Sometimes something nice comes together out of nowhere.
Last Wednesday
My friend from all the way back Ned (who has lived in New Orleans for 25 years now):
Just throwing a song idea your way. I remember every other Mardi Gras thinking to myself: everywhere else in America it's just another Tuesday. Well, this year Mardi Gras in New Orleans is pretty much like everywhere else because Mardi Gras is for the most part canceled. I was wondering if you had any inspiration for a song exploring that feeling. I have yet to sit down and write anything but wanted to share the idea with you.
Me:
Hey Ned! That's a terrific idea. I will give it some thought. Great one.
Thursday
Ned:
Awesome. I'll see if I have some music. There's actually a song I've been working on that might work for this. I've got a rough version of the music on Dropbox. It may be too mellow, a Mardi Gras song maybe needs more hopeful pep in it.
Me:
Listening now. Great stuff, dude. Really nice listen. And frankly the loss of Mardi Gras seems to conjure a slow and sad song. This could work... Giving it a few listens and I'll try to come up with some words.
Saturday
Me:
Sending you my take on the lyrics. See what you think. Went back and forth on the chorus. Settled on an allusion to it not being Fat Tuesday.
Ned:
Damn, dude. The right mix of clever and heartstring pulling. Thinking of trying to get this done and released by Tuesday. And also make a video of the song. May be too ambitious.
Yesterday
Just Another Tuesday
(Ned Henry/Les Coole)
3 rocks there smack / in my Sazerac / is the only float today
4 beads of sweat / from the mignonette / are the only beads in play
Magazine is empty / And there ain’t a soul around
It’s just another Tuesday / And I’m uptown feelin’ down
CHORUS
Lord, it feels so thin
Please bring it back again
Fairly soon / this doubloon / will be back on the shelf
I’m the King / of not one thing / A krewe unto myself
I’m a one-man carnival / and it’s all neutral ground
It’s just another Tuesday / and I’m uptown feeling down
CHORUS
BRIDGE
Ain’t never seen this town this way / it feels so strange
What I took for granted / that’s all gonna change
No parades / no hand grenades / the Quarter’s one-eighth filled
The good times rolled / they’re all on hold / all broke up, my go cup spilled
The Ash comes in tomorrow / with the tolling of the bells
But today’s just another Tuesday / just like everywhere else
In the second installment of Music Month madness, we're providing you an appendix-like list of all kinds of music resources on the web. (By appendix-like, I meant the document kind, not the anatomical variety, though you may find you can live without this list just as much.)
The path to enjoyable listening is no longer via reading Rolling Stone and listening to K-94 or WNOR FM99. It's not watching videos on MTV or Friday Night Videos. It's not even going to iTunes and seeing what Cameron Diaz put on her celebrity playlist. Really digging deeper requires a modicum of effort . . . but really, we've done the heavy lifting here, so simply enter these links as bookmarks, sit back, and let the music play, as Shannon once sang.
25 Good to Great Music Websites
To Listen to Music:
Pandora Radio Most are familiar with this clever site by now. You tell Pandora what kind of music you like, and she opens up her box and creates something of a radio station based on your input. In addition to what you already dig, you'll hear suggestions for similar-sounding material. You have to register with the site, and I think there may be limits to what you can get for free, but it's a very cool concept.
NPR's "All Songs Considered" Yes, NPR. Their music branch is tip-top; their knowledge and access where new, unheralded rock and roll is concerned is impressive. The site has video and audio clips of live shows, interviews and reviews, and lots of solid recommendations. The Podcast, so long as you can endure Bob Boilen's unique voice, always has clips of the new and out of the mainstream. They've got a good thing going over there in public radio.
WXPN This Philly station's site is among the best internet radio sites that's actually on the FM dial. "Eclectic" is a term that's frequently overused these days, but it fits their "format," if you have to have a format. (Channeling Clark Griswold again.) In the last few hours they've played The Allmans, Modest Mouse, live Cure, The Monkees, Rhett Miller, Fine Young Cannibals, Elvis, Beatles, & the Rolling Stones (much to 1977 Joe Strummer's chagrin), Slade, Beck, Wilco, and UB40. And always lots of Springsteen, natch. And it goes on -- check out the "Playlists" link to see everything they've played of late. It's akin to putting my 160GBer on shuffle, except without the Random Idiots and other crap. XPN also has periodic contests and giveaways during fund drives; their excellence makes them very little money, as usual. Give it a listen.
