Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?

Today is my mom's 64th birthday everyone! In honor of it, I have posted the Beatles' delightful ode to this wonderful age-- smack dab in the middle of one's sexagenarian prime (that doesn't mean what you think it means Mom...) I hope the next year is full of good surprises for you and that you continue to nurture your talents, push yourself, and share your love and good cheer with all of us so freely and warmly. Me, Gen, Jerm, your family, and the town of Cottage Grove are lucky to have you! Happy Birthday Mom!!!!

Pictured here on what is hopefully the first of many more excursions into the Cascade Mountains with her eldest daughter.

Tales from the Tour, Part 1.

It was recently brought to my attention that I have not blogged very many details from the tour-- an oversight that I intend to try and remedy piecemeal. To start off, there was quite a fun preamble to our first show-- when my flight arrived in St. Louis, Shane picked me up at the airport with flair by greeting me with a chauffeur-like sign as if I were *already* a rock star and not just about to become one. I immediately whipped out my newly minted video camera (an impulse buy the night before) to start taking raw footage for the now-defunct rockumentary we intended to make during the tour (the video camera broke 1 day later, so the rockumentary has been shelved until Christopher Guest's schedule frees up and he finally comes around to the idea of a Spinal Tap 2: Behind the Muzak). The day I arrived was dedicated to pre-tour rehearsal (or a good old-fashioned session of time-honored Stars and Guitars at Darron's house). Weekend editions of Stars and Guitars ALWAYS included Rally's Big Buford hamburgers, so perhaps we should have taken it as an auspicious sign of what was to come later in the tour when we drove up to the shuttered and painted over Rally's near Darron's house enroute from the airport. No problem! We went to Burger King instead and entered the first of two space-time vortices where, for some reason it took us 35 minutes to get 4 hamburgers. They really do make it your way! Including the initial grinding of the beef and thrashing of the wheat, apparently. The afternoon was spent blissfully playing through our set and nodding at each other approvingly when we managed not to train wreck too badly on any of songs. Even Darron, initially skeptical of our plan to leave the friendly confines of the karaoke world, was supportive of what we were planning to do. By the time we left his place to go to Shane's house, we were optimistic to say the least.

Like dedicated artists, we had a second pre-tour rehearsal in Shane's roommate's legendary dude basement (imagine it: bar, drumset, big screen tv, artsy lighting, foosball, collectible electric guitars, etc. etc. etc.) It gave us the much needed chance to hear ourselves play with amps and a microphone (something most people have done BEFORE going on tour). We slept a few hours and hit the road at 5 am. Our transformation from ordinary citizens to music divas had begun when we realized getting up early sucked and that's why REAL rockstars have a tour bus and/or or travel late at night after the show.
Our first destination was Plum's Neighborhood Bar and Grille in St. Paul, MN. Why St. Paul? Well, those of you who have been to St. Paul know it as the dorkier, more straight-laced, less cosmopolitan twin of the cities-- a difference Garrison Keillor has described many times on A Prairie Home Companion. Even though it's known as a sleepy town, it's also home to my dear friend Steve Freedberg and my dear cousin Brian Mark. Even though Steve is a professor at St. Olaf College (you've heard the jokes, he swears they're not true) in Northfield, he likes living in the big city. After carefully looking through the 5 random places I found with open mic nights in the area, Plum's Bar and Grille emerged as the closest one to Steve's house in St. Paul, making it a perfect venue in every respect. We arrived at the "show" early to prepare and the place was pretty much empty (contributing to its perfectness, as far as Shane and I were concerned). Steve, in addition to being a gifted biologist and turtle specialist, was also a fantastic host and had somehow coerced all the members of his carpool and several unwitting members of his kickball team to come to the show and clap, regardless of what was going to unfold. So there we were, in the sleepy town of St. Paul, waiting for the drink specials to start so we could order and crapping our pants with nervousness. Then Nick arrived-- Nick is the guy who runs Plum's open mic night. He was a consummate professiona and started unloading seemingly endless amounts of gear and clearing away tables to reveal a small stage (now this was an auspicious start to the evening).

In the band, Shane and I had distinctive roles. For example, Shane was the musician, and I was the PR person. Shane was the organizer, and I was the shmoozer. Shane was the one who could sing and play an instrument at the same time, and I was the one who could try to do those two things. As the band's official shmoozer, my most important job was to sign us up each night at each venue. Where in the line-up you perform at an open mic night is of supreme importance for obvious reasons-- you don't want to go before or after someone really good. So I approached Nick to sign up, hoping to go early (so some of the carpoolers wouldn't regret coming), but not too early (because we were really nervous). I approached him with a sizable amount of glee and told him I wanted to sign us up because-- get this-- we are on an open mic night tour! He smiled and said, 'Oh yeah, really? We did that.' I was shocked. I thought we INVENTED that, I said. Nope, he said, we do that every year (another smile). Okay, ...well, then in the long tradition of open mic night touring artists, I was hoping we could sign up. He said he'd had people signing up all day via email and text, but that he'd take care of us. Great, I said, thinking to myself, what kind sleepy town open mic night has people signing up via text? Weird. Some might say, auspicious.

The bar started to fill. Patrons, first, then musicians. Lots of instruments. Nick had set up the keyboards, the mic stands, the sound board, and then informed us that we could have a recording of our performance for a mere $2 donation to the mic stand fund. He also told us there was a house bassist that was awesome and willing to play along with anyone who wanted accompaniment. At this point, Shane and I were mainly focused on keeping our ethiopian food down (or up) and things started to speed up. The first performer didn't look exactly like John Mayer, but he certainly sounded like him. He was obviously a regular performer, so we figured Plum's liked to start off with a bang. Then the next performer played-- she sang a song she had written that afternoon. In french. On a very, very fancy and expensive guitar. Then the next performer went up. She played piano, and told the crowd that if we wanted to, we could catch her at her regular gig at Tiffany's on Thursday night's. (You have a gig?!?!) Then another woman came up to play-- she sang a creepy duet with her brother, but she sang like a bird, and all the musicians in the bar seemed to already know the song and were strumming along as she played the piano. Finally, two old, chubby guys came up to play. Shane and I looked at each other hopefully and thought, maybe, finally, some actual open mic night level talent had approached the stage! No sir! They started to play, and between songs advertised their recently released CD. A CD! Somehow, DWO had stumbled onto the only professional open mic night east of the Mississippi (just east, grant you, but pretty pretty professional).

