And YouTube Xmas comes early for STDPM

I've been waiting for someone to repost the higher-rez version of this rare vocal performance by Link Wray, and finally somebody did.



Trying to Find Your Love

BONUS:



LINCOLN HIGHWAY DEKALB illinois: Link Wray High Way

"Isn't there ANYONE who knows what Christmas is all ABOUT!?!"

Hey, this is pretty damn fancy, and kudos to the dude that frickita frakked that thing together, but ... something doesn't seem right.



"I have over 45,000 lights synchronized to music using 216 channels of Light-O-Rama [and synched to Linus and Lucy, man ... can you feel my might?]"

Compare and contrast.



Colicky Christmas, everyone!

"And on the continent of North America, winter became very, very unhappy. Decided to stay."-- Gil Scott-Heron

Winter in America (1990)



Winter in America & Whitey on the Moon (vintage unknown)



A Lovely Day (SNL, December 13, 1975)

David Eckstein is not scrappy -- but I am

While whiling away these gray and wintry days of winter, I have been enjoying the multi-post discourse about the alleged and vaunted, and allegedly vaunted, and vauntedly alleged "scrappiness" of Mr. David Eckstein (most notably in recent years, the very short shortstop for the St Louis base-ball Cardinals of Missouri, and next season to be a hyperbolically overpaid [and still underheighted] shortstop for the Toronto base-ball Blue Jays of Oh, Canada, blah blah blah, true patriot love in all thy sons command [repeat en français, s'il vous plait]) at the most excellent and hilarious skewerer of bad sports journalism (and particularly bad baseball journalism), Fire Joe Morgan.

Over there lately there has some good fun made of a crappy sportswriter's ado-making about a Google search on the assertion, "David Eckstein is scrappy," and the gnipgnopulously huge number of hits that result from that string. (Subsequently, a reader pointed out that many hits also result from googling "David Eckstein is crappy," which amused me a great deal ... so now you know just how easy to amuse I am.)

In connection with all of that, there's a thing I have just discovered that could be relevant to the analysis (but probably not). To wit:

If you Google the string, in quotes, "David Eckstein is not scrappy", you get ZERO hits. None. Nada. Bupkis, non-etc.

Therefore, there is nobody in the Internet that affirmatively affirms that this particular itty bitty ball player is "not scrappy." They either think he's scrappy, or they have held their tongues ... er, keyboard fingers.

What that means is nobody's guess, because nobody cares. Not that I'm letting that stop me. Because this is a scrappy blog, and I am a scrappy blogger. Scrappier than Dirt, even. Too small for the game, but scrappy to the finish.

Ess ayy tee yoo arr, dee ayy why ... NIGHT! YouTube Veddeos -- "Work Song" Edition

Music by Nat Adderley; lyrics by Oscar Brown, Jr.



Bobby Darin



Nina Simone



Ventures - Medley



Abluesados



Good Wood plays at The Coast Bastion Hotel in Nanaimo British Columbia



Shuffle Republic playing Work Song live at the Coogee Bay Hotel



Some dude wailing on a harp doing something along the lines of the Paul Butterfield version, which I can't find a better rendition of on these damns YouTubes, but I kind of like this one, and he sings the words, so it's copacetic, baby



Some other dude wailing on a harp and explaining himself



How many dudes wailing on a harp to "Work Song" are there on the Internet?



Cannonball Adderley

Just needs to work on the jowlage a little bit

In this pic cribbed from the NY Post, here's one David Letterman doing a pretty good impersonation of yours truly, Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss. Welcome to the fraternity of the weird beards, Dave.

In other news, the electric baseboard heater in the war room here at CBRAT Central shorted out last night -- with a very loud buzz and a pop, sparks, burning wire insulation, acrid smoke -- all very adrenaline-pumping excitement indeed. I've shut off the relevant circuit breaker to keep the fire risk at CBRAT Central down to a minimum, but that means the other, nonbroken heater is also out of commission -- so it's cold in here. Colder than a witch's saline implant. Which, due to the salt content, has a freezing point well below 32 Fahrenheit, so you know that can get pretty cold. It's the same basic principle employed in yer old-fashioned ice cream makers. Yup.

Typing is not facilitated by these conditions. In a couple hours, when crocktrail hour rolls around, maybe that'll help. It won't hurt, I don't think. Later on, maybe I'll pretend I'm in an episode of my new favorite show, "Everest: Beyond The Limits," bloggically. So stay tuned, fellow Eskimos and Eskimixes. Frostbite and cerebral edema reports to follow.

UPDATE: The building manager came and fixed the heater, so now the only reason it's cold in here is because of my usual crazy old-man miserliness. Huzzah.

Karlheinz Stockhausen

The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen has died. I would be completely out of my league to try to talk about him. I don't really know anything about music. Or art, for that matter.

But back in 2000, I gave it a shot and tried to say something about that stuff in a piece for my old xerox zine, HUBRIS, and here are some jpegs comprising a piece I did for that zine using some Stockhausen polemics as text, superimposed over flatbed scans of a kitchen mishap involving hard boiled eggs that boiled to depravity during a absent-mindedness-inducing binge of the game "Sims," which I was into at the time.

"People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -- Rogers Hornsby

Tommy Skilling didn't lie. He said, chance of precipitation, 100%. And here it is, a goddamn veritable winter wonderland.

In anticipation thereof, yesterday, my hoarding instinct kicked in full-force and I collected enough food at "The Jewel's" (over by dere) to make myself spherical. My little fridge, she is full to overflowing. I did venture out into the "winter cocktail" this afternoon to get beer ... and that was enough for me. I think I'll skip the Iditarod® training yet again this year. Ribbie and Roobarb nod their inanimate stuffed agreements.

Hey, how many days till pitchers and catchers report?



Harry Caray



"Fear Strikes Out" (Jimmy Piersall Story) - Breakdown Scene



Bill Veeck Interview

POSTSCRIPT: To those who periodically chastise me for refusing to admire one Chicago major league ballclub to the exclusion of the other, I have a two-word reply: Bill Veeck. You can hardly get more iconographically "White Sox" than Bill Veeck. Yet, here he is in this video hoisting a beer cup adorned with a Cubs logo, apparently voluntarily. He planted the fucking ivy at Wrigley Field, for crying out loud. I'm sick of this shit where it's a mandatory Manichean duality. That horseshit is fucking bush league. Yeah, I know, why don't I tell you how I reeeeeeeally feeel??