KEXP Out on the left coast, things get a little more fringe-y. Whereas WXPN prides itself on the aforementioned eclecticism, KEXP's focus is music off the radar. That could mean erstwhile alt-country acts that Rob and I have been touting for some time (Wilco, Old 97's), 80's alternative stuff, obscure album tracks from Ziggy Stardust or Highway 61 Revisited, or the best new music you'll only hear down in the lowest numbers of your radio dial -- or probably not at all. This morning there's been some Elliott Smith, Wilco, Yo La Tengo, Waterboys, The Hold Steady, Radiohead, Psychedelic Furs, Cat Power, New Order, and a whole lot of acts even Rob and I have never heard of. For me, it's a bit of mining for gold there, as they won't all please the ears but when you come across a good one, it's a keeper.
YouTube Have you guys heard about this YouTube site?? You can post videos there! Yeah, okay, all G:TB readers are painfully familiar with what's been called "YouTJube," but the reason it's included here is that there is a wealth of live music on there. If you like a band and the 30-second morsel iTunes feeds you doesn't give you enough of a feel for it, there's every chance there's a live or studio version of it on YouTube. Or the actual video. Or the audio track of the song set to a video of some guy shoving a kzoo up his nostril at an Arby's drive-thru.
blip.fm Take what I said about YouTube and add it here, except for one major addition. At blip.fm, you have your own radio/video station that people "follow" a la Twitter. You search for songs -- and, added by users, there are millions -- and "blip" them, so they pop up for those folks following you to click on and listen. (You can synch it with your Twitter account as well, enabling your Twitter followers to see/hear your recommendations too.) It's a great place to find and hear a tune you might like, and it's a great forum for hearing recommended music in its entirety.
To Read About Music:
On the CD Front Pause and Play's On the CD Front has a comprehensive list of all of the new releases and re-issues coming out on a Tuesday-to-Tuesday basis. Get the heads-up on who's putting out what in months to come. They also include music-related DVD's and books as well. It's simple to scan through and notice that you should start saving your pennies for that new Stryper Greatest Hits (Mark). Pause and Play -- the main part of the site -- has plenty of good reading as well.
The All-Music Guide Speaking of comprehensive, the All-Music Guide is an enormously voluminous library of reviews of rock and roll music. (And classical, but let's not go down that road.) The team of writers gauge everything from New Riders of the Purple Sage to the New York Dolls to New Order to New Potato Caboose to New Edition to the New Birth Brass Band to the New Pornographers on their 5-star rating scale. They aren't always in synch with my tastes, but 4 ½ times out of 5 they are. It's my first stop to learn more most every time.
Pitchfork Pitchfork goes beyond the music reviews [which it has a-plenty, and on a full 10-point (with decimals) scale], providing the latest music news, interviews, and tour headlines. They even have their own music festival. Pitchfork strays towards the indie bands but still makes time for some major label work. That said, find the new Rod Stewart record review elsewhere (TR). The 'fork can be a bit aloof and rock snobbish at times, but hey, who isn't?
Paste Magazine online In the 80's, I subscribed to Rolling Stone. It was, and in some pale shadowy way, still is the gold standard. (Do not pay for it now.) In the 90's and early 2000's, it was CMJ Music Monthly magazine. A very good publication, it came with a sampler CD and positive reviews of nearly everyone they covered. (Leading me to invest in acts that weren't stellar; Fastball and Louis XIV come to mind.) Nowadays I swear by Paste magazine. It's a very grass rootsy publication based outside Atlanta -- so grass rootsy that they had to launch a campaign to raise enough money this spring to keep from folding up its tents. Their site equals the print edition plus -- they have very good reviews, good articles, rare downloads, and a bit of fluff. My only complaint is that they occasionally fall into the trap of widening their scope beyond music; The 17 Best Romantic Comedies of This Decade was mildly interesting (to TJ), but out of place, so says I. Anyway, Paste is head, shoulders, midriff, and pelvic region above RS these days, so if you're looking to spend a few bucks on a music mag, this is the one.
Metacritic Reviews, reviews, reviews. From David Fricke at RS to user "bongioviwater69" on a random music message board, everyone's got an opinion and there are more avenues to share them. So how does one reach the plateau of enlightenment to find out if U2's latest work is revelatory rock or retread rubbish? (As always, the truth is somewhere in the middle on that one.) Why not take a sampling of the most respected (Spin Magazine notwithstanding, heh heh heh) reviewers and take the average rating? Metacritic does exactly that, compiling scores and even including snippets from each review. It's your one-stop shopping for music critiques. A little bit Wal-Mart for an industry whose best representatives are desperately clinging to Mom & Pop virtue, but hey, the economy's tough. Why would you want to buy an album based one one review when you can see the gamut?
musical-musings And in the far, musty, dusty corner of the blogosphere, we have a well-crafted, clever-not-snarky, and dare I say brilliant blog of music writing. And defunct for years. And it's mostly comprised of G:TB writers. So this entire mention is self-serving and pointless. But go check it out if you're truly bored.
To Buy Music:
iTunes Heard of it? Okay, no details needed, but it's still a work of genius by the Appleheads. At the very least a point of reference.