Then it was our turn. We went up on stage and tried to get set up quickly because, up until this point, the transitions had been pretty swift. I had never tuned my guitar using a floor tuner, so Nick had to do it for me-- which probably reduced our credibility significantly in the eyes of all the seasoned professionals that we now knew filled the audience (and rightly so, some might add). The bassist, also named Nick, had (of course) never heard any of DWO's songs before (our initial plan to play both originals and covers had been cast aside during the previous hour as it was quite clear no one at this bar was going to think it was impressive, or even cute, if we did a cover). That didn't matter though, because he, Nick (#2), was obviously a trained, professional musician and had somehow managed to come up with instantaneous, intricate, original bass lines to our songs even though he had never heard our songs before! He asked Shane if what he was plucking while we set up sounded okay, and Shane was barely able to answer. We were tuned. It was time. There was no turning back. We entered a second vortex in the time-space continuum and played our set to a crowd that appeared, for some reason, to both a) listen and b) clap. At the end, we were thankful, if only to have survived. We disentangled ourselves from the cables and amps, and returned to our table victorious, sweaty, and spent. It was like a dream. It was the fourth dimension. Steve said it wasn't nearly as bad as he had thought it was going to be (granted he had probably thought it was going to be pretty bad). When we got back to the table, the carpoolers enthusiastically asked us to sign the picks we had given them earlier in the night in a successful attempt to make us feel better about ourselves despite having played single A ball in a triple A league. A guy running an internet radio station even gave us his card, thereby adding to our sense of non-failure. But this illusory bubble was quickly popped when I went outside to make a phone call and overheard several of the other performers, or shall we call them artists, talking.

"Did you hear about all the trouble Alison Krauss has been having with her sound engineer?" one woman said.
"I know, can you believe it?" a guy replied.

Alison Krauss!?! These people are privy to the recording woes of Alison Krauss?!? In case it wasn't already clear, we were obviously waaay out of our league. But the proof would be in the pudding-- we had a sound board recording of the whole thing, and could listen for ourselves if we wanted to. We thought better of it, and continued the tour knowing we had likely played the highest level open mic we were going to find and that it could only get better (and by better, I mean worse) from here. Auspicious.
PS. I know this is a long post, with few pictures. That's because I hardly have any! If you took pictures during the tour, please send them my way so I can better illustrate tales from the tour-- I'll send signed picks as thanks!

PPS. A month later, I listened to the sound board. Coulda been WAY worse, that's for sure!!

Happy Holidays and Happy Marriage

(Warning: I use the words "we" and "our" throughout this post largely to refer to things that "I" think, but that I suspect may be more general, but by no means universal.)

Most of the times in our lives when we are faced with the opportunity to take a vacation-- such as during the holidays-- we do it. Either we go see family because we love our family, or we go explore because we love exploring, or (for some folks) they go lay on the beach because they love laying on the beach. Then, we return to our busy lives and get going once again-- perhaps somewhat refreshed, perhaps somewhat drained. Rarely do we take a week of vacation and use it to catch up, even though we spend most of our lives wishing we had just a week to catch up. That's what I am going to do for Christmas break next week-- I am going to catch up. I am going to catch up on sleep, work, play, exercise, blogging, songwriting, guitar playing, office cleaning, and cooking. I am as excited about this rare voyage as I would be about an exotic trip because of just that-- it is rare. I was thinking about what I wanted to cook, and I thought of rouladen-- one of my favorite dishes from my childhood that involves pounding beef and bacon (mm, bacon). I also thought I might try one of my friend Burcu's turkish recipes which I am always meaning to try but never quite have time (check out her fantastic cooking blog if you, too, decide to take a catching up vacation some time). And I thought I might try to replicate my aunt Suzi's famous bolognese sauce, which would make me also get in touch with my aunt Suzi and her family in Luxemburg-- another thing I wanted to catch up on.

Happy holidays devoted reader(s)! And bon appetit!

and Happy Marriage to my dear sister and Jeremy!

Si se puede!

The universe of iphone apps is truly overwhelming for techno-novitiates like myself, but fortunately I have friends who are willing to dive courageously into the waters of pay-to-play apps and then send me the fruits of their voyage. The latest bounty? My friend GP (hall of famer) made this using a picture he snapped from the tour and the Yes We Can app which allows you to turn any photo into an Obama poster:
Demonstrating the versatility of the program, here is a picture of his cat, Olive, as well. Unlike the Obama posters, where the word HOPE reflects, in equal parts, the feeling of the subject and the observer, I think that in these two cases the hopefulness is definitely possessed solely by the subject of the photo.

Recent Passtimes: Inventing Musical Genres

About a year ago, I realized that a lot of the music I was listening to had a common thread. It wasn't really the tempo, or the instrumentation, but something else that was cohesive about the genre but couldn't be summarized with the conventional adjectives used to characterize music based on style. It wasn't indie rock, it wasn't alt country. It wasn't blue grass, and it wasn't industrial hip-hop. I realized I needed to come up with my own genre... and so I did!
My favorite musical genre is contemplative melancholy (an example of which is posted on the right, Gillian Welch singing Dear Someone.) This genre hasn't made it onto Wikipedia's seemingly exhaustive list yet, but I am sure it will. It describes so many bands that I love! Instead of listing them (again) here, since I have mentioned many of them in previous posts, I will just post another song on the right-- The Weakerthans singing "Aside"-- to show you the breadth of this terrific new genre.
Once I invented one musical genre, I was accused of making a cottage industry of it-- gloom pop (to describe the Soulsavers), introspective swing (for Nina Simone's Feeling Good), and folk techno for classics like Suzanne Vega's 7" single Tom's Diner (though I later found out someone had invented folktronica, which is way cooler). Once it became a topic of conversation, others popped up (which I didn't invent) like intellectual sleaze rock and mountain soul (okay, I kind of invented that last genre, but really I just saw the phrase and co-opted it for my new classification passion-- but now I need to find a band that it applies to...) If you have favorite bands but don't know how to lump them together using conventional means, I highly recommend inventing your own musical genre. If you do, please tell me as I am looking for new ones in an attempt to articulate my likes and dislikes more effectively (not a problem, you say?) Look for this and other such activities in my upcoming book-- How to Have Fun in a Paper Bag.

