrator," so be patient.