Let's have an asynchronous cosmic moment together

Oh. This is good.



Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Volunteered Slavery

Uptown, Chicago is where I live

I love this neighborhood.



Visions of Uptown, featuring The Uptown Broadway Building

Fri Nit Veds: What’s round on the ends, high in the middle? The Oh!o Take

The McCoys – Hang on Sloopy



Joe Walsh’s Barnstorm – Turn to Stone



Raspberries – Tonight



Tin Huey – Man Don’t Come



Dead Boys – Sonic Reducer



Pere Ubu – Breath



Ohio Players – Love Rollercoaster




DEVO - Girl U Want / Gates of Steel (Fridays 1980)



Pretenders – Tattooed Love Boys



Brainiac – Hot Metal Dobermans



GBV (reunited) - Cut-Out Witch




Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Ole Man River

Tuesday Nite Veddeos: WLUP Nostalgia Edition

For a brief time in Chicagoland, ranging from about 1978 to, depending on varying opinions, 1981 or 1983, WLUP FM 98 was a damn good radio station. I don't know what the official jargon term for its format would be -- album oriented rock, with a fist-full of hard new wave and pop metal, I guess. Plus, they had really cool t-shirts, which a newly enfathered Bob Greene fretted in his Trib column about seeing on the nubile bodies of underaged girls at Navy Pier's Chicagofest, drinking beer and being so unlike the perfect infant his wife had just spewed out of her. Anyway, to cut to the chase, here is a veddeo juke box of hot hits from that phase of The Loop.



Flash & The Pan - Hey St. Peter



Sparks - Something For The Girl With Everything



Donnie Iris - Ah Leah

By the early 1980s, after the infamous Steve Dahl era, The Loop was, in the parlance of our times, a "classic rock" station. Dahl's replacement, Jonathon Brandmeier gets promoted in the following TV commercial. (These days, The Loop is, I think, a hard rock oldies station. And Brandmeier is back hosting the a.m. drive-time slot. Mornings remain not fun.)

This spot makes me nostalgic for the days of raging hormones. (That's what she said.) ("She" is my dry cleaner.) Yeah, what commercial terrestrial radio lacks today is that je ne sais quoi ... by which I mean, harlots. Ah Lorelei. Catchphrase: "Pow!" Pow, indeed.



The Loop FM 98 - "Lorelei Exercising" (Commercial, 1983?)

Sadly, Lorelei was truly a wanton hussy and "Powed" for other men, er, stations. In the following case, an Amplitude Modulation powerhouse in Indianapolis.



WNDE Windy AM 1260 - 'Lorelei Lip-Sync' (Commercial, 1979)

Well, that was okay. When you truck with harlots, you don't expect to be the only hemorrhoid pillow in the cab ... or something like that.

Now here's one from the dang ole Loop's late-70s playlist that I didn't analyze too closely, lyrically, at the time (which was, I think, somewhere between 6th and 7th grades), but it seemed kind of dirty and it had a bitchin' guitar solo. This song was stuck in my head forever.



The Knack - My Sharona

And here's a number they still play regularly.



UFO - Lights Out In London

Finally, this next and last one is my favorite of the program, and one of my favorite all-time songs of all time. The first verse contains one of the awesomest oblong enhanced-reticulated couplets in rock history: "Hey little Donna ... ahnhnhhh ... Still wanna? You said to ring you up when I was in Toronna." Now that is a slant rhyme with a purpose.



The Kings - This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide

Ho ho holy mackerel, no doubt about it

On tonight’s four-blocks-and-back trip to the beer store, I noticed that the Andersonville®-branded faux-vintage lampposts and many of the storefronts are fully decorated for the looming holiday season. I have to admit that I don’t hate the lights. It’s foggier than a witch’s tit today (huh?) and I’ll take whatever I can get to cut through some of the gloom.

I’m definitely not ready to think about shopping yet, although I had better get going, I guess. Time to Amazon it up. And time to update the Amazon wish list. Because getting is a form of giving, right?

I won’t publicize that list in this forum, for multifarious reasons, but in connection with holiday wishes, if anybody wanted to buy me that pop-art painting of Charlie Manson wearing the Sno-Caps baseball hat that is currently hanging in the frame shop at the corner of Clark and Carmen, I would accept it.

If language pet peeves were actual pets, I would be the crazy cat lady on your block

Item 1. To the people of Earth -- "bemused" is not a slightly more highbrow synonym for "amused." It means confused, or lost in thought. This is your final warning.

Item 2. This one is particularly directed toward the sports "journalists" of America. The expression is not "mano y mano." That means "hand and hand," which is goddamned nonsense, you fucks. I'm not even going to tell you the correct phrase. Fuck you. Fuck you to hell.

Item 3. OK, it's kind of a stretch, as complaininism goes. I just heard this cough medicine commercial on TV, with a shtick about "Why does cough medicine have to taste so bad?" and touting a product that is "virtually tasteless."

Does that mean, like, it farts at the dinner table or something? It wears striped pants with a checked shirt? It is really into Thomas Kinkade paintings?

I guess "flavorless" is too pointy-headed a word for the American buying public.

Promises, promises

Hey, I'm on vacation this week, with no particular plans other than Thanksgiving with the folks up in the far north burbs, so I should be writing and writing. No excuse. And maybe this week, I'll do some stuff I've teased doing, like maybe the post about the 1960s-1970s Chicago folk scene.

In further teasery of that, here's this. It also ties in with the post before last, because this is what I remember our neighbor Dan looking like, like John Prine in this video.



Angel From Montgomery

In memory of John R.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the death of my friend John R.

I was planning to blog about it yesterday, but I was badly hung over, barely ambulatory, and in no state to navigate Blogger, let alone write anything. Which ... considering, well, John R., is kind of fitting.

The following video turned up last month in a comment to this post. I have it on VHS and have watched it numerous times, but thanks to Dominique for digitizing and posting it.