Secret Santa

The cockles of my heart were warmed when I received two very cool books from a mystery someone-- a rhyming dictionary and a book on songwriting! Who are you oh masked gift-giver? How can I thank you for such awesome presents if I don't know who you are?

The books will come in handy now that the tour is over and I am back to songwriting (which has quickly become my favorite part of the musical process). Idelle Cooper, dedicated DWO follower (literally, she rode with us from Madison to Chicago and is the only person who can claim to have seen DWO twice!) sent some pictures today from the road trip that wonderfully capture moments from our somewhat unorthodox endeavor. Here are two, one taken right before the Madison show (above) and one taken during the Chicago show (below). Thanks again to all the friends and family who came, hosted, clapped, played tambourine, ate, drank, and made merry with us! Some of you were lured by your friends who are our friends, some of you had to come because you are blood relatives-- whatever the reason, it was awesome to see and meet all of you and we really couldn't have asked for better turn out at each stop on the tour. More than a musical endeavor, this really was an exercise in optimism, and you couldn't have made the case stronger for how effective a strategy that is. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And they say we don't have seasons!

I have to admit, it was pretty awesome to tour the midwest (more on that in a forthcoming post) and come back this week to sunny and clear, 70 degree Dallas-Ft. Worth. The only thing that could be better than that happened today-- I woke up to SNOW! Those of you who know me well, know I love this form of precipitation above all others and that my soul would have most certainly been incomplete if I had gone entire winter without a glimpse of the heaven-sent, geometrically-miraculous, tiny emblems of all that is wonderful about winter, hibernation, and the cold. I am in the office now, but I can't wait to head back outside! Or at least look out a window. I can barely contain my delight. Okay, more real blogging soon.

Oh yes-- and a P.S.
Fans who saw DWO on tour know our third single, "Lovers Lane Station/CVS Shoplifter" is a song I wrote based on an ad I saw in the 'missed connections' section of Craigslist (I'll post the song over at the DWO website soon!) Well, it turns there is BLOG dedicated to these optimistic little messages to the universe, and the art that accompanies them is awesome, so I thought I would share. Check it out if you don't have any snow to delight you, it is GREAT....

Merch! (or Shane & Schaack are, indeed, crazy)

Head over to the DWO website for info on t-shirts, tour updates, and a new original song! The tour starts SUNDAY, come if you can! Bring your friends! We need clappers!

The Movin' Mavs

UT-Arlington doesn't have a football team (sacrilege in Texas, I would have thought) and, in fact, isn't very good at all when it comes to sports . The Movin' Mavs, however, are an exception-- they have won the national championship 7 times since 1989. Who are the Movin' Mavs? UTA's wheelchair basketball team, that's who.
I went to my first game on Friday night and I believe, for the first time in my life, that I might actually be capable of becoming a sports fan. The Movin' Mavs play in Texas Hall-- a strange auditorium-like court with bleachers on one side and more wheel-chair friendly theater-style seating on the other side. The whole set-up is pretty much indistinguishable from a "regular" college basketball game-- terrific athletes, cheerleaders, a maverick mascot, raffles, etc.-- except for the fact that it is inherently much more exhilarating to watch these athletes achieve their goals given the extra challenges playing basketball from a wheelchair presents (farther shots, more one-handed shots, and some pretty serious crashing on defense). It was awesome to catch a glimpse of the game this past weekend and I am looking forward to going to their next home game in early December. If you live in Arlington, come with me! If you don't, check out the fantastic documentary on wheelchair rugby called Murderball that came out in 2005-- it is excellent.

Mingling the Sacred and the Profane

As many of you know, I have been struggling (with moderate success) to find the hidden charms of my new home state. I have always been pretty much a "home is where you hang your hat" kind of girl, but looking back I now realize that the places I have actually moved to (not just visited) have often required some similar kind of resourceful charm hunting in the beginning. Richmond (IN), Gainesville (FL), and Bloomington (IN) were not, at first glance, the coolest places to live, but somehow or another they each grew on me over time and I departed each one appreciating their physical beauty, seedy underbellies, and distinctive flavors. I hope the same will hold true for Arlington, but after 10 months here (10 months!) I was beginning to question when my appreciation for this place might start to unfurl. The answer: this week.

It started with a talk I went to last Thursday. It turns out, a dear childhood friend of mine, Mari, lives in Duncanville (about 20 minutes down the road from Arlington) and we recently got back in touch with each other (via good old fashioned moms-calling-moms on the telephone, no facebook required). Mari's uncle, Joe Nick Patoski, is a writer and has authored several books on various aspects of Texas including 3 biographies on famous Texans-- Selena, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and, most recently, Willie Nelson. Joe Nick's main thesis, in his life and in his writing, is that Texas is a unique place that breeds unique people. He is a proud, unapologetic, likeable Texan (a very rare combination) and was recently honored as Author of the Year by the Friends of the Duncanville Library Association (admittedly, in part, because Mari nominated him). His speech on Thursday night was about why he thinks Texas is unique and why Texas music, in particular, embodies the state's distinctive essence. He talked about cultural diversity in Texas-- a place where mexicans, "anglos", blacks, vietnamese, czechs, cajuns, red-necks, hippies, and baptists interact and observe each other. I think I have mentioned before that my favorite thing about UT-Arlington is the diverse student body and it definitely extends beyond the college campus. Even though the rest of the world has a distinctive stereotype when they hear the word "texan", it turns out that is (at best) the weak majority and probably won't be for long. Joe Nick's biographies focus on musicians at the intersection of some of these boundaries who, collectively, represent a much more interesting version of the word "texan" than the stereotype: Selena, a tejana (a texan of mexican descent) who became a national phenom in both the US and Mexico before her early and tragic death; Stevie Ray, born in Oak Cliff (a racially charged area south of Dallas in which the schools were not officially declared desegregated until 2003), who was a prominent guitarist able to successfully fuse blues and country guitar despite sociopolitical hurdles rendering them unlikely bedfellows; and Willie, who has managed to bridge the gap between the upstanding, church-going, farmers of the dry county in which he was born with the whiskey-swilling cowboys, pot-smoking hippies, and beer-brewing immigrants in the wet county to which he went every day to perform. In other words, Willie successfully "mingled the sacred and the profane"-- an idea that I believe must be turned into a song itself and that Joe Nick believes is the heart of Texas. Although I am sure most places in America embody similar contrasts if you look closely enough, I have to admit that Joe Nick's thoughts and observations made me appreciate Texas much more than I had an hour earlier that day. I don't think I will be flying a Texas flag outside the trailer any time soon, but I definitely felt some unfurling this past week. Thanks for the invitation Mari!