Amazon Heard of it? It lags behind in its ubiquitous association with music downloads, but as TR points out, you get the same songs as iTunes without the format restrictions. Of course, iTunes has now made it possible to convert their protected downloads to mp3 at the click of a button, but it's an extra step you don't have to do with Amazon.
eMusic For anywhere between $6.49 and $30.99 a month you'll receive between 12 and 75 unprotected downloads from eMusic. Once an independent-label vehicle only, you used to get more for less, but once they acquired Sony's catalog, you can guess what happened. Still, beyond the Sony/Columbia/Epic titles, there are thousands of titles by lesser-known acts whose work can be yours for between 41 and 54 cents a track. Sorry for all the math.
SecondSpin.com Don't mind used? Don't have a hang-up about squeezing the artist out of the pecuniary equation? Go to SecondSpin. As we've mentioned before on this forum, there are times and places where it's been deemed morally acceptable to download music for free. Same with used CD's. If they're small time or friends of friends, maybe find a way to get them some of your monies (including going to see them). If it's Houses of the Holy you want, go to SecondSpin. Plant, Page, & JPJ will be just fine. CD's are anywhere from $1.99 (for the dreck or super-indie) to $8.99 for the premier single disc-ers. Uncovering out-of-print stuff is a nice bonus, too.
To Learn Music:
The Internet Seriously. You want to know the lyrics to a certain song? Any song that ever appeared on a CD (just about)? Enter song lyrics clash guns of brixton (or whatever the song happens to be) in any search engine and see the plethora of results. azlyrics.com, sing365.com, lyricsfreak, lyricsdepot, etc. None that I have seen rises above the rest. In fact, they all seem to have copied off each other (with a few erroneous exceptions). You'll get a pop-up window or two, but you'll get the lyrics. And it goes "Philomath is where I go by dawn" in case you were wondering. OLGA's descendents In the beginning, for guitar tablature, there was only OLGA: the OnLine Guitar Archive. She was helpful beyond all 1997 expectations. Somewhere in the decade or so that passed, however, OLGA faded into the ether thanks to "lawyers," and a hundred other guitar tab sites popped up. Her progeny runs just like the lyrics sites above. Enter guitar tabs stairway to heaven in any search engine, you got it.
The Covers Project I wasn't sure how to categorize this one, and you might consider this site extraneous; I consider it fun. It's a site dedicated to cover tunes; simply enter a band or song, and a wealth of returns appear. If you are doing your dissertation on the quest for the best all-time cover of "Johnny B. Goode," well, then, by all means, go see The Covers Project.
BandtoBand Looking for even more light-hearted music fun? Did you enjoy the 90's fun game "The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon"? Come on down to Band to Band! Here's the concept: The family of rock and roll is not unlike that of rural Alabama; everyone's kin in some way or other. (And yes, I have family in southern AL.) Pick a pair of bands and see how few jumps it takes to connect them via collaboration in some way. Beastie Boys and The Beatles are next to each other in the record bin, but it takes 6 jumps (including one via the Traveling Wilburys, which is always nice) to connect them in this game. Mindless fun, and more instances of marveling at the effort someone put in.
To Go See Music:
Pollstar We used to listen to radio stations, read the paper, and wait to be told by more knowledgeable people when bands were coming to town. Now it's easy. Pollstar was the early leader in websites tracking tour information, and it's still the one I check first. Search by city, venue, or band. Like many sites on this list, it's addictive.
JamBase See above. JamBase I liked as an alternative to Pollstar because you could customize it a bit more, adding in your favorite bands and having it e-mail you when they were coming to your town. But it's mostly the same, and it's good.
Tourfilter A Zoltan recommendation, I like this one because it strips away the fluff and gives you the meat you want minus the filler on the page. I don't need a picture of the Drive-By Truckers, I just want to know when they're coming back to VA. And Tourfilter spells it out pretty plainly. Again, however, the material is largely the same as above -- except that with Tourfilter, you need to live in one of its 80 cities. I do. These days, even Facebook's iLike feature can notify you when your faves are hitting your hometown. No excuses for missing a show now, lads & lasses.
StubHub Okay, so let me reiterate a monotonous theme: there are others that do this as well, I just like the one I mention the best. StubHub has gotten me playoff Mets tickets (eons agon, dammit), but it's gotten me Wilco in New Orleans and Brooklyn, U2 in Charlottesville, and . . . yes, fine . . . Morrissey in Norfolk. Yep, you'll usually pay a little more than face value. But won't you do so gladly if it's not exorbitant and your alternative is sitting home and hearing about it later? Love this technological advancement.
To Learn More About the Artist:
Official Artist Sites Okay, there are countless good to great official websites by rock and rollers. I don't have the time or patience to do your work for you. If one is particularly good, comment on it or e-mail me and we can add it here. (That rule applies to this entire post.)