It's a showing of John's masterwork, his scroll. Music by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The scroll lived here in my apartment for a while, while John was working through some shit. I think I still have the wooden easel-like device he used to use to display portions of it, in case anybody's looking for it.

George S. Halas Disapproves of You and Your Lack of Social Mores

Hey, wow, holy shit, I guess it’s about 30 years since the day I saw my first Bears game in person. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was late Fall 1977. I suppose I could look up the exact date somewhere, but I don’t feel like it right now. Anyway, let’s pretend it was 30 years ago, this Sunday (tomorrow).

I was 10 years old, and I was hanging out in the kitchen one Sunday afternoon, when the phone rang. It was Dan, I heard my mom yelling to my dad, who was in the living room. Dan was our next door neighbor, and he had an extra ticket to the Bears game that day. Oh man I wanted to go.

My dad, on the other hand, didn’t want to go, didn’t care, so my mom hung up. Wait! Wait! Wait! I started to yell like a 10-year-old STDPM – who was a loud and demanding little fucker, at that time. I want to go! Give me the ticket! Call him back!

I threw an unholy tantrum with success, because my dad called Dan and set me up. And it was proved once again for me, in clear terms – if you want something, ask for it. And don’t take no for an answer.

Looking back on it now, it’s obvious to me that part of my parents’ lack of enthusiasm about the whole thing was … Dan, our next-door neighbor. Specifically, sending off their 10-year-old idiotic insane son with Dan, the next-door neighbor, to choogle down 50 or so miles to Chicago for a Bears game. It seemed reasonable to me, at the time – I would get to go to the Bears game, was the bottom line for me – but 30 years later, I can see my folks’ point of view, a little bit.

See, next door to us was a rental house, and it domiciled a rotating roster of young families alternated by hairy bachelors with muscly cars and intermittently visible means of support. During the latter times, that house was a real fascination for me. Or the driveway, anyway, where I could hang out without bothering anyone. I had the heavily precedent-protected common-law right to use the basketball hoop on the garage anytime I wanted, so I shot a lot of free throws there.

That was where I lustfully fondled the fenders of my first silver metal-flake Corvette Stingray … and my last, as it turns out. Corvettes just seem lame to me, for about the last … 20 years, but that was a great day, nonetheless.

There was also the time this one dude’s Chevelle – oh man. That was fucked up. The way I remember it is, early one weekend morning I woke up and dragged the damn basketball over next door to the initial disappointment of seeing a car parked under the damn basket. Which was replaced immediately by awe and complete rapture. The car was charred and black all over, and the tires were melted into the goddamn asphalt. I spent several highly excited minutes circling the hulk and inspecting every surface at about two inches’ distance. Then I ran back to my mom’s kitchen and hyperventilated at everyone about what I had seen. My mom turned from the stove and gave me her best deadpan look (she is the #1 deadpan looker-at-er of all time) and said, “Did you sleep through the firetrucks?”

That might’ve even been Dan’s car. I don’t remember. I know he didn’t drive the Corvette, because if I’d have been driven to a Bears game in a Corvette in 1977, at the age of 10, I would have exploded into a fine mist of pre-adolescent particles, and I wouldn’t be writing this now. I don’t think it was the burny-uppy Chevelle, though – I think he drove a Dodge Dart or something otherwise extremely cool and rock and roll.

Dan, the next-door neighbor. Dan was a Vietnam vet, long straight brown hair, mustache, about 5 foot 10, medium build. Smoked cigarettes. Drank. Yes. I think my parents used to worry about him a little, or try to play the role of somewhat older, more stable polite people for him. Well, OK, I’m not so sure about that, 100 percent. My parents were sort of on the periphery of that game then, in terms of various forms of “adult alcoholic” enablement, the warm compassion that is shared by fellow boozers of all ages, the kind hand of helping offered by the young and the aged in turn to one another in condescending drunken sweetitude.

Which explains why, one time, when Dan came home either too drunk to get his keys in the keyhole or too drunk to have remembered to bring his housekeys home with him, my parents gathered his wobbly self up and hoisted him back to my house, and sat him at the kitchen table for a cup of coffee.

Of course, being the little hyperaware hellion that I was, I was on top of all this hubbub, and digging it to death. So of course I plopped my own self at the kitchen table and shortly found myself shooting the shit alone in the room with Dan.

Then Dan started ranting, and ranting in a slurred way that I recognized as the voice of drunk men. Which, I had learned a bunch of times, could mean danger. Then I realized that Dan was ranting about the Vietnam War. Which I had learned about, too, having seen it on TV and also having heard such things as young men yelling stuff about it before picking up a pool cue to swing at somebody while my mom was grabbing me and pulling me to a quieter part of the bar.

Which means that I was in a sensitized state when Dan unloaded on me and said this – “Every generation gets its war. They all get em. Our parents got theirs, we got ours. You’ll get your war, too. You’ll get your war.”

Freaked me right out.

So, anyway, that’s Dan. So anyway I put that dimwitted foot of mine down, and Dan took me to the Bears game. At Soldier Field, we met up with a girlfriend of his, who I remember being a very nice woman. It was cold. Dan had a flask of hooch, but he wouldn’t let me have a taste. The Bears won. I brought my binoculars to the game, and Dan made fun of me over and over for watching the Honey Bears cheerleaders through them instead of the game. He caught me, what can I say? And I got to see Walter Payton play, and everyone was all excited about Vince Evans getting some snaps instead of Bob Avellini,and everything was totally awesome about that day.

Commute Music Report #3

As the last living consumer of terrestrial radio, I feel doody-bound to occasionally mention a few of the surprises that pop up while I'm compulsively switching stations during the tortoise-crawl home. Today, on the utterly constipated Edens Expressway, somewhere near Old Orchard, I ran into this particular number on "9 FM" or whatever it's called ... whatever that station is that's two clicks left of WXRT -- a sweet little pop song from 1981.

The lyrics -- about driving through California in a dodgy old Nash (sans Crosby, Stills, or Young) -- are pretty great, so I'm posting them below. You might as well scroll down and sing along with the audio because the video has nothing to do with the song ... unless you like looking at superfluous footage of barely dressed models. Your call.