Happy Birthday Genevieve!

Just a quick shout out to my sister, my ally, my co-conspirator, my confidante, my friend... Here she is at the ripe old age of 3, a mere 25 years ago! How can it be that it seems like everything happened just yesterday?
Have a great birthday and a fun Halloween tomorrow! I love you very very much!!!!

Blog Spawn

Since the whole joke-y notion of forming a band and going on an open mic night tour has become remarkably real, we decided it might be more convenient (you know, for the fans) to have a website for all things DWO (Double-Wide Optimism is a mouthful when you keep talking about it all the time....) The schaackmobile blog will still contain links to the various goings-on at the band's webpage (can you believe I just wrote that???) but will resume its normal blogginess and more general musings as well.

Feel free to check out the new site at doublewideoptimism.blogspot.com!

The Arlington Sessions

I am not really sure where to begin describing this past weekend. As devoted readers know, Shane came into town for a pre-tour rehearsal weekend. What started as a lark, with Shane blurting out "We should go on an open mic night tour!" after the Players Pub incident last December, is becoming-- dare I say it?-- a reality. We spent the weekend working on songs and playing guitar (and banjo!) as we planned (and eating hamburgers, and doing photo shoots, and making videos-- mainly of drunken dancing at Saturday night's BBQ, mind you-- and most of the other things that were on our to do list). But the whole thing got turned up to eleven when we went into the Lab of Luxury studios here in Arlington yesterday to record some of the songs we've been working on. After making sure we had our instruments, tuner, picks, lyrics, the teach-yourself-how-to-play-banjo book, and plenty of nervous energy, we went over hoping to record scratch tracks with which we could practice a little bit over the next month, perhaps in an attempt to not suck when we went on tour. Our able producers (Jeff Streicher and Jesse Meik of Jude the Innocent fame-- album from them, coming soon!), however, somehow transformed our simple little ditties into ACTUAL SONGS!!! I don't know how they did it (neither does Shane, he thinks they used magic) but somehow or another, we now have three seed songs for an EP. Currently labeled "The Arlington Sessions", this recording session exceeded our wildest hopes and dreams. It was so fun, I have to recommend that everyone who might read this go out, pick up an instrument, write a song, and record it. It is the most fun thing you could possibly do. Even my schaack-optimism was dwarfed by the final product, an example of which you can hear below. Of course, when we are on tour, Jeff and Jesse won't be there laying awesome drum tracks and intoxicating bass lines, so it will sound a little bit more like good ol' me and Shane, but it was so fun to watch the song grow and develop as we layered the music and at least some new elements can be re-created on stage with castanets and some fearless harmonizing. Like I said, go do this if you can. You will wonder why you do anything else. More DWO tour details soon!

To hear Double-Wide Optimism's official worldwide debut
of their self-titled single,
"Double-Wide Optimism"
click below!
(that's a lot of optimism in one sentence, brace yourself!)
Written by
Shane Lewinski
Performed by
Shane Lewinski, Jeff Streicher, Jesse Meik, and Sarah Schaack
Produced by Jude the Innocent and recorded at The Lab of Luxury,
Arlington, TX 2009

The Winner, and Still Champion

Despite a late-hour coup attempt by proponents of The Teapot Dome Scandal, the voice of fans WORLDWIDE (yes, apparently two people in Wales voted!) has been heard and the winning band name is: Double-Wide Optimism! Thanks to all who participated in the democratization of rock n' roll (a whopping 57 people voted, temporarily increasing my readership beyond my wildest hopes!) In the timeless words of AC/DC-- for those about to rock, we salute you!

Now onto the tour! Shane arrives tonight at the delightfully named Love Airfield in Dallas for our pre-tour rehearsal/recording weekend! That's right guys-- we are gonna practice! Well, we are gonna play guitar all weekend and eat hamburgers like we normally do when I hang out with Shane, but hopefully that will have some positive downstream effects when we hit the road.

The weekend's festivities include, but are not limited to, the following: writing songs, playing guitar, learning banjo really quick, recording an EP at the Lab of Luxury studio (= my friend and fellow biologist Jeff Streicher's apartment), a photoshoot, designing tour t-shirts (maroon won, by the way-- graphic post forthcoming! wait, that sounds naughty....), making a video, eating hamburgers, performing live, going to shows, jamming, doubling down on Shane's induction into the Schaackmobile Hall of Fame, making s'mores, and, most likely, multiple trips to Guitar Center. Sound fun? Come on over! We can act like rockstars together! I am pretty sure eating s'mores is rockstaresque behavior,... isn't it?

Thanks again for all your support for this cockamamie venture-- literally, the band Double-Wide Optimism would not exist without you all! Fear not for your ears-- no matter how hard I try, there is no way I am going to master simultaneously playing the harmonica and guitar at the same time by November.photo credit: Shane Lewinski

Reader's Choice Poll

As you may remember, Shane and I are going on tour in November throughout the midwest.... I am pleased to announce our tour schedule is tentatively planned for the following dates and cities:

Saturday, Nov 21: Pre-tour rehearsal, St. Louis, MO
Sunday, Nov. 22: St. Paul, MN
Plum's Neighborhood Bar & Grille
480 Snelling Ave S, 651-699-2227/9 pm
Monday, Nov. 23: Madison, WI
The Come Back In
508 E. Wilson Street, Phone: 608-258-8619/9:30 pm
Tuesday, Nov. 24: Chicago, IL
The Holiday Club- www.holidayclubchicago.com
4000 N Sheridan, Chicago, 773- 348-9600/8 pm
Wednesday, Nov. 25: Edwardsville, IL
The Stagger Inn
104 E. Vandalia St, (618) 656-4221
(VIP afterparty for groupies, TBA)

Although we are defying conventions left and right (most of which musicians and fans alike hold dear-- most importantly, possessing significant musical talent), we are adhering to some. First of all, we need a band name. Second of all, once we have a band name, we need to make concert t-shirts. Third of all, we have to write and practice some songs. (Ranked in order of importance, to us.) The first item is up to you guys though, so please make your voice heard by voting in the 1st Annual Schaackmobile Reader's Choice Poll! (upper right hand corner of the blog) Other than our original band name, which was thought up by my old labmate Casey McGrath, the options are entirely the brainchild of Shane Lewinski, founding member of what we will, for the time being, refer to as Band X. We will do what our fans demand!

