His Mind Is Not For Rent To Any God Or Government

You may or may not have heard of a place called The Tie Dye Grill, out on the good old east side. It's a family-run joint with a - surprise! - hippie theme that serves up pretty standard bar-and-grill type food (cue a groan from Scott). Amy and I have eaten there a few times and have been pleased with the fare. You can check out the menu on their website. If you like a good, quality hamburger, though, you can't do much better in these parts.

I called in an order for us tonight, dashed over to pick it up, and queued up behind the handful of people ahead of me on line at the counter. One of the guys who runs the place gave me a wave and asked how I was doing. They're friendly like that - and, unlike when the staff at chain restaruants say similar things, these people mean it. As I'm standing there in line, I become aware of a sound to my left. They have a big-screen television in one corner of the dining room, which usually has some kind of music program playing on it, and that was what had caught my ear.

I turned to glance at the television and was more than a little surprised to see Geddy, Alex, and Neil thrashing away at "Tom Sawyer," from the Rush In Rio DVD. I had never seen the DVD, although I do own the three-disc CD version of it. "Tom Sawyer" is not quite the same thing that is used to be at a live Rush show. The boys have slowed with age, so the tempo of the song has come down, and they no longer bring it out to surprise you at some point during the show - it's probably the toughest song in their live set for Neil to play, so they open with it now. Otherwise, he would be too worn out to play it later on.

Listening to their music is nothing to seeing them play - especially if you get copious overhead shots of the Professor on the drum kit. Below is a shot of the Professor with the drum kit he used on the R30 tour, to give you some idea (for the non-Rush fans) of all of the different things Neil has that he can hit with his drumsticks. The picture is from the R30 tour book, nicely cropped to wallpaper size and available for download at a Rush fan site called Power Windows, which has lots of good Rush stuff, although the crown jewel is the page of desktop pictures taken from album covers and tour books over the whole of their career.



So immersed was I in watching this concert DVD that I did not notice that my place in line had come up until the guy at the counter hollered my total and said that my order was ready to go. I was pretty sure it was the Rush In Rio DVD that was playing, but I asked just to make sure, and he said that it was - and he also said that if I was ever dining in and wanted to watch it, that I could ask and they would throw it in. "We take requests," he said. Take that, you foul chain restaurants.

After we finished eating, Amy fed Jackson, and then handed him off to me for the burping. He didn't burp much, though, and instead fell asleep. And for a wonder, he stayed asleep. It seems as though he might be getting used to me - and might even like me a little bit, who knows? He stayed asleep there on my chest long enough for us to watch A Few Good Men. I asked Amy to snap a picture of this rare phenomenon - and said picture follows.



Now playing on iTunes:
"Tom Sawyer" by Rush, from Rush In Rio