Diesel -- Sausalito Summernight

We left for Frisco in your Rambler
The radiator running dry
I've never been much of a gambler
and had a preference to fly
You said "forget about the airline,
let's take the car and save the fare."
We blew a gasket on the Grapevine
And eighty dollars on repairs

All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard

Hot summer night in Sausalito
Can't stand the heat another mile
Let's drop a quarter in the meter
And hit the sidewalk for a while
I'll have a burger and a root beer
You feed the heap some multi-grade
A shot of premium to boot, dear
We'll get across the Golden Gate

All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard

Another mile or two to Frisco
200 gallons from L.A.
The engine's thumpin' like a disco
We ought to dump her in the bay

All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard

Cashin' all my checks
Scrapin' out my bank
Spend it on a Rambler
Wth a whirlpool in the tank
Look out over here
Watch out over there
Can't afford a blowout
'Cause we haven't got a spare

(solos)

(chorus)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard (Sausalito summernight)
All aboard

Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)
Hot summer night in Sausalito
(Sausalito summer night)

Rare Positive Moments on the Commute Reminisced in YouTube Embedded Video Format: Issue Number Two

This past Tuesday afternoon I listened to this song on WLUW while driving in no traffic at maximum sustainable speed through the twisty "ravine-go-round" on Sheridan Road in Winnekta, and enjoyed the hell out of myself for about 120 seconds.



Roxy Music - Remake/Remodel

Most Obscure Blade Runner Trivia of All Time

Me and Squeaky Zip and Rappsta caught the latest release of "Blade Runner" at the Music Box tonight, and it reminded me of the following.

When I was in high school, in 1985, I wrote a computer game with my friend Payman as a project for a programming class. I say I wrote it, because I made up the story and all the "concept" shit, and Payman did about 90% of the actual programming (if not 100%). So I kind of cheated on the programming class a little bit, because we had conned the teacher into letting us make this game instead of doing all the regular class assignments. I guess that's why I only got a 2 out of 5 on the PASCAL Advanced Placement test (3 being the minimum for getting college credit).

Anyway, the game was a Zork-type "text adventure" takeoff on Blade Runner, heavy on the "film noir" schtick. You played a private detective who works as a contractor for a secret government agency, in the year 2167, in a post-apocalyptic colony on a moon of Jupiter, in a decrepit and crime-ridden domed city. The game starts with you getting called into the office to receive an assignment. The assignment is, of course, to find and kill an escaped android. But the twist was, this android had just attempted a full-scale Marxist revolt of all the other androids -- of which there were thousands, but they weren't advanced enough technologically to understand what he meant when he was entreating them to "Revolt!" So the android had run off on his own and was trying to get in touch with the city's cadre of underground Communists, so they could work together to destroy the "American" society in the domed city.

And the other twist was, the android had such amazing "self healing" technology (OK, I ripped off "Terminator," too, a little bit) that he could purposely damage himself and then regenerate himself into the appearance of any person. Which gave it its title: "Doppleganger" (sic).

So you roam around this city and gather clues, and various goofy computer game vignettes happen, with a couple attempted assassination attempts on you, a trip to "the hood" where you dodge getting mugged in order to get information from a source, problems that ensue when the android decides to make himself look like various people you know -- and at one point like you, etc. Eventually you find and break into the Communist headquarters, and discover who the real villain is. The real villain -- whom, to win the game, you have to do away with -- is the cyborg-supported head of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Which was extra-pungent because Payman was a Baha'i refugee from Iran, who fled with his family after the revolution and moved to the Chicago area because of the House of Worship in Wilmette. So he had a pretty amazing thing happen to him, but he couldn't make up stories. He was a genius programmer, but he seemed to be amazed that I could make up all these puzzles and jokes, so he was willing to go along with the class project wangle (especially since it saved him from doing a bunch of boring assignments).

I learned one thing from the project that has stuck with me, though -- programmers are wrong when they tell you things cannot be done. Payman was always telling me that some idea could not be executed, that it would be "impossible." I would tell him to think about it for a while. Always, he'd tell me the next morning, "I figured it out!" Sometimes he claimed to arrive at solutions in dreams. Programmers are helped by some outside pressure, is my firm conviction as a result.

Last I checked (which was about a month ago), the game was still available on the Internet at a website that archives amateur computer games. I haven't tried to play it in more than 10 years ... it's kind of crappily designed, I'm sorry to say, and is unfortunately harder to play than it should be -- and it was never fully polished, so there are some bugs and some text that should have been revised.

For for the meager resources we had -- and the fact that we were 17 -- it had some pretty good features. There were several scenes of dialog with other characters, which was a lot of fun to make up, including the various things that would happen depending on what you said. There was a time aspect to it, in that each "turn" advanced a clock, and you would get hungry and tired and have to eat and sleep at intervals. Which broke the game into three "days," and you had to accomplish certain tasks by the end of a certain day, or else it was too late, and the end of the world happened. There was even some combat -- a gunfight (all in text, but the trick was in getting the timing of your actions right). We also were able to make it so that the android would be in different places at different times -- which is harder than it sounds, because then you have to engineer different possible encounters depending on how the particular game is going. Fun stuff. Not really computer programming, in terms of what I did, but it was fun anyway.

I worked on another computer game by myself after that, using Payman's code. I even figured out how to put some innovations in, such as coming up (on my damn own, I'm geeky proud to say) with a method of making the game bigger by putting it on multiple floppy discs. That one was called "The Stream of Unconsciousness," and was a takeoff on "Time Bandits" and various other fantastical crap. In that one, the game begins with you witnessing the constellation Pleiades fall from the sky, and then finding out that it is up to you to save the cosmos from ... whatever threat I don't quite remember. The usual, evil is afoot etc. And you jump around from place to place using some kind of metaphysical passageway called The Stream of Unconsciousness.

It had a bunch of loosely connected genre-crossing segments -- or it would have, if I'd have finished it. I think the only ones I completed were the "Godfather" gangster plot and the wizard's castle plot, and maybe a couple more I don't remember. It's gone now, forever. The discs are toast, and I don't have a computer that could read them anyway. By the time I stopped working on it, I had three discs' worth of material, which made it three times as big as the last game.