Wilco: Tour dates are a staples of artist sites, but few let you listen to entire shows from a few days ago. Wilco (not official but close): Want to see somethign impressive? Go look at every setlist from every show Wilco has ever done. Ever. Starting in 1994, up through last week. It's "wow" if you have mild interest in the band, and a serious time-eater if you are a longtime fan. Dave Matthews Band: Say what you will about DMB's "overvalued" status (as a friend put it). The site is impressive. Buy mp3's of a boatload of shows. Yeah, that makes it commercial, but availability is pretty cool.
That should give you something to do this afternoon . . . besides checking back here every 10 minutes for comment brilliance, it goes without saying.
Well, this here
is the first-ever installment of Gmas in July, aka Whitney is finally, at long
last getting around to finishing Day 12 from 2025. What can I say? It's beyond
me. Whitney “The Day 12 Delivery Guy” bricked. Again.
Anyway, let me tell you what Melba Toast here is packin’. A wish list. No, not 12 covers of this song.
Things I would love
to see happen. Love to experience. Love to live to be a part of. This will be a
mixed bag for sure, sentimental yearnings of a man seeing his twilight closer
than his heyday… mixed with utter dipshittery. Hope you find at least one thing
that resonates. As Peter Buck once wrote, Good hunting.
1. A song recording featuring the G:TB ensemble
I mean one including
all of us on it, or damn close to it. It’s super easy these days to create and
release musical recordings. Jesus, I’ve done it… under threedifferentband
names.
So here’s what
we do. We collectively have a deadline for lyrical submissions -- something
gheorghey. Then we hammer out the music for the tune we choose. Then everyone
records vocals and/or an instrumental track! Several among the Gheorgherati have
music setups, but even something recorded over a phone or laptop can work.
And it comes
together as a masterpiece or a mess… but it’s fun. I’ll run point on this.
Like I said, a
wishlist. Long shots and pipe dreams.
2. A G:TB Maxi-Summit, with a portrait to follow
We’ve had
oodles of mini-summits through the years, but probably not a full-on one since
TeejFest or TeejWed. And even then, folks were missing. How about a
get-together for all the gheorghies?
With a grand,
inclusive, for-all-times pic to be a part of that gathering, something that
builds off these masterpieces below and includes the masses…
A boy can
dream…
3. An OBFT documentary
This must
happen. The summer of 2026 makes 33 annual sojourns down to the promised
land. 32 years since we cobbled together
a misfit band of fraternity alums and associated acquaintances to “drink like a
fish, fish like a drunk, and tackle box.”
Rob, Dave, and
I have waxed nostalgic and hung over about the OBFT in this blog year after year, at least
since OBFT 11. There’s evidence of what this has meant herein. But it could be
captured much more cohesively and amusingly with a 30-minute mini-doc.
Certainly one
of our trip-goers has kids who can do this in a snap! Right?
It’s what I
really, really wish can happen in the next year or so.
4. A G:TB documentary
I mean, for
that matter, why can’t I wish for us to chronicle the two-plus decades of
brilliance in this space? I dare say we have more staying power than most of
the millions of blogs who launched in early aughts!
According to
Allen Iverson (AI):
There are over
600 million blogs in the world today, accounting for more than a third of all
websites on the internet. Together, these platforms publish approximately 7.5
million new blog posts every single day, which adds up to more than 2.7 billion
articles annually.
So for every 80
out there, only one publishes daily. Gheorghe is more of an every-other-day
affair, so we are one in 40! Whatever it is, it’s been a brilliant experiment
that still brings joy. Some short film on Gheorghe: the Blog – that culminates
with a clip from the man himself? Come on.
5. A moratorium on hyperbolic superlatives
Anyone who wastes
enjoys time on any social media accounts such as FB or Insta finds themselves
increasingly inundated with material not posted by friends and neighbors, but
by random people and robots that the engine has decided you’d like. Confession:
I do get plenty of chuckles from the silliest of videos. Like way too many.
At the same
time, though, I am often irked by the ubiquity of dunderheaded taglines that
implore you to watch its video with ludicrous superlatives. Mega-superlatives
-- hyperbolic descriptors assuring you that what you are about to see, hear, or
(maybe, if it’s super retro) read will be the most ____ you have ever seen in
the history of your whole life ever.
It wasn't.
Enough. Maybe
undersell it with a tag like “this might be of interest to you” for a change.
Unlikely. But I wish it weren't.
6. More Pig on the Wall!
I want Dave’s
current podcast (Pig on the Wall) to continue. To tackle new great ideas, to
collaborate with people gheorghies and otherwise, and to bring him happiness
and satisfaction.
