John Wicker.com

Plans for the future...

There are a lot of things going on in my musical world, some of which I’ll get into here and even more of which I’ll get into later on down the road. But right now, I’m gonna talk about my plans for the site, just because that seems like the thing to do.

Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? I’m going to focus this blog on my musical endeavors. I’m not gonna set the world on fire with my programming skills, and it isn’t my passion. I don’t eat, sleep and dream of code– well, sometimes I do, but only when I’m in the middle of a big project with a tough deadline.

Music is always there and it always has been. Music IS my passion. Everything I do is touched by or informed by music. The jukebox in my head is always running. So that’s the reason for the change in format.

I’m gonna start talking about the particulars and the nitty gritty of what I’m doing and even why. That’s really the big deal for me, because I’m going to start telling it like it is instead of trying to figure out the right thing to say. If I am anything in life, it’s blunt. The whole idea of me trying to spin myself goes against every shred of common sense I possess. So to hell with that.

I don’t know exactly how much of the creative stuff I’m going to get into, if only because I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to work for me yet. I have stuff in my head that I’m going to have to figure out what to do with. When I get a better handle on that, I will probably be able to share more of the particulars. But to be completely honest, I’m not confident enough to do that.

So there is my first bombshell- I’m wanna be a rock star on stage and I have confidence issues. Go figure.

Rupp Arena during a game

I am playing at Rupp Arena tomorrow.

No, not outside in the parking lot. Not in the concourse area or the food court. On the big floor, right there inside of Rupp Arena.

I talked about a big announcement a while back, and then I went completely quiet. Playing Rupp Arena qualifies as a big one, I think. The stage gonna be almost fifty feet wide and 24 feet from front to back. Big.

As far as this gig is concerned, I’m playing at a rather large conference that’s taking up both the Convention Center and Rupp Arena itself.

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a long time, but I have literally been so busy I can’t put three minutes together to get over to make an update. For now, though, let me just say that I’ve been very busy putting things together.

Rock and Roll!

datacop: Yup

It’s possible you might have needed to be there.

It’s been a busy week and I’ve been sick, but that’s all noise.

Right now, I’m watching John Q. If you haven’t seen this movie, let me recommend it to you. Powerful stuff. Watching the scene between John and his son in the E.R. is like a 5 minute course on what kind of stuff every father should teach his sons.

Highly recommended.

Jimmy Fallon

It was about 24 hours ago that I came across a certain “band” on Jimmy Falon. This “band”, which will remain nameless, is made up of four back-up dancers and a lead dancer. They all carried hand-held microphones, but any of the singing was obviously pre-recorded.

So we have this unnamed band, which I will now refer to as the “Feline Puppets”, and they’re doing their music dancing. And they’re doing what was described as “a remix” of a song from Slumdog Millionaire. So they’re on nationally televised TV, “performing their song”, which is actually a song that was originally done by Indian guy called A.R.Rahaman. So the guy is now getting international exposure for this music he’s made. And this “Feline Puppets” band remixes it and starts performing it everywhere.

I’m not down on technology, or remixing songs. I’m not down on electronic music, or being able to record stuff that other people have done. Play on. But something tells me that the “remix” will do much better than the original version, just like Pat Boone’s version of Tutti Frutti made the top ten while Little Richards fell far short.

Still, Little Richard wrote “Long Tall Sally” as a result, because he wanted to write something that was too fast for Pat Boone to sing, so maybe something good will come of this.

Oh, and tonight on Fallon? The Virgins. Much better.

Yats Cajun/Creole

Back when I was attending UK, there was a a chain of local restaurants called Jozo’s. They had an alligator with an apron and a chef’s hat as their mascot, and they made cajun food at its best. The first time I had Jozo’s, my boss at the time got if for a couple of us who were working over the weekend. I was leery but I gave it a shot, and I was blown away.

I became a Jozo’s regular– the food was great, there was a lot of it, and the prices were great. There were Jozo’s all over Lexington, and I visited most of them at one time or another. I took my friends there, and I took family there if they visited. I got my wife hooked on their food, and I loved it so much that I started trying to cook it at home.

Eventually, we left Lexington and moved to Omaha, and I had to leave Jozo’s behind. I looked for a cajun joint in Nebraska but never found one that was even close. When I came back to Louisville, I would drive back to Lexington just to get some Jozo’s (and that’s two hours round-trip folks).  And then something happened.

Shortly after we had moved back to Kentucky, I wound up in Lexington to see Kevin Smith, and I showed up early so I’d have time to get dinner. I drove past one Jozo’s location after another, but they weren’t there any more. I must have hit three different spots, but the place had disappeared.

I tried other places as I found them. Louisville was lucky enough to have Joe’s OK Bayou and J. Gumbo’s, and they both have really great food. But you never forget your first love.

Just before I left Lexington, I came across a restaurant called Yats that was just opening. The owner was the same guy that had started Jozo’s, and the name was a popular saying in New Orleans– “Yat?” was shorthand for “Where ya at?”, meaning “What’s going on? How you doing?” I was intrigued but I never got a chance to eat there.

But that all changed today. I decided to search for a cajun restaurant in Indianapolis, and the first result I found on Google was a placed called Yats. I looked up the directions and got out the door, and when I got out of the car a half-block away, I could already smell the stuff that I’d been missing. It’s close to the campus (don’t ask me which one), just like Jozo’s had been. And when I placed my order for Red Beans and Rice, I asked them if they were connected to Jozo’s.

“Hey Joe, come out here!” yelled the guy at the counter, and ten seconds later, Jozo himself came out of the kitchen! Joe Vuskovich turned out to be a really great guy and was surprised someone came in from his Jozo’s days. He gave me a card for a free entree, but I didn’t need an excuse to go back. I was really pleased to have met him.

As I remembered, the food was great, and there was plenty of it. And as I’m continuously reminded, things happen when you least expect them. It isn’t Jozo’s exactly, but I’m not exactly that college kid either, so we’ll call it even.

This is now a website. It is being held together by spit and duct tape. It isn’t designed. It isn’t styled. Hopefully, it’s functional at some level. You get the idea, right?

Seriously, rather than wait for some cool and totally average design to come together, I have thrown together three colors and one graphic in order to post this site. I hope you like it.

I can’t promise that I’ll update it often, or that a new design will come, or anything else. But at least I’ll have somewhere to point people from work who want pictures of the new baby.