I worked on that game in a feverish fit of creative frenzy for about three weeks between the time I quit my job at Six Flags and started my gig at the Great Lakes Naval Base golf course, during that crazy, crazy summer of 1986 (and that it was). Everyone in the house (OK, I figure my sister probably didn't give a shit, but all the authority figures anyway) was pissed off at me for being unemployed -- my dad, my mom, The Stickler -- but I was totally flying in a world of my own for a while. I have never been able to quite reproduce it. Not only was I making up all this science fiction bullshit, I was actually coming up with the programming code to make it happen.

Fuck, though, that was a sustained high ... not putting energy into much of anything but this crazy open-ended story that was shoooosting out of me. I wanna do that again someday.

This is my last blog post in my 30s

Yep. Just a few hours left before the odometer rolls over again. At this point, I'm glad to be getting it over with. Maybe tomorrow I can dispense with the "Oh man ... where am I? What the hell am I doing?" crap I've been obsessed with for the last year.

I know that if I look back at my 30s, I can find plenty of positive things about them, things to be happy about. Such as, I maintained and strengthened some old friendships, I hung onto the same job for the whole decade, and I traveled to some interesting places for the first time – New York, New England, New Mexico, Colorado, Southern California, Canada. Not to mention that I moved to a big new city and learned to do a halfway decent job of getting by on my own there.

And I also know that if I look back at my 20s – which I generally regard as my peak years – I can find a lot to feel crummy about. I floundered as a lawyer for a while after getting out of school and bailed on that career after about a year. I got divorced. And I was broke most of the time. Especially that last one. I can definitely say one thing for sure about my 30s that I can’t say about my 20s – I have been solvent. Not rich, but solvent.

Sure, I have a lot of the same furniture I had when I was 20, and I seem to be kind of stalled somewhere in the mid-1990s in a lot of ways. Plus, I tend toward bitterness, self-loathing, and social withdrawal. But at least I ain’t broke!

Let’s see, what else? During my 30s, I co-authored two books, I had several of my zines displayed in a couple of gallery shows in Chicago, and, in the earlier part of the decade, I even wrote about a hundred pages of fiction that isn’t all horrible, even if I do say so myself. I finally got to see Roky Erickson play, along with a whole bunch of other great shows. I did a lot of cooking, and got better at it. I got to see Harry Shearer and Ken Nordine at video showings, and literally bumped into both of them. I even found Ken Nordine’s house, and the apartment building where Bob Newhart and Suzanne Pleshette lived on TV. And I saw Bob Newhart unveil his bronze “Dr. Hartley” statue, and was briefly visible in the cable TV special filmed there.

Oh yeah, and the White Sox won the World Series.

I have lived the whole time within spitting distance of the studio where Charlie Chaplin made shorts in the 19-teens, and almost as close to the site where the Three Stooges hired Larry Fine, which are only two notable examples of showbiz history this neighborhood can boast.

Speaking of this neighborhood, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the food here. I can walk two blocks in one direction to enter a wonderland of pho, banh mi, and Chinese barbecue ... and walk two blocks the other way to reach smelling range of an amazing mix of Scandinavian and Middle Eastern groceries, bakeries, and restaurants.

If I get thirsty, I got the Hopleaf, the Edgewater, and good old Simon's right here. (My first drink at Simon's Tavern was about 9 years and 11 months ago, by the way. Barely - barely into my 30s.) And Carol's Pub is a short ways down the pike if I need it. Until recently, the Lakeview Lounge gave me all the David Lynch moments I could handle.

Elsewhere in Chicago during my 30s, I have gotten stoned on a rooftop in Ukrainian Village and watched the sunset bounce off the onion domes of the cathedral, I have drunkenly watched the traffic on Lake Shore Drive from a rooftop in Lakeview, and I have drunkenly attempted (unsuccessfully) to score coke while simultaneously hitting on (also unsuccessfully) a stripper at (this one was in Lincoln Park, I think, but I am not 100% sure) Thurston's (hey, you gotta TRY, once in a while, even schlubbs like me, I mean, come on -- DISCLAIMER: this one might be semi-fictionalized ... but my story and I'm sticking to it is that it's merely slightly exaggerated for fun purposes, although I'm honestly not certain exactly where reality segues into fantasy, which is, you could say, another sign that my 30s weren't all bad. You could. Say.).

I have also drunkenly danced in a roomful of people on New Year’s Eve in a flannel sack – twice.

And - sometimes drunkenly and/or stonedly but not always - I have been privileged to watch some of my friends raise their kids, which is something I never would have imagined would be so fun and rewarding to see.

Yeah, so, the material’s there, if I want to be positive about it. I guess it wasn’t all a waste. Plus, as my little sister jotted on a birthday card I received today, “At least you aren’t 50!”

World-record delayed-reaction laff

Here's how dumb I am sometimes -- I have watched the movie "This Is Spinal Tap" probably a dozen times, at least, and I only just recently finally got the joke from when they mention playing at the "Isle of Lucy." I always just thought it was a kind of obtuse goof on the Isle of Wight. Sheez. Hah!

Isle of Lucy, I get it! Only 23 years later!

"Ahn dass whyee joo no can bee een da cho', Loosie!"

"Ohh, Rickyyy!"

"Ajaja! Joo stoopee cont!"

"WAAAAHHHH!!!"

I believe I can listen to this man play flute all day

Rahsaan Roland Kirk.



"Seasons" in Montreux 1972

Teresa Brewer, 1931-2007

Such a voice. Rest in peace.