If you haven’t
tuned in, his description of this second iteration of Dave / Professor Truck /
Dave G. Truck podcasting (or was The Test a podcast? Is this the 3rd?)
is as such:
We stand on the shoulders of giants—which is precisely why attribution is so messy.
Great ideas are the product of many minds, from many times.
"Pig on the Wall" connects the dots of human progress, putting great accomplishments into context.
His first batch
of episodes (seven so far with presumably one more to go) have been focused on
Hamlet. Ten and one-half hours of talking about the Shakespeare classic and
it’s not done yet. Are you kidding me??!
Listen to it.
I’m serious. Those 10 hours have flown by, and it’s chock full of clips from a
wide array of performances and interpretations of Hamlet. And much more. It’s
riveting, I mean it.
The more
listeners, the better chance he keeps doing it, and it’s worthy of
sustainment. And that's what I wish for.
7. Perfecting Arch, my AI Archivist
This is one
that my wife finds very weird, and I kind of hope she's not reading this.
Four months
ago, a handful of traveled to Hoboken, NJ to convene in a pub over a couple days
and watch international rugby on TV. There were 30 of us, in fact, all
members of a particular fraternity at the College of William & Mary between
the graduating years of 1986 and 2000. It was a blast. I only mention this
because on the trip back, I sat in the Newark airport with one of them (our buddy Lunkhead) for a couple of hours. We talked about a number of things,
but we spoke for a while about AI. He was rather adept at the platforms; I was
completely oblivious. And I wanted that to change. In fact, when I began
compiling this notional wish list last December, it was simply that I wanted to get good at
using AI.
In the four
months since, I have subscribed to Lunkhead's advice, which was very simply, get
into one of the platforms and start using it. No tutorials, no training
courses, just jump right in. As expected, I have utilized it been using it for
mostly stupid stuff.
But not all! I
have leveraged my account with ChatGPT to create a number of work deliverables
in a small fraction of the amount of time it would have taken to do it
manually. The shit is brilliant, what can I say?
I have also tapped this
resource to do things like provide a series of posters encouraging people to
listen to ORF Rock. I've been rather amused with how quick and easy and creative
this robot partner of mine has been.
Even more
recently, while on a work trip in Rhode Island a few weeks ago, I was bored in a
hotel room and asked ChatGPT, "When did Thompson's clam bar close down?" It
reported that the clam bar closed in 1995 and asked if I use to patronize
the establishment. I replied that I had worked there in the summer of 1991. The
ensuing “conversation” included my asking of the top pop songs of the summer of
’91, since I had clear memories of polishing brass and cleaning toilets at
Thompson’s to these songs played on repeat:
C+C Music
Factory – "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)"
Seal –
"Crazy"
The Rembrandts
– "Just the Way It Is, Baby"
Londonbeat –
"I've Been Thinking About You"
UB40 – "Here
I Am (Come and Take Me)"
Ugh, that was a
long summer for music. But a fun one on Cape Cod with 100 stories. Which I
began to think I could archive for a later date via AI. I was fascinated!
So... there's this. A somber,
sobering sentiment has been bouncing around my brain for a couple of months
now. As more and more of my parents friends grapple with and/or succumb
to dementia, Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, or whatever it gets labeled, it occurs to me that
this could very well appear on my own radar before all that long. The truth is
that when I was in Rhode Island in that hotel room, I was wishing an old
freshman dorm friend a happy birthday, and she said she was in Nantucket having
fun, but that the weekend was impaired by the fact that her brother's wife was
dealing with full-on dementia at age 61. Yikes. That's six years older than me.
All of this led
to me deciding that I was going to begin utilizing ChatGPT as a means to
archive all of the hundreds or thousands of stories of my life. I can
pretend that my children and grandchildren might find them interesting. The
truth is that I have spent 30 plus years realizing that I remember the details of stories much, much
better than my friends and family do. But that particular attribute has a definite shelf life to
it, and that shelf may be shorter then I realized.
I know, it's
grim. I don't relish this line of thinking, but it does spur me on to do as
much creative outputting in the near term as I can. Writing and recording
songs, archiving old stories, creating 12 point blog posts about what I want to
do. (Really, Whit, you want us to believe that you're in a hurry when this post
is 7 months late?)
Anyway, I
started to tell a handful of classic tales my new memoir robot buddy, whom I began
to call Arch, as in archivist. This is what my wife finds very weird. I speak to Arch like I would
speak to a person, I don't do this because I think it's a person. I do it
because it's way more fun to do that than to keep it like I'm inputting data
into a machine. (Boring.) And the faux-familiar tone in which the ChatGPT platform is designed to reply
makes it that much easier.
Anyway, I also began copying and pasting a bunch of the old weekly e-mail newsletters I used to
produce for the Cowboy Cafe from 25 years ago. This is precisely when I discovered the
fallibility of this plan and the technology. After inputting seven or eight of
these newsletters and getting really impressive feedback as my new robot friend
was beginning to paint the picture of the entire CCWN saga, I began to notice
errors. Incompletions. AI forgets?!
