Texas Speedbump

Last night I went to a Medeski, Martin and Wood concert in Dallas.

They're a pretty amazing jazz jam band from New York.

Each of them are phenomenal musicians, but I've got to be honest, the only times I felt myself really get into it was when they fell into some really great, obvious grooves.

Jazz is usually like that for me though, I guess I'm not a die hard fan, because I have to have it spoon fed to me. I can appreciate the talent of each of the musicians, but I don't just sit back and listen unless I'm tapping my foot with the rhythm of the bass drum.

They did probably six numbers (out of a two and a half hour concert) that I would love to have on an album (which I probably couldn't even get on an album because so much/all(?) of their stuff is improvisational). Those six though, wow ain't no denying these guys are phenomenal.

You know, I say I'd like it on an album, but I really only like jazz live anyway. Doesn't make sense does it? Maybe that's why I keep going back, because it is such a difficult thing for me to define... even as far as my own enjoyment of it...?

I'm really not trying to be vague, it probably all just boils down to my attention span. I'd probably be a hard core fan if a show lasted about forty-five minutes. Maybe I'm just not focused enough.

Which reminds me:

My car is in the shop, so to get to the concert, we worked it out that I'd ride the Trinity Railway from Fort Worth to Dallas, and Daryel would pick me up at the train stop in the medical/market center.

I did that once before with family, and I remember thinking that it was great because Fort Worth is so mellow and it's nice to just park there and then hop on the train to crazier Dallas. But I never did it again until last night. I think it's because the things I usually do in Dallas go later than the 10:45 final train.

But after doing it again last night, I think I'm going to make it a point to ride it more often. It's so cheap and easy (just like I like my wo... just kidding).

Anyway, I was riding the train, looking out the window and do you know what I saw lying to the side of the tracks? Or I should say, do you know what I saw one half of?

Yes, to all of you from Texas who guessed.

An armadillo.

Just the bottom half (two legs and a tail) lying in the gravel off to the side of the track.

My first (ridiculous) thought was to race over to the window on the other side of the train and look to see if I could find the top half, but obviously, that wouldn't have worked. Not unless our train was considerably narrower than it was. And we're not yet so sophisticated to have a mono-rail in our public transit system.

It's funny to me that they could plague the railroad tracks as efficiently as the highways.

You know, I've seen dead armadillos since I was a little kid, but I didn't see my first live one until I was in my late teens.

In realizing that the armadillo was cut in half by one side of our train, it was strange to think that the other half must have been directly under us. But then I got to looking at the tracks running parallel to ours and I noticed that each rail is like nine inches high.

No small hurdle for such a short-legged, heavily armored rodent.

So then I got this mental image of the armadillo starting to cross the first rail, and then getting stuck, it's front and back legs suspended on opposite sides of the rail.

At first this was sad, but then I thought, what if it's been there for hours (disregarding the regularity of the train schedule), what if it was a relief for it to finally be hit?

What if its last thought was, Well, at least I won't starve to death.

This entry has certainly taken a morbid turn. I'll just say it's a beautiful, sunny, and warm day; I'm going to enjoy it, and end this here.