The lost sound.

Sometimes you encounter people who make you think: Hmm.

Right now, in my computer's media player, is a CD produced by a group of Turks who got together and thought: I bet that the Ottomans played weird instruments that no longer exist. Instead of doing what most of us would do, which is then immediately turn on a rerun of Law and Order, these people got together, pored through five and six hundred year old manuscripts in the world's great Ottoman reliquaries, found blueprints on how to make the instruments, and then, uh, made them and taught themselves how to play them. The result: Ottoman divan music that hasn't been heard since the late 1600s. It's inspiring.

It's also depressing: tonight, as I write this here 'blog, I don't think I could muster enough gusto to do my French homework, let alone create a lost sound. What I have is this 'blog. I could cry.

Muahahahahahahahha.

Today I was reminded of how I used to work at the Holiday Inn in abject servitude for menial pay to fund my trip to Italy and Greece while I was in high school. While working there, Stephen King, the undisputed lord of NorthCentral Maine, invited his band (the Rockbottom Remainders) to come and stay with him in the Pine Tree State for a few days. Instead of putting these people up in his home, he inexplicably had them stay in the suites of the Holiday Inn. They were, and I am so not even close to kidding:

Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, among other novels about Chinese women in the U.S.

Warren Zevon, singer of the song Werewolves of London. Oh, come on, you know the one.

And the man for whom I owe my sense of humor:

Dave Barry.

Yes. Dave Barry. I had to have his autograph, but being seventeen and geeky looking, I just couldn't ask him. So, I had one of my coworkers, who has no qualms about these kinds of things, ask him for me. I stood there and waved like a retarded chimp when she pointed at me. She came back to me with a red Sharpie and his autograph, which read:

To Dom, my idol -- Dave Barry.

I have the pen still. I also have Warren Zevon's guitar pick. But best of all: when I performed the Haitian chicken sacrifice upon the pen, I was filled with Dave Barry's energy and his sense of humor. Just think: you all have a crushed monkey's paw, some cayenne pepper and a dead chicken to thank for this blog.

I have to go to bed before I pass the hell out.

Good night, Bloomington.

Dom