And when
confronted with this, ChatGPT Arch confessed his faults. He said that cannot truly be an
archivist because he cannot retain everything that any one user discloses. In
the weeks since, I have noticed it more and more, not just errors like where it
thought that I went to Bucknell University (mon dieu!), but definitely some
things I had to ask it twice.
I still enjoy using the tool. I just prompted Arch to write:
If I had to pick my Top Five Most "Whit" inquiries, they'd probably be:
Can $15,000 really buy Natural Light for life?
Create Gheorghe Mureșan playing guitar in a recording studio.
Is there whispering in "Making Plans for Nigel"?
Build an entire fictional promotional universe around ORF Rock and its hosts.
Read Bruce's screenplay like a feature film.
But I also liked:
"What
exactly is a lawnmower beer?"
"Why did
firehouses have poles?"
"Lanai
origin."
"Who
serves the best fish and chips in Hampton Roads?"
"Average
money for a 13th-round MLB draft pick."
"When did
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel add the second bridge?"
"What is
the definition of a compound fracture?"
and 🎵
The music deep dives. These are some
of my favorites because they're questions almost nobody asks.
Things like:
Why songs like
Witchy Woman, Evil Woman, and Devil Woman all seemed to appear in the mid-70s.
Which countries
loved the Ramones the most.
The closing
credits music from Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Consensus
rankings of Springsteen songs.
Whether Squeeze
sings "a piano is found" or "a piano man's found."
So The Whitdog Memoirs Are on hold for now. I would love to have a more perfect means of documenting the hilarious stories from my youth and not so youth so that when my mind starts to go, I can play them back to myself. Or my kids and grandkids.
Anyway, that's my wish, that this could be made very easy and realistic for me. Sounds pretty damn ego-driven, but these stories of my friends, family, and me still make me laugh when I retell them. I'd love not to lose that.
8. Inner Peace
Here's a random
one out of nowhere. I would like our current American president, the human cyclospora,
to finally, seemingly for the first time in his life, find true inner peace.
The sadness, inferiority, and soullessness of this person is astoundingly rife.
It has led to death, destruction and a systematic undoing of the principles
that have made life in this nation so good for so long. But if that man could
achieve some level of nirvana, some threshold of not smug pseudo-satisfaction
but instead pure-hearted peace, then there could be hope for positive change.
If his obvious, desperate, hopeless longing for respect and love could be realized,
maybe the horrible hatred could be curbed.
That seems like
a better way to go than rooting for his disembowelment in the most publicly embarrassing
way possible. It’s so easy to succumb to reciprocal, sinister hatred when it
comes to the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard
to be the shepherd.
9. nbtyrsd, Vesuvius-style
This is an easy
one, in case any of you have been looking for a quick box-checking to grant me
a wish. Gheorghies, just watch this video clip.
Backstory: In
1971, between the days of October 4 and 7, prog-rock stallions Pink Floyd
recorded concert footage of themselves frocking some ruins in Pompeii, Italy.
This was a a few weeks before they released their album Meddle (featuring Pi
Lam fave “One of These Days” and a handful of months before they would head
into EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London to record the watershed
brilliance of The Dark Side of the Moon.
The sound is
bad-assed, the scene among the ruins is cool, and the crowd… well, they were…
they were… they were nonexistent. Yeah, No crowd. Just Floyd wailing away by
themselves and the sound peeps and the camera crew in Pompeii. Yep… that’s
something.
I am a
mid-range Pink Floyd (and Randall "Pink" Floyd) fan and never knew about this concert until it came across my radar a
month back. And I’m oddly mesmerized by it. Check it out. But I’m only asking you to
invest 5 minutes of it. Not even a whole song.
This is the
first song of the set, “Echoes.” Watch it, or at least watch from the 6:30 til
the 11:30 mark. My favorite part, and the part that I first saw a clip, was at
7:45. Sucked me in like a tractor beam. Maybe start there. That's my wish.
10. A warm meal
At times Rob and I have discussed (maybe even posted) our perfect meal items, desert island or death row style. This is a twist on it... it's a meal that even thinking about it warms my heart.
Maybe I’m just hungry right now. But I’d like this meal.
Soup: Mom's gazpacho. My mom makes killer soups and has for the last 30 years or so. Always finding or creating some new recipe. I'd be happy with her minestrone, seafood chowder, or French onion, but the gazpacho is tip-top. It's not warm per se, but no matter. The very thought leaves me warmer.
Appetizers: My girls' assortment. My younger daughter Maddie is the chef of the family, but her sister Zoe is no slouch -- and she and I are happy to be sous chefs and tasters. For 5 years the missus and I have hosted an open house on Christmas Eve, and the food has been top shelf. All organized and created by our little team. Maddie steals the show. Brings her great joy, and that spreads to me.