The choice is yours, and the nominees are:

The Teapot Dome Scandal
Cher-a (a combination of Shane and Sarah)
Double-wide Optimism
Second String
Schaackzilla and the Monkey Man
Warning Track Power (to fully understand how clever this actually is, check out the wikipedia article explanation here)

Here are the specs:
You can vote as often as you like, but only for one name at a time.
You can see the results by clicking on "View Results" and using the left-right scroll bar.
Write-in nominations of your own creation can be submitted via the comment tool, and will be added below as write-in candidate options.
Voting will close on October 22 so we have time to custom design t-shirts and get them ordered before hitting the road!

I have been sketching some preliminary t-shirt graphics, but the final product, including t-shirt color, will depend on the voice of the people!

No need to buy tickets! No need to plan ahead! Why do U2 go through all the trouble of hauling that 360 stage around when they, too, could take advantage of neighborhood open mic nights??? We would love to see any friendly faces that might be able to make it and promise to dedicate our inevitable cover of Every Rose Has Its Thorn to anyone who drives over 10 miles to come see us! Hopefully living on the road won't harden us too much and we'll be able to fend off the heaps of groupies trying to make out with us all the time-- perhaps that hardship can even be parlayed into future songs of heartbreak and desperation!
Here's hoping!!!!!

Addendum: Astute reader Dan Janes has started a write-in campaign for two new names.... I can't actually add them to the poll because voting has already started and the widget rules won't allow changes, but I can list them here:

Obscured by Corn
Brimming with Vivacity in the Parlance of Our Times

Bigfoot Research

I have been a delinquent blogger, I know. But keep in mind that delinquent blogger = non-delinquent post-doc, so it isn't such a terrible thing. I mentioned last week that I would say a few words about the 9th Annual Texas Bigfoot Research Conference which was held in mid-September at the University of Texas-Tyler (a sister school!) since I, too, like research. For those of you who don't already know, although the mythos of Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch, the Yeti, the Abominable Snowman-- take your pick, different names but the same hairy, giant, elusive, hominoid-like creature) is worldwide, it has certain areas of high concentration. Like Canada (where I am from). And Texas (where I now live). Although I wasn't able to attend this particular conference, several delegates from my department went, including Christian Cox (pictured above with typical Bigfoot evidence and namesake; happy birthday Christian!) These colleagues of mine attended, in addition to 400+ other people (who presumably did NOT go as a joke), reported back on the latest findings, and, of course, brought me a t-shirt. The annual meeting consists of a full day of 40 minute talks from experts on a variety of topics ranging from "Sasquatch 101" to this year's special guest, Bob Gimlin (Mr. Gimlin is one of two people credited for making the only not-revealed-to-be-a-fake-yet 1967 Sasquatch video still in circulation; see still frame below). Unlike what you might expect of a research conference, the talks aren't so much about evidence for Bigfoot as much as they are about how to catch/prove/photograph/depict/describe Bigfoot more effectively during inevitable future encounters. It also sounds like there is a fair amount of Bigfoot-skeptic bashing, Bigfoot belief-declaring, and Bigfoot sighting retelling. My understanding is that pretty much everybody there has either a) seen Bigfoot or b) expects to, which would indicate maybe Bigfeet aren't so rare afterall, since the conference is so well attended. In addition to the researchers interested in Bigfoot, there were researchers interested in people interested in Bigfoot -- from the psychology department. They passed out surveys to everyone in the audience in hopes of continuing their efforts to identify what characteristics typify Bigfoot believers and, perhaps more interestingly, Bigfoot researchers, such as those attending this conference. Their data reveal that typical Bigfoot believers tend to come from low income households and usually have little to no education. But Bigfoot researchers? Interestingly, they defy definition, fit no profile, and typically represent no single demographic category. Why? Well, perhaps it is hard to predict exactly what kind of scientist would risk their career and credibility chasing after a legendary creature most often shown to actually be someone running around in an ape suit or a misidentified bear. However, in the spirit of scientific objectivity, after devoting an entire post to the topic, I feel obligated to provide the link to where you should file a report (hopefully more peaceful than the one recounted by this nature-loving mountain climber, above) if you should see one. And for those of you who have now come to expect an interactive blog reading experience or simply want to avoid doing research (on Bigfoot or any other topic), check out the song/video by Tenacious D called Sasquatch on youtube here.

Coming later this week! A Reader's Choice Poll to pick the band name before Shane and I go on tour at Thanksgiving. Remember-- this is what everyone is getting for Christmas because no one is actually going to buy our concert t-shirts-- so make your voice heard above the din of the other 2 or 3 voices! Like they say in Chicago-- vote early, vote often!

The Avett Brothers

I am going to blog soon for real about this past weekend's conference on the leading edge bigfoot research here in Texas (yes, bigfoot), but I couldn't wait to share something in the meantime with those of you who are already Avett Brothers fanatics like me, and with those of you who aren't yet but should be. NPR is streaming their newest album for free this week, leading up to its release (Sept. 29th). So for the next 2 days, you can listen to it over and over again like I am doing! They were supposed to play Dallas tonight, which would have lit-er-ally made my whole fall, but, alas, it got rescheduled for January. Something to look forward to in the new year, I suppose. Double-wide optimism strikes again!

