You probably haven’t heard Everbody Ona Move either. So, go to the iTunes Store and buy it. Go buy it now. It’ll cost 99 cents. Come on–I have NEVER told you to go buy something here on Prematurely Grey. If I’m telling you to buy it, you should buy it.

“This track is love 45/This track is love amplified/This track combats genocide.”

It’s by Michael Frant and Spearhead and is the first song that’s made me dance about the Middle East since Rock the Casbah. It has a little bit of a Double Dutch Bus/Tom Tom Club feeling, which is like saying a country song reminds me of Johnny Cash.

It’s funny: KUT has made some changes to their schedule. Eklektikos is shorter (ends at 11), Jay comes in at noon, and David Brown has a weekly show on Texas music on Fridays at lunch time. Of course, part of me is protesting, but only a very little part. John’s vacation this summer wasn’t nearly as painful for me as it was last year. Part of that has to do with how busy I’ve become and my need to stop making listening to the radio the primary achievement of the day. It’s part of the adjustment to working with other people again and having to accomodate their schedules. KUT became my companion when I stopped working in 2003. Or, more accurately, KUT kept me sane during a time of tremendous change and profound aloneness. I wasn’t lonely when I listened to the radio.

Now KUT’s made changes, not me. My changes seem to have happened without any serious forethought. Right now, I’m trying to decide how permanent I want these changes to be. Are there are other changes to make? What I know for sure is that my life barely resembles the one I started living when the girls went back to school in 2003 and I didn’t. The life where John Aielli’s musical choices, like playing Ravel’s Bolero everyday for a month, could be the primary thing I thought about. Now I’m lucky that I managed to get Thea in the car at just the right time, given the things I’m supposed to do on any give day between 7:45 and 2:45, let alone the ones that come post-pickup. Everybody Ona Move.

He said, “Just one second, ” and handed me the phone. He mouthed, “John Aielli.”

“Liz, this is John Aielli.”

There was the voice, my morning companion, coming out of Chris’ phone. It was ten at night. For me, John Aielli exists between 9:00 and 1:00. Sometimes he peeks out a little past one, when there’s a funddrive, to tell us how things went in the final push to meet the hour’s goal, after the cows. Apparently, John Aielli can speak at all hours of the day.

Perhaps you’re wondering, “Why was John Aielli calling Lize at ten o’clock last night?” Perhaps you sense a little lack of context, a gap in the story, perhaps related to the narrator’s recent reticence. You may have noticed a drop in activity, some sort of forty days in the wilderness.

Yes, I’ve been thinking of changing the name from Prematurely Grey to Permanently Quiet.

It’s not as though I’ve been sitting here in front of my computer, not having anything to say, over the time of quiet. I’ve been to volleyball tournaments and dance recitals, packed field trip lunches and purchased swim team swim suits. I’ve helped the hobbled dog get up and down, brought her bowl to her, kept her company, read her mind. I’ve become lize@bside.com and tried to help the person in charge of marketing, even though I feel like the middle-aged intern whose every word needs to be edited because she’s a PR novice.

At the same time, I bought some serious shoes (pictures soon, I promise) and realized that the greying of the hair and the booking of rock bands didn’t work together in my imagination. Yes, I am working on the booking of rock bands. I am planning kick-ass shows.

The big opening show for the Bside Roadshow is this Sunday night. I haven’t written my giant group email, telling everyone I know to come out and see “Before the Music Dies” and Guy Forsyth and his secret (even from us) guests. I’m trying to tell people about it when I see them, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to write about it. Not one word.

On Friday, I took screeners of Before the Music Dies over to KUT. It was around two. I’d written John email, telling him I was going to do it. I had four copies–John was top of the list, followed by Jeff McCord, Jay Trachtenburg, and Michael Brown.

Friday was the first day of summer vacation. The pool hadn’t opened. The girls and I had been to Hobby Lobby (Mazie’s reward for a year on Top Honor Roll). It was hot. At least there was a parking spot right outside the Communications building. Campus was deserted.

I walked into the KUT lobby. There was a woman sitting behind the desk with a Wendy’s bag. I asked about getting the DVDs to the dj’s. She was just sitting there. She didn’t know a thing. I poked my head into the big room where they set up the phone bank.

The room was completely full. Full of the entire KUT staff, listening to Stuart Vanderwilt, the manager, talk. I saw Jeff McCord across the room, near the front. I pulled a Bugs Bunny disappearance from the door as soon as I saw what was going on.