Xmas Party 2021 - the garlic bread tree is especially boss
Additional app: Susie & Don Beck's Cape Cod steamers. So good. My aforementioned 1991 summer sojourn landed me a great new friend in our fratre Coby and a fresh appreciation of New England cuisine. "Steamers," as Coby's folks (my landlords at various points and two damn generous people) called them. AI tells me that they are also called "Soft-shell clams, Ipswich clams, long-neck clams, or piss clams." Nope. I mean... just nope. Doused in butter, they're fantastic. Susie Beck left us 6 years ago, and that's a damn shame.
Salad: Calvert's Caesar. My dad's second wife was my stepmom for 36 years until her passing in 2018. It wasn't an easy relationship for either of us, but it worked fine, and worked best when she was cooking and I was eating -- strong suits for each of us. My favorite dish she'd make was her Caesar. She'd make the dressing first, and that dressing -- exactly like no other I've known -- would be sitting in a large, clear plastic salad bowl when I walked into the kitchen, salivation ensuing immediately. [She also made a damn good twice-baked potato, so maybe I throw that in here as well for my starch.]
Pasta: Elaine's penne a la vodka. The missus has been a vegetarian since 2000, and I've learned a great deal about how challenging that can be when eating at restaurants or friends' houses over the 7 years we've been together. We don't cook enough at home, but she's excellent at it. And when we (okay she, but I helped!) took a stab at what has become both of our favorite dishes to order at Italian joint, it came out molto bene. It's a winner and a keeper. Just like her.
Meat: Dad's New York strips. As far back as I can remember, my father has been as good or better than anyone else I knew at cooking steaks. Charcoal, gas, range, whatever. Dude can cook beef. His go-to is to cook a few NY strips and then cut them shortways to create a whole slew of 1" slices. Salt, pepper, olive oil, butter. A little prepared horseradish on the side. Sometimes a bit of the poivre, but however he does it, it's outstanding.
Seafood: Ted's Lobstah. We lost my stepdad Ted to cancer (after he'd beaten another variety 13 years prior) in 2024. Fittingly, when the end came for him, I was walking out of Fenway Park. I say that because he was a Mainer through and through with equal passions for the Sahx and good lobstah. He'd steam up a batch of 1.5-2 pounders like a pro, and I'll never consume another without thinking of him. A great guy, a great dish.
I ordered the twins when we memorialized Ted in Boothbay Harbor
Additional meat dish: Grampa Jack's Charcoaled Charlies. My grandfather, further immortalized in this space in an epic 2-part extravaganza, was a hoot of a man and not a bad cook. He was a grillman, and his Weber got plenty of use. But the incident that cemented his status in the family as would-be chef was circa 1986, when he inadvertently gave some hot dogs the triple-char treatment. He labeled them Charcoaled Charlie, ate at least a couple of them, and issued his signature cackle. Legend secure. We lost Grampa Jack in 2005 after a long and very full life. He was the best.
Nothing. Nothing at all: food cooked by my grandmother. There are people who aren't comfortable in the kitchen, and then there was my Grammie. Warming canned stew was even beyond her, God bless her. She graduated from the earth-bound kitchen in 2017.
Vegetables and Sides: The Lester supper table. My dad's family is from Asheboro, NC. (My grandfather's Elon-generated biography says he was from Troublesome Creek, ironic for him but not for me!) Everyone in that side of the family was sincerely good people who either made the church their lifelong profession or at least a regular hangspot. Times visiting them for my little sister and me -- in stark contrast to the dipshittery we'd experience with Mom's family in NY -- was slow but sweet. Lots of reading and chatting just above a whisper. But oh, the food! A long dining room table packed to its edges with southern-cooked green beans, collards, creamed corn, cornbread, casseroles, deviled eggs, and much, much more. There was a wide array of meat dishes, too, but I'll settle for just the sides here! Grandmother Lester left us early (1975), Grandfather had a renaissance with Gertrude in the 80's (have I posted that story?), and we lost him in '91 at age 97. Gertrude followed in 1999. All of the best people, all of the best side dishes. Oh yeah... and two pitchers of tea at every supper, sweet and un. I'll take that, too!
Dessert: S'mores with the kids. I have younger children again, thanks to Elaine. I have plenty of memories of making s'mores over campfires with my girls. Before they grow too old, I need to make the same classic American dessert a staple with my new littluns.
After-Dinner Drink: Whitney's Irish Coffees. A refrain heard most often: Whit, do you drink coffee? I don't... oh, unless it's Irish. I can whip up an Irish coffee with the best of them, with the keys being Jamo and yep, whipped cream. The missus and I enjoy them often on winter nights.