To listen to one of their old songs that is a favorite of mine, check the top right corner of this page where I have added a new feature to the blog! Now, when I am going on and on about a band, I can post a song for you to listen to so you can tell right away if I am full of it. Efficient, huh? You can listen once for free, and then Lala will make you buy it if you want to listen to it again.

If you like that, and want to hear their new album in its entirety, go to:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112973444

Their live shows feel quite different than their studio albums. The album feels like this:
And their live shows feel like this:

This album, like their previous ones, is incredibly good. Unlike their previous albums though, for the first time the songs on this one poke right into my heart and it hurts. But I love it, and hope you do too....

The Teapot Dome Scandal and the Wacky Wacky Salt-Shakers

Wow! That comment thing really went over well. I have 4 readers-- other than my mom! (who adorably wrote to tell me she saw the comment gadget but couldn't figure out how to post one. Sometimes things are prohibitively technical for a reason Mom!) This, of course, has incurred the jealousy of bloggers worldwide (ok, perhaps only the jealousy of one blogger, in Ohio, whose readership [currently, n = 2] is about to go through the roof after I link his blog to my blog here, and all the overflow from the Bloomington Velo-News finds itself completely hooked on the latest musings and sociopolitical commentary from a baseball coach in Ohio. Thanks again for the nod GP!)

As you know, I was traveling a fair amount during my first 6 months of living in Arlington, and I got back from the last trip (details below; is that bad, to link to my own blog?) and was feeling a bit guilty and pretty behind schedule at work. So I was glad not to have any trips on the horizon, since it is usually the sprinkling of trips throughout my calendar that provides bookends around periods of supposed productivity during which I always have such a hard time getting anything done. But this time, the coast was clear and I was going to be able to come back to Arlington and just work! With abandon! You know, get ahead in the game! Maybe have something to show for it at the end of the day. Yeah, well I have been in Arlington for like a month straight and I am itchin' to hit the road! Good thing I have tentatively planned to go on tour with Shane around Thanksgiving.
Tour, you ask?
Yes, tour.
But Schaack,....um... you don't really play an instrument.
Um,... yeah,..... well, performance isn't entirely about musical capabibilites alright!

From where does this cockamamie idea stem? Well, last December I decided to make good on a vow I had made to myself about 6 years previous (for the full story, told in situ, click below; notice there is none of the actual music posted. There is a reason for this.)

Basically, I wanted to do an open mic night before I graduated and to help take the edge off, I somehow convinced/was blessed by all my friends who play instruments joining me for the event. We made a band called The Teapot Dome Scandal and the Wacky Wacky Salt-Shakers and we went on the "For One Night Only" Tour. Despite the fact that I have little to no musical ability, this was a magical night. You can probably tell by the impossibly wide smile on my face that it was one of the most fun nights of my life. It was certainly more fun that the vast majority of the other things I did during the pursuit of my PhD. It was so fun, in fact, that Shane Lewinski (Schaackmobile Hall of Famer and Wacky Wacky Salt-Shaker) had a brilliant idea shortly afterwards. He suggested that we go on tour, and play a bunch of open mic nights from town-to-town over a several day period-- like a real tour! Except, once again, without the musical talent or nagging details of setting up any shows! Our excitement reached its zenith when we realized that if we went on tour, we would get to make concert t-shirts!!!! After blowing an o-ring at the thought of having graphic art made specifically by or for us and a list of small dive-bar names printed on the back of a t-shirt, we decided we should probably try and write some of our own songs instead of counting on 80's glam rock ballads for our bread and butter. So far, I/we have written a handful, but it is definitely going to be hard to recapture the magic of that cold Thursday evening at the typically depauperate open mic night at the Player's Pub in Bloomington-- living out a dream, and bringing ten additional people along for the ride (not to mention the wildly supportive friends and patrons that came to watch and somehow knew that clapping was the most beautiful sound that would be made that night), is way better than any song I might be able to write. Anyway, that's my next planned trip-- November 21-25th, 2009. If we are crazy enough to make t-shirts, that's what you're all getting for Christmas.
The Teapot Dome Scandal and the Wacky Wacky Salt-Shakers are:
Sarah Schaack (guitar, volcals, tambourine)
Darron Luesse (guitar, vocals; drove 5 hours to surprise me and ended up in the band)
Shane Lewinski (guitar, vocals, rhythm egg, castenets; drove 5 hours to join the band)
Francesco Catania (guitar, vocals; labmate, original recruit for the band)
Stacy Hoobler (drums; actual musician & friend, provided much-needed base/bass for the band)
Matt Rosenthal (electric guitar; recruited to the band the night before)
Dan Jacobs (harmonica, melodica; stars & guitars regular, destined to be in the band)
Eunjin Choi (vocals; saintly undergrad working in the lab, ended up being recruited to the band)
Very nice dude at the bar (banjo; joined the band during the show)

Geraint Parry (announcer)
Sam Miller (videographer)

Like GP said during the show--
with 5 guitars and a banjo, what could go wrong?

Flashback to July 2009: Summiting Ibapah

Not all that big a leap back in time, I realize... but I just got pictures from the trek up Ibapah Peak (12,1010 ft) and wanted to share some of the summit approach because it is so extremely beautiful. As the highest peak in the Deep Creek Mountains, it emerges from the valley quite abruptly, resulting in a dramatic ascent and an amazing vista once you get to the top. Go climb this mountain if you can!

If you do, you will feel like this!

Lastly, after months of public outcry (okay, okay, ... a couple of emails), I have finally added the commenting gadget to the blog (see below) so I won't hoard the witty and insightful quips I occasionally get (which I love!) to myself anymore.  

If my mom is, in fact, the only one reading this blog (as I often suspect), it will become abundantly clear soon enough, so please feel free to make your opinions on optimism, trailer life, north central Texas, transposable elements, Todd Snider, or anything else you can think of 
known to the universe, just as I do!

The End of Summer is Still Summer in Texas

School started last week and I just wanted to share a picture of a campus vehicle here at the University of Texas-Arlington. Isn't it sweet? I asked the dude driving it if this is what they used to chauffeur important donors around when they came on campus and he chuckled and said no, but proudly told me it was a '74. I told him, so was I!

