Dave Fox's Outbursts!

Ærø Dynamics

Ærøskøbing, Denmark

You never know what you're going to find when you arrive in Ærøskøbing, the cozy capital of the island of Ærø. On Friday night, there was a free rock concert on the town square by a band called the Ærø Boys. The Ærø Boys consist of the mayor of Æroskøbing, his brother, and his two sons.

Around 9 at night, I saw a police car come around the corner. This surprised me because a town resident once told me the police on this little island only work 9 to 5, Monday through Thursday, and take off early on Fridays. A few minutes later I saw the uniformed officer at the concert, chatting with friends, smoking a pipe.

The band rocked out to a mixture of Danish tunes and covers by American bands. Lynyrd Skynyrd will never sound quite the same now that I have heard "Sweet Home Alabama" sung with a Danish accent.

The Digital Bugle: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Five-hundred buglers are qualified by the US military to play "Taps," but with roughly 1,800 veterans and Iraq war soldiers dying every day, there aren't enough bugle players to keep up with all the funerals. So the military has come up with a solution: the digital bugle.

Anyone can play it. Even you. You just hold it up to your mouth, puff out your cheeks like Louis Armstrong, and discretely push a button on the bugle. A speaker concealed in the horn then belts out a pitch-perfect rendition of the smash funeral hit.

According to CNN, "The Pentagon tested the method for six months, before approving it for wider use last year, and reported that most families were satisfied with the experience."

This raises interesting questions such as: What the hell?!?!

We are at war and the Pentagon has just spent six months testing an artificial bugle? Is this good use of Pentagon time? Is President Bush going to play the fake bugle on Letterman before the November election? He and Bill Clinton could jam.

I have a better idea. Instead of inventing fake bugles to replace real ones, the Pentagon should invent a fake war to replace the one we're having. That way we wouldn't have so many funerals and we wouldn't need so many people to play "Taps."

Experience the Same Music Over and Over and Over Again Project

I just had dinner with some friends at the Turntable -- the restaurant inside Seattle's "Experience Music Project" rock 'n' roll museum. During the time we were eating, we heard "Crash" by the Dave Matthews Band not once, not twice, but three times.

The museum charges $19.95 to get in. Cocktails in the restaurant are $7.50 each. With prices like that, can they not afford to invest in a few more CDs?