Rocktober: The M!ch!gan Ed!t!on

Electrophonic Tonic as covered by Alvin Youngblood Hart, Gary Rasmussen(original bassist of Sonic's Rendezvous Band), Ed Michaels-Drums



Sonics Rendezvous Band - City Slang



The Solution - I Have to Quit You



Detroit Cobras - Shout Bama Lama (Live Tampa Nov 06)



Bob Seger System - Lucifer



Grand Funk Railroad - Are You Ready (live 8/31/69)



MC5 - Lookin At You (live) 1970



20 To Life: The Life And Times Of John Sinclair

Stronger Than Nemo in Slumberland

Last night around midnight (I know what time it was because I woke up and saw the clock afterwards) I dreamed that I was body surfing in Hawaii and having a lot of fun at it, and when I finally got tired and went back up on the beach, Al Gore was standing there in the sand, wearing a big gaudy pair of JAMS shorts and holding my glasses for me, his arm extended out past his huge white hairy gut, gripping the bridge of the frames between his thumb and forefinger, with an aloof expression on his face like a slightly disaffected butler.

UNRELATED BUT PRETTY GOOD NONETHELESS:

It's several months late to commemorate Hoyt Axton's birthday, and a couple weeks early to commemorate his death (and that would be kind of morbid anyway), so I don't have an angle for posting these, but the whim strikes anyway.



Hoyt Axton and Jerry Jeff Walker - Joy to the World



Hoyt Axton - Rusty Old Halo



Hoyt Axton and John Inmon - Della and the Dealer

"Let's root, root, root for the Cubbies! If they don't win, it's business as usual!"

Here I am, as promised, taking credit for being right about one of the immutable laws of nature. There are small number of sure things. I can think of two off the top of my head. Charlie Brown will never succeed at kicking the damn football. And the Cubs will never fail to suck. This game isn't even over yet ... but, seriously, dudes, it's over. As always, and ever.

Today in YouTube as a Remedy to the "Damn I missed it" Syndrome Today

Damn, I missed this bit of last years Touch & Go Records anniversary party over by The Hideout, but, at least there's a video, hey? (Undergoing a bit of a Quasi revival in Chez Stdpm, for some reason, lately.)

Anyway, although I wasn't actually there at the time this was digifotomagooed, I was there for a lot of the rest of it, and I think the spiel the guy delivers at the beginning, the guy who looks like Howie Mandel's nephew, is pretty accurate, in a sort of ... "ahh jesus, what the fuck is wrong with my generation" (but in a sort of semi-affectionate, almost non-self-hating sort of kidding kind of fake-but-painful sock in the puss) way. Yeah, like that.



Quasi

Pay No Attention to That Cubs Losing Behind the Curtain

Watch this instead:



Monkees - Randy Scouse Git

Kick Ass

This is the first video for this song I've yet seen ... this one from some French TV show in 1980, allegedly ...



Captain Beefheart - Safe As Milk

Let's Go Driving in the Car, Car: A YouTube Posting

Heard this on the commute to work yesterday morning on WLUW, in the lentil soup fog at about 7 a.m., on Sheridan Road up by Winnetka near Tower Road shortly before the segue into the ravine-go-round:



Can - Vitamin C

Today in "One Year Ago Today" Today: October 2006 Sports Predictions for 2007: How'd I Doin'?

Not so good.

On October 2, 2006, in a post charmingly titled, "Cubs fans finally complete transformation into walking rectums with dumb blue caps," I spazblogged as follows:

The fact that there are any Cubs fans at all is bewildering enough. The fact that in 2006, more than 3.12 million tickets were sold for the last place team's 81 home games is a mystery for the ages. But the fact that an apparent majority of these people paid among the highest prices in professional baseball to show up and boo, cuss, and whine like ... well, like little Bostonians -- that's just something else.

Well, now they don't have Dusty Baker to kick around anymore. Unfortunately, there's about zero chance that the Cubs won't suck hard again next season. And three million people will show up to complain about it.

But that's an easy prediction to make, even on the first day of the off-season. Yes, the 2007 Cubs will stink to high heaven. Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling -- supported by nothing other than intuition -- that the White Sox are going to be stuck in 3rd place all next year, and by July, a large and loud contingent of fans will be screaming for Ozzie Guillen's head on a plate.

(emphases added)

Hm. In my defense, I was almost right about the White Sox, except they ended up in 4th and were in last for a large part of the year. And instead of Ozzie getting decapitated, he got a contract extension.

But I was right about the Cubs stinking, right?! Right???

Sigh.

OK, well, I'll check back here Saturday -- after they get a few actual playoff games under their girdles -- and we'll see just how much they don't suck then.

RIP Osterizer 1995 - 2007

Hudson County, New Jersey, Correspondent One O Ball writes:

She was an excellent blender. Served well and often for well over a decade, used daily during spring and summer. She started life on The Cardigans tour bus and probably got the workout of her life there. Retired to the House O' Ball and lived out her years making whiskey slushes. An inadvertent loose replacement of the blade fixture after a washing, unfortunately, caused her internal injuries beyond repair. She will be missed.

From blurst to blursterstest: the "Hey, get a room, if you're gonna clinch each other all over the place, you Cubs" edition

The Cubs only have 84 wins, with two left to play. That wouldn't get them better than third place in any other division. But they only won 66 last year at all, and finished in last place. So that's how those cookies crumble ... or reverse crumble ... from crumbs ... into cookies. Or something.

They were in last place for a bit this year, too, I think. Or damn near. For much of the first half of the year, they reeked real bad. Then they seemed to have a turnaround at some point, after some crazy shit happened, fistfights in the locker room, Lou Piniella getting suspended for kicking dirt on an umpire ... but they still seemed to mostly suck to me. They were not often a fun team to watch until August, as I recall, when they did get it together for a while.

They're a mess. They shouldn't get far in the playoffs. Pitching is spotty, offense is erratic and prone to withering droughts. The team plays very bad fundamentals -- too many errors, too many baserunning mistakes. Bad bunting. Dumb plays.

They had five catchers over the course of the year. Unless I'm forgetting anybody. Michael Barrett, initially the starting catcher, was traded away for nothing after it became clear that he couldn't get along with Lou (or ace pitcher Carlos Zambrano, who put Barrett in the hospital with a face beating); Henry Blanco, who was injured most of the year; Koyie Kill, a minor leaguer promoted to fill Blanco's spot and who got a lot more playing time than expected; Jason Kendall, a veteran acquired from Oakland to fill the gap, but who never really seemed particularly useful, with his crappy arm and lousy bat; and Geovany Soto, another rookie, who turned out to be real hot on defense and swing solid lumber, and turned into a fan fave. That's a lot of goddamn backstops. The story of the Cubs catchers alone is some fucked up dysfunctional soap opera. As was right field, the leadoff position, second base, center field, shortstop, left field, ... and the batting lineup in general. And Carlos Zambrano. He was a walking, stalking, stomping, howling, windmill-tilting "All My Children" unto himself.