I spent the Labor Day Weekend down on the coast in Rockport-- a part of the state I had never been to before. Other than the Czech Stop, a gas station that sells incredibly tasty homemade kolaches (my favorite culinary discovery since moving to Texas), the metroplex (that's what they call the greater Dallas-Ft. Worth metropolitan area) and the ocean are separated by about 350 miles of almost featureless rural Texas landscape. The coast itself is nice and provides an ocean breeze to offset the incredible heat (it's September, and yesterday it was still 100 degrees here.) I am going to miss lots of things about fall, I can tell already. The weekend was composed of swimming, boating, and, most wonderfully, eating seafood to satiety, which one rarely gets to do. Thanks to Kerri and Mitch for hosting!

In concert news, I got to do 2 of my favorite things last week-- 1) see Todd Snider, on his old stomping grounds no less and 2) introduce someone new to the joy of Todd Snider. He played the Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos, TX-- a venue owned by a guy named Kent Finlay who met Todd shortly after he bought his first guitar and taught himself the three chords he has learned to play so well while sharing his opinions which, brothers and sisters, he is not sharing because they are right, or because they are smart, but because they rhyme. Todd's first gigs were at this place and I was extremely excited to drive 4 hours south to see him play among old friends in a small Texas shack made out of rebar. The highlights for me were Waco Moon, which he rarely plays, and a slowed down, heartfelt version of Play A Train Song. Both songs are about friends who died early, but one is sad and one is celebratory. One of the reasons I love Todd is because of his ability to find both these feelings in something most people write off as simply tragic and his ability to share it with the rest of us so beautifully. It was a great show (my 16th I believe!) and I can't wait to see him again.

Latest Entry into the Visitor Hall Of Fame, Tent Division

I enjoyed a surprise visit from my dear friend Doug Ottke this week and so added another gilded entry into the Schaackmobile Visitor Hall of Fame. This time with a twist-- Doug set up his tent on the "lawn" (a somewhat polluted area filled with broken glass and treacherous weeds-- I am NOT exaggerating when I say treacherous-- the lengths these plants have gone to in order to disperse their progeny is quite painful for largely hairless mammals like ourselves. When you come to visit, high step through the weeds and make your way straight back to the safe confines of the concrete patio...notice the neighbors put in a new privacy fence to boot, how thoughtful of them!) Anyway, Doug was on his way from Tallahassee, FL (where he was visiting another old college compatriot of ours, Franklin, more about him in a future post) to Denver, CO (where he lives, until Sept. 15th, when he heads to Central America). Luckily, the godforesaken nature of Arlington does not impair my ability to enjoy hosting a visitor like Doug because the fun and entertainment is inherent in the conversation. Doug is a fascinating guy-- by training, a geologist, but his philosophy of living has brought him to a variety of jobs and places. These travels include a recent stay with his aunt and uncle in LA where we continued working on Teapot Dome Sabotage, his screenplay depicting the juxtaposition of nature and its destruction, and one man's inability to simply take home a paycheck and look the other way. Hopefully you will see it on the big screen one day, or on at least a medium-sized screen. Any documentarian or movie-making friends out there interested in such a thing? Becca? I can have his people call your people! (In other words, give you each other's email addresses).Doug and I met during my first year of college at Earlham in the late fall of 1992. We became friends by the time he graduated but, hour for hour, we have definitely spent more time together in the mountains and on the streets of strange cities than we ever got to hang out in college. Doug is a renaissance man in a sense-- he is well-read, a good conversationalist, opinionated but not close-minded, interesting and interested-- which is a rare and wonderful combination of traits. He is also a Rush fan, as are many of the most interesting people (ok, men-- I have yet to meet a female Rush fan) I know. Doug actually was the first person to introduce me to Bob Dylan as well, but it was long before I was smart enough to listen. I am sure that is true for many other things he has brought up in conversation over the years, and I am just genuinely grateful to him for sticking with me as a friend while I catch up. Among other stories we got to revisit, we enjoyed retelling the tale of our visit to the Smithsonion in 1999 to see the Ontonagon Boulder-- a massive piece of copper from Michigan that is embroiled in a 3-way custody battle so alledgedly controversial it has to be kept behind the scenes in the Natural History division of the museum. It can only be visited by the geological elite, but Doug knew a guy, and we somehow managed to get backstage (this was my first trip to Washington, DC, it was only about 48 hours, and despite the great number of monuments and museums I have heard that they have there, I spent most of my time in the collections area of the Geology division at the Smithsonian looking a giant, dusty rock). It was a great day though, and a great trip, and it is a telling example of Doug's passionate interest in things derived from this earth and the trouble that they can incite above ground once humans get involved. So glad you came by Ott! Come again when you can!

Happy Ramadan

Note to reader(s):

I use A LOT of capitalization in this post for emphasis.
Please do dwell on the capitalized words and say them loudly in your mind to improve flow, clarify meaning, and emphasize incredulity.

Ramadan started this week and I told my friend and labmate Assie that I would fast with her on the first and last day of the month-long festivus in solidarity and support of her suffering since SHE was fasting all day long every day for a month in solidarity and support of millions of people who suffer worldwide. It seemed like the least I could do, right?

I am not sure why exactly... perhaps it was the fact that I had agreed to fast in the first place, but Monday morning I woke up ravenous. I am not a breakfast eater, but my stomach was audibly growling as I laid in bed already trying to remember why I had agreed to do this. Then I went to work. Those of you who know me in a lab setting know that last year I bought a little, miraculous coffee maker (one of the pod-based coffee makers) in an effort to cultivate a caffeine addiction while writing my dissertation. It worked wonders for my productivity-- given that I woke up at home in my bed and the coffee maker was in my lab. After a very short time, my morning routine was shaved down to the 20 minutes it took me to get up, get dressed, scoot to school, and put the pod in the machine. 26 seconds later, I would have a frothy, delicious little cup of joy in my newbie hands. Nowadays I am patently hooked on my 4 ounce miracle each morning and it is the first thing I do to get going when I arrive at school. Monday was no different, although I soon found out that, technically, drinking coffee (or even water!) counts as breaking the fast. "REALLY?" I asked in feigned disbelief. Really, I was told. I was informed of this while chewing gum (which I was doing with unusual gusto because I was SO hungry), which I came to find out is ALSO a fast-breaking activity. Something about the flavor crystals going down your throat in your saliva…. So, it turns out, I am a terrible empathetic faster. Now I have decided that I am going to show my support for Assie by providing a pathetic example of fasting-- trying each day and failing-- in order to make her feel really good about how awesome a faster she is. I don't know why I didn't think of this strategy in the first place.

