At Home On Piety Hill

Teeing Off at the Kabul Golf Course

Regardless of your opinion of Bush’s War on Terror, I think everyone can agree that these freedom fighters have earned the respect of the world. Many groups suffered under the tyranny of the Taliban, but at least two members of the Kabul Gulf (Golf) Club have paid dearly for love of the game, going all the way back to the Soviet occupation in the 80’s.

The term “bunker” is no metaphor on a course where “the entire area has had to be cleared of mines in recent months and three Soviet tanks and a multiple rocket launcher have been removed.” Hazards also include such immovable obstructions as a bombed out barracks and country club with collapsing walls.

But, these two enthusiasts see a brighter future for golfing in Afghanistan, now that the area is teeming with western aid workers. Anyone up for a foursome?

Don’t you just love choral music? What’s that? You could care less about it? Oh, well. I’m gonna sing its praises anyway.

Today I’ve been very tired and just moping around. I wanted to blog a bit, but nothing heavy. I took a nap with KXPR on the radio and woke an hour later to the most beautiful music being performed by the Sacramento Choral Society. Good, modern choral music is the closest thing to “angelic” as I can imagine. Of course, you can’t beat John Rutter’s sacred works.

That doesn’t mean I still don’t love other simpler, more common or vulgar (said with a condescending, blue blooded tone) forms of music, just as much as I always have. Mike Roe’s Orbis, Fun With Sound and DayDream are phenomenal and I have been listening to the first three albums by Little Feat almost non-stop for a month.

I first saw Little Feat around 1970 as the opening act to a “new” blues band from Boston, J Geils Band and headliner Johnny Winter And, featuring Rick Derringer. An old friend’s date stood him up, so he called me up at the last minute… 15 rows back, center at the Santa Monica Civic. That’s one of those shows I remember vividly to this day.

Anyways, I’d heard and seen guys play a bottleneck before, but nothing like Lowell George! Oh, my… Apolitical Blues!