I sat in the dark lobby with the girls, scribbling handwritten notes and taping them (with new tape from Hobby Lobby, so there’s the silver lining to that task) to the DVDs. I wrote John’s first. I’d just finished it when he walked from the hall toward the door of the conference room.

“John, I’m Lize Burr. Here’s the DVD I emailed you about.”

I guess we both took the other one by surprise. John looked at me like a crazed fan (good call), took the DVD, and walked into the meeting. A couple minutes later, we heard Stuart announce John’s name and the room bursting into applause. I finished Jeff’s note. I was getting ready to head to the office, to find a mailbox or inbox to put it in when the meeting ended and Jeff walked to the elevator, right in front of us.

“Jeff, I’m Lize Burr. I’m here to give you this screener for a documentary we’re showing next Sunday at Republic Square Park.” He was wearing a purple t-shirt that had some sort of Native American something on it. He’s very tall and a little craggy.

It took a couple of minutes, but he remembered hearing about the movie at SXSW. He knew about the fake pop song section. I asked him to watch it over the three day weekend. He clued in on the date being a week from Sunday and Guy Forsyth playing. He asked me to email him this week. He got in the elevator. We left and went about our sweaty day.

But you want to know about the conversation, what it was John Aielli and I spoke about. What made him call Chris’ cell phone. (Chris’ card was already in the DVD jacket, so I didn’t put mine in. Which is good because I don’t look at or answer my cell phone at ten at night.)

He was watching the movie. He was watching the movie and something made him think. Something made him stop and think and pause the movie and call me to talk about what he was thinking about. Then he told me a couple of stories. And I answered back with related stories. And he said, “Well, we could talk all night. Here’s what you gotta do: you have to give me all the information abou the show.” I suggested emailing it to him at work. He said, “Exactly.”

Why am I not telling you the stories? Why am I holding out? The same reason I don’t write up certain conversations I’ve had with you, Dear Reader. I don’t want any of my friends to think that I’ll expose too much about them or our friendship in this blog. I’m the one with the mother who wrote about me in novels and stories and letters. I’m the person whose life is the basis of blurbs on the back of a book. I’m the person who can’t write fiction because she isn’t clever enough to completely make things up and knows that she can’t base anything on anyone she’s ever known for fear of hurting their feelings, even though the stories and situations are great and they’d be well worth retelling, strung along in some truly fictional way. So, this time, this is the story.

And if I go back to Questlove, forgive me. He’s helping me learn to become a music-promoting, blog-writing, superpower-using force for good.

You may have noticed that the previous entry was listed under “my god, what have i done?” If you read it, you might see how playing the song might have been a lot more effective. I’ll figure out how to link to songs later, so you can just listen. Maybe it’s time I turn into a DJ and let myself play God. But today my fate was in John A’s hands. And his plan was to get me both to pledge and to believe in the power of writing about listening again.
If anybody out there still doubts my faith in the radio, well, you’re simply not paying attention.

But many said Monday that they were stunned by how many responded to the call to march against federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants and penalize those who assist them.

As a result, what was initially expected to draw fewer than 20,000 ballooned into a massive march that police estimated at 500,000 and said was one of the largest demonstrations in Los Angeles’ history. The march topped a wave of protests drawing hundreds of thousands of participants in cities around the nation, which organizers said influenced the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s approval Monday of legislation that includes legalization for undocumented immigrants.

Extreme heat is likely today with temperatures reaching 102 degrees, but gut instinct tells it will be more likely to hit 105 in the Austin area. Although not as hot, expect temperatures to about 101 for tomorrow and then much more pleasant weather for Thursday and the weekend.

Let’s here it for gut instinct! The New York Times weather, which I read every day because I am a weather freak is treading on EXTREMELY thin ice today, Austin-wise. While the Times is to be applauded for featuring Austin in the little weather highlight du jour (Austin Limits–doesn’t seem to be available online–for shame), the print edition forecast high for the day is 99º. Come on, the Weather Channel has us at 102º! Wait, what’s this, the online version of the Times now has Austin at 102º.

To recap: gut instinct tells KXAN weatherman Shawn Rutherford that it’s going to be more like 105º than 102º. The New York Times is conflicted and everyone at yoga is predicting 107º.

By the way, “much more pleasant weather” means low 90s to upper 80s.