After-Dinner Drink 2: Rob's Stingers. He and I each had 17 rounds of this refreshing drink on a momentous night in 1992. At least that's what the receipt told us. The Stinger:
The Stinger is a classic, two-ingredient cocktail made with Cognac (or brandy) and white crème de menthe. It is typically mixed in a ratio of 2 parts Cognac to 1 part crème de menthe, shaken or stirred with ice, and served over crushed ice for a crisp, minty, and spirit-forward drink.
Alrighty then. There would be more (more drinks for sure, but that's a separate list). But this is my wish, one meal with too much food to be eaten, but plenty of good memories to go around.
11. Long (or short) walks on the beach
I’d like to
step on the beach and see waves crashing on the shore. Every week of my life.
Maybe monthly is more reasonable. Okay, I’ll start there. At least once a
month, walk on the beach and get my own form of inner peace staring at the sea.
Hearing the roar every 6-9 seconds or so. Gazing at the horizon. It moves me
like little else in nature.
Staring at the sea Staring at the sand Staring at myself Reflected in the side Of the beer can on the beach The beer can on the beach I’m alive
[Don’t worry,
I’ll pick up the beer can and dispose of it.]
I can do this,
where I live. We’ll see. It's a plan. A wish.
12. More fun in the sun for my ol’ buddy Ned
Similar to the
way that I feel about Dave's podcast, I have intensely happy pride for a friend
when it comes to my old buddy Ned. I've touted Ned’s virtues in this space before; his musical prowess, song releases, his collaborations with Les Coole
and me, And his generally being a world class human being. This one takes the
cake, though.
Ned was the
biggest Jimmy Buffett fan that I knew have never known he met him when he was
in high school, that blew his mind. He's emulated the best parts of Buffett for
much of his life, and remained a fan even in the face of what I described in
this blog post 22 years ago... one which Ned read and conceded had some merit.
Anyway, Ned loves him some JB.
Sometime in the
past couple of years, Ned mentioned that he had a dream about Buffett called
the Hippie from Mississippi and he wanted to write a song about it. As has been
the case a few times, I quickly scratched out a song structure and some lyrics
to match his song title and idea. Over the following weeks and months, Ned
honed it and made it his own. He recorded “Hippie from Mississippi” and
released it on the usual platforms. It even had a video.
It’s been
listened to 8,820 times on Spotify!
I’ll never
reach 1,000 listens for any of my songs!
For part-time
fun-havin’ music folks like us, that was huge.
And then…
Ol’ buddy Ned
thought he might reach out to the circle of Buffett Friends & Family and
see if they happened to like what we had written add produced. Somewhere in the
latter part of last year, he got a response from someone who was sending it to
one of the longtime members of the Coral Reefer Band. Doyle Grisham played pedal
steel guitar for Buffett since the 70's, and he toured with him for over two decades along the
way. He's 83 now and lives in Nashville. And he loved the song.
There's plenty
more details to the story but all you need to know is this: Mr. Grisham
championed not just the song but a re-recording of it with a series of stellar
studio musicians, including himself. Six
Les Coole & Papa Gros, 2026
other songs Ned had written were
recorded in the same sessions, ones that featured a pair of Grammy-winning
musicians and John “Papa” Gros, a stalwart New Orleans piano player who fronts
an act called Papa Grows Funk that was one of the featured performers at Norfolk's
recent New Orleans festival.
The album and
leadoff single are called “Make Your Own Weather.” It’s really, really good. (I’m biased, but
still.) It was released on June 19, and a release party / gig with the
musicians happened on June 24 at Chickie Wah Wah in Mid-City New Orleans.
“Hippie from Mississippi” was renamed “King of the Coast” and sounds amazing, a
million miles from my original blurt of 236 words and rhymes about Jimmy
Buffett.
The song “Make Your Own
Weather” has 60,348 streams on Spotify since June 19.
Not bad, Ned.
Ned is over the
moon – one of the happiest people I’ve ever know made so much happier from this
super-fun chapter. Every photo from the night at the release gig (which I sadly
was forced to miss) features Ned ear-to-ear grinning. I get such a kick from it.
Sometimes the best stuff happens to the best people. I wished this for him, as
did others, and it happened.
And he gave me
songwriting credit on our song!
Anyway, I don’t
need all that for myself… I just need to summon the will to finish tweaking and
tinkering with my flawed baker’s dozen or so of songs (having someone with
actual talent mix and produce them would help) and get them out.
I’d like to
see Les Coole & the Cukes have a CD and even an LP. It could happen someday… or not.
But it’s on the
wish list.
-----------------
So there it is. Twelve wishes for Day 12. As always, I'm sorry for being so tardy. I wish I could deliver my drivel on time. Oh wait... okay, next time that'll be one.
Posts