So it's a puzzler, Columbo, as to how this team can hope to keep it going. But, hey, the Cardinals last season were pretty fucked up, pretty much written off for dead, and they won the World Series. They only won 83 goddamn games in the regular season, and everyone, myself included, expected the Tigers to sweep them in a laffer.

Therefore, the Cubs are guaranteed to win the World Series this year. This is the year. You were here. There is zero percent chance of disaster this time. "Disappointment" is not even listed in the 2007 Merriam-Webster Cubs Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language and Baseball Terminology. We can't lose!

Friday Recipe Blogging: Spicy Hot Tex Mex Shepherd’s Pie with Chipotles and Chihuahua Cheese a la Stronger Than Dirt

I got a bit inventive in the kitchen tonight while listening to the Cubs game on WGN.* Here's what I came up with. I'm calling it a success. You can have the recipe, too, because that's the kind of good people I am.



Spicy Hot Tex Mex Shepherd’s Pie with Chipotles and Chihuahua Cheese

(serves Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss for a couple of days)

Meat filling ingredients:

• 1 lb ground lamb (or use beef, I guess, or turkey, or other substitute)
• 1/2 T olive oil
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 large clove garlic, minced (or 2 small)
• 1 t dried oregano
• 2 t ground cumin
• 1 to 2 T sweet paprika
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 small can Spanish-style tomato sauce
• 1 small can green chili peppers
• few dashes Tapatio sauce (optional)
• few dashes Worcestershire sauce (optional)
• few splashes of beer to wet it (if needed, which it probably will)
• 1 can red kidney beans, drained
• 1 cup corn kernels (I didn’t really measure)
• 2 large scallions, chopped

Potato topping ingredients:

• a few medium russet potatoes (play it by ear, c’mon; I didn’t weigh em)
• salt to taste
• 1 or 2 T butter
• big dollop of sour cream (use enough to make it creamy without making it soup)
• 4 canned chipotles, minced, w/ clinging adobo sauce (this is a lot; use fewer if desired)
• shredded chihuahua cheese (about 1 cup)

The how-to-do-it:

In a dutch oven or similar vessel over medium heat, brown lamb in olive oil with yellow onion and garlic. Drain fat (I actually rinsed it in a colander, because lamb fat is kind of gamey). Add spices & seasonings, toss around a bit, lowering heat if you’re afraid they’ll burn. As soon as they smell good and nice, add the tomato sauce, green chilis, and a little beer to moisten it up. (I like to slosh the beer around in the tomato sauce can and get it all out of there.) I found that a little Tapatio and Worcestershire helped the sweet-acid balance, but if you don’t like them, mazel tov to you. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

Might as well, in the meantime, wash, peel, and chop up the potatoes, add them to a saucepan with cold water, and put on the flame to high. You know, make mashed potatoes. I don’t gotta tell you how to make mashed potatoes, right? Google it if you don’t know. Anyway, get the mash going while the meaty filling is simmering. For purposes of timing.

Also not a bad time to remember to turn the oven on and set it to 375.

OK. The potatoes are cooking and the filling (or, the stuff in there thus far) has had a chance to kind of get friendly. Now you should put in the beans, scallions, and corn. Mix well, without busting up the beans too much. Taste and adjust seasonings. You might need a little more salt and/or pepper. Bring it back to a simmer and then turn the heat down to low, just to keep it warm while you deal with the potatoes.

When the potatoes are cooked (test with a knife or a fork or the Farmers Almanac, whatever you do), out with the water and in with the butter, sour cream, and chipotles & adobo. Mash mash mash. Mash. Mash mash. Mash mash mash mash. OK, they’re mashed.

Grab a casserole dish and spoon in some filling. I don’t have good proportions here. I had more filling than would fit in my casserole, so I had extra, which I’ll use for something else another day (excellent). Probably should fill it about 2/3 full with the lamby beany corny mixture. Then plop the smoking spicy hot potatoes on top to cover completely, smoothing it out nicely with a spatula and drawing a design in it if you like. It doesn’t matter. Top with shredded chihuahua cheese. Put it in the oven, uncovered.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown. And be careful taking it out. It’s gonna be pretty bubbly, and you don’t want molten insides on you. Use your welder’s gloves, if you have any. Let it rest for about 5 minutes before serving.



*Congratulations to the Cubs, by the way, for guaranteeing themselves at least a tie for the division title, with tonight's win over the Reds.

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's ....

Despite all or most appearances, Billie Joe Armstrong ain't so bad. This one is pretty good, and proves he ain't so bad, man. One of his side projects.



Pinhead Gunpowder - Big Yellow Taxi

Green Day still ripped off the fucking Descendents, dude, totally, and I'm never fucking forgiving them for that, no matter how old and tired I get! Right.



Descendents - Clean Sheets

Also, you know what, man? The Chambers Brothers ripped off the Angry Samoans, in reverse chronological order.



Angry Samoans - Time Has Come Today

Wrock Collidge: Origins of the New York Punk Scene 101

The WFMU blog posted a real solid mp3 version of this a year or two ago, or so, but lookit, there's a YouTube version up (slightly different, for you completists) that embeds pretty well hyah.



Jeffrey Lewis - Complete History of Punk Rock (on the Lower East Side of New York City, New York, USA)

Breathe through your noses, Cubbies

Shhhh ... listen ...

Do you hear what I hear?

Do you hear that awful choking sound?

What could that awful, awful choking sound be?

Could it be a gaggle of rookie porn starlets at a Tadalafil convention?

No ... not a gaggle of rookie porn starlets at a Tadalafil convention.

Then what could that awful, awful, awful choking sound be?

Why, I believe it is the Chicago Cubs.

Be not fooled, fools!

The Cubs may be in first place, with only 6 games left to play. The Brewers may be 3.5 games behind the Cubs, and 3 games back in the "Loss" column, with only 7 games remaining on their schedule. Cubs fans may even have begun to allow themselves to slip into that velveteen noose called "Belief." The sports nerds may be telling us that the Cubs' "magic number" is 4.

But we know better. We know that the Cubs' "tragic number" remains, and will ever remain

∞

Rex Grossman for President

In news of news that makes me temporarily amused and gladdened, the Bears lost miserably last night on the NBC national television broadcast. The Bears losing -- especially when they lose badly, and especially when they lose badly on network TV -- always makes people here in Chicago melancholy and Sartreian.*

The Bears went to the Stupid Bowl last year, and everyone assumed they would do so again this year. But, so far, they suck. Like a large number of objects that suck. An awesome array of mechanical suction creators.

Football annoys the hell out of me, so I like this.**

Although maybe the goddamn Cubs and their pretend flurry of a fugazi*** of nonsuckingness are propping up the pathetic emotional baggages of Chicagoland athletic supporters.

Every year, in July or so, when both baseball teams usually suck, people often say, "Well, at least football season starts soon." But this year, it looks like the attemptedly-optimistic chumps in Outside-My-Apartment-Stan would have to say, "Well, at least baseball season isn't over yet."

Hah!

Screw you, sports fans. Screw you to hell!


* This brings them down a little closer to my level -- and you could call my level "basement," but I prefer the real estate euphemism, "garden."
** And what I like even better is that the hated Notre Damiens of South Bent, Hoosiermama, lost again and are 0 and 4. I will not be truly happy, however, until they go 0 and 666.
*** Not the band, the slang term meaning "phony." Duh.

Oscar Brown, Jr., Step by Step

Ever resolving to write some original prose, rather than just expository faux journalism (linkalism), but unable yet to get it together. But I'm alive, so here's a post about something good.

Oscar Brown, Jr.

Item 1.



Music is My Life, Politics My Mistress (Documentary Trailer)

There is a much better version of this trailer available at this site, along with plenty of facts and opportunities to participate in something great through spending.

Item 2.



Bid 'em In

Item 3.



I Apologize

Item 4.



This Beach

Appendix



donnie l. betts speaks about Oscar Brown, Jr.

She just couldn't stand to be away from Charles

Rest in pease, Brett Somers.

Nice tribute video here.

Oh. Mine eyes and ears.

Yeah, there are so many things wrong with this video that it becomes right and then again wrong and repeatedly right and wrong until your guts are sick from stroboscopic sucking/nonsucking and you just succumb to a resignation of hopeless giveitupingness. Under no circumstances whatsoever should anyone, human, beast or robot, lay eyes on a viewing of this which I am about to provide a link to, for you NOT TO CLICK UPON. Ever.



Tesla - Walk Away (James Gang cover - Best Buy of Phoenix, June 5, 2007)


On the other hand, this totally kicks ass. And is recommended for all audiences.



Tesla - Space Truckin' (Deep Purple cover, oh yeah, same Phoenix place, baby, same Best Buy time, uh, also on June 5, 2007)

Typeface Personals Ads: Rejected submission to McSweeney's, 5/31/2000 (never submitted)

The Personals

“Good letters are rare. Most of the letters we see about us are ugly, inadequate, or erratic.”

Jan Tschichold, 1952

Computer screen humanist sans serif seeks modern sans serif with a light stroke contrast for conversation, friendship, smokers OK (Reply to box: Verdana)

Renaissance old style, standard among book designers and printers for four centuries, seeks Renaissance old style revival for output at all resolutions (Reply to box: Garamond)

Classical sans serif, simple, functional, famous, good listener, seeks a good bread-and-butter typeface for most jobs (Reply to box: Arial)

Transitional typeface, generous proportions, marked differences between fine and bold strokes, seeks explicitly classical typeface for serious relationship (Reply to box: Baskerville)

Pure, simple but not artificial sans serif, classical proportions, legible in text and display, seeks elegant, readable humanistic typeface, no serifs, drugs, fatties (reply to box: Gill Sans)

20th century humanistic serif typeface, beautiful, classical lines, seeks excellent text typeface to give sparkle to long text passages (Reply to box: Perpetua)

POSTSCRIPT: In a semi-related vein, this Typography Class project seems like a damn fun exercise, although those example personal ads are completely implausible (nobody is gonna spend the dough to say "If you have kids that is great," when they can just say, "You, kids? Great!" and save a bundle .... although it does occur to me that that shorthand is rife with dangers for misinterpretation ... Anyway, I did my "Typographic Personal Ads" goof first! And there's no subtextual tolerance for pedophilia at all in it! Sorry, Catholic Church.)

Rubadubtub!

Hey, dig this coincidence. Just two days ago, in one sitting, I finally up and read Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg's infamous novel Candy, after a couple of decades of meaning to do so, and just now I sees this on the Youtubes!

From one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, Terry Southern (Screenwriter on Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider, Candy, and the author of such novels as The Magic Christian and Blue Movie) comes a hard-hitting short script combining the author's satiric eye with his surrealist impulse first published in PLAYBOY in 1967. The Film will make its World Premiere at The Toronto International Film Festival 2007.

Terry Southern's Plums and Prunes Final Trailer

(Hm, I was born in 1967, so therefore Terry Southern is attempting to contact me from beyond the grave. His message: "You spend too much time fucking around on YouTube, asshole.")

Swedes Rock Thursday / Sports Suck ... also happening to be ... another feature of this blog offered tonight ... on a Thursday

Yeah, I swear I'm gonna write something someday. For now, hey, why not enjoy this Dungen veddeo? It's borkadelic!



Ta Det Lugnt (live arkoustic at someplace)

Whoa. Did I forget to warn you that you better get real stoned first? Sorry.

Meanwhile ... Hey hey! Wholly shit-a-shit! Much doubt about it! We have an ersatz pennant race going on in Chicago right now, on the North Side. Ersatz because ... despite hanging onto a share of first place by the skin of their late-inningly-porous teeth tonight, the Cubs suck with the suction of a thousand Wacky Wall Walkers. Or ... or