My previous experience with Ramadan was during time spent on the very Islamic coast of East Africa, where I was working a few years ago in the fall of 2006. One day, I was walking around with my erstwhile boyfriend (and current dear friend) Chris Moore in Stone Town—the main hub of the island of Zanzibar—digesting a delicious dinner from The Gardens (the nightly street food galleria that springs up in the park along the waterfront serving up the most delicious fresh-caught seafood you have ever tasted for a fraction of the price you have ever paid—unless you get snookered that is….) We knew I had the day off the next day and were lala-ing about, pressing our noses in the window of a restaurant dedicated to all things Freddy Mercury (he was born in Zanzibar and is something of a local hero; the restaurant was, of course, closed for Ramadan), and brainstorming about what to do the next day. We passed a storefront that claimed to rent any type of motorized vehicle and Chris suggested we rent scooters since a) I love scooters and b) the island is so small you can see it in its entirety via a two-stroke engine. As per usual in Tanzania, there was a guy who happened to be standing outside the storefront who assured us his friend owned the place, and that someone would be there to meet us at 8 am the next morning and hook us up with some vehicles. As per usual, the next morning there WAS someone there, 2 guys actually, totally unaffiliated with THIS particular scooter rental place, ready to take us on dirtbikes at high speed through the winding, narrow streets of Stone Town to THEIR place, where they also had a few scooters that could be rented out. Let me describe these guys briefly, because we ended up spending quite a bit of time with our lives in their hands. One was very, very tall and one was very, very short and they both had very, very greasy hair and wore a lot of jewelry. When we selected the scooters we wanted, they asked us for our Tanzanian motorcycle driver’s licenses to fill out the paperwork for the rental. For some reason, they were SHOCKED we did not have any, and acted as if the deal was definitely going to fall through. This seemed like kind of a surprise to me because a) I am an indefatigable optimist and b) I am pretty sure EVERYONE who rents a scooter in Zanzibar does not possess a Tanzanian driver’s license with a motorcycle endorsement. I gently suggested that maybe there was a way around this problem, and they agreed that we could go to the Zanzinbari-equivalent of the DMV and GET Tanzanian driver’s licenses. However, this would require a) going to the DMV (which is a time-consuming activity in every country), b) having our US driver’s licenses with us (which we did not have), and therefore c) procuring fake foreign driver’s licenses to use to get only somewhat real Zanzibari licenses, and finally, d) taking a driving test on the scooter. And so we did! Procuring the fake licenses was going to take a little while, so we were led to a courtyard to wait with the short, greasy guy while the tall, greasy guy went searching wherever one searches for these things. The short greasy guy was drinking strong coffee and smoking non-stop. Because I knew even less about Ramadan then than I do now, I asked him, “So, trying to survive the fast, huh?”—assuming, of course, that mainlining coffee and chain-smoking was a survival strategy for hunger.
“WHAT?!?” he exclaimed. “I don’t fast during Ramadan! If you fast, you can’t drink and smoke!!!”
Oh, I see. So it is not the STARVING that bothers you, it is not being able to drink and smoke cigarettes. Got it.
Eventually, the tall greasy guy came back with the licenses which, as I mentioned, need to have motorcycle endorsements (mine did, Chris’ didn’t) in order to take the test and get the permits and, preferably, should bear SOME resemblance to the person intending to get away with using them (I am pretty sure Zanzibaris think all light-skinned people look the same, so this was probably okay. ) Then we each rode with one of the greasy guys on the scooters to a park in the middle of town so we could practice before taking the test. These scooters had gears like motorcycles, Chris wasn’t nearly as experienced a scooter driver as I was, and there is a serious paucity of stoplights and lane dividers on the roads in Zanzibar so it was important just to get used to weaving in and out of chaotic traffic. Ironically, on our WAY back from the park to the DMV, we got stopped by the cops (we were not driving at this point, we were each still clutching uncomfortably tightly to our respective greasy guys). Turns out, THEIR licenses were expired. The cop took them and told them to come back later that night with “tea money” (=a bribe) and they could get them back. So now we are four people, two scooters, and zero licenses. On our way to the Zanzibari DMV.

We get there, wait the requisite amount of time (this is a prescribed amount, in accordance with a secret universal proclamation followed by DMV paper pushers worldwide), take the driving test, lie to the officials about our fake IDs, insist that the motorcycle endorsement is embedded in the numeric codes somewhere on the back, and leave with one license to ill in hand (mine, Chris was out of luck). The tall greasy guy assured us this was no problem and that, for a small price, he could just forge a license. The price was so small, in fact, I had to wonder why we didn't just go this route in the first place! After a few more stops and some waiting in lobbies of various buildings, we head BACK to the house with the courtyard deep in the back alleys of Stone Town to get our scooters and get going. It is now about noon. After four hours of mishaps, mayhem, waiting, lying, fake IDs, getting hassled by cops, driving lessons, holding on for dear life, careening through narrow alleys all over town, discussing the cons of Ramadan, and convincing everyone involved that this was, in fact, a good idea despite the apparent obstacles and illegalities—the tall greasy guy handed us some really dorky looking helmets and the keys to the scooters. At last! As we turned on the ignition and started to roll them backwards to head out onto the street, he yelled in kind of a panic—“WAIT! Wait! Stop!!!”

We turned off the ignition.

“Yeah?” I said, wondering what else there could POSSIBLY be.

He said, “DON'T FORGET!!!! You have to drive on the LEFT here!!”

I nearly died laughing. After 5 trips to East Africa, 3 months in-country on this particular trip, having covered thousands and thousands of miles by car, having DRIVEN numerous times, and (ESPECIALLY) having just spent the last 4 hours trying to rent these scooters, did he REALLY think we had somehow managed to miss the whole driving on the left thing? Needless to say, scooting is a great way to see Zanzibar (and the rest of the world I would propose) and the morning's saga only primed us for the day's adventure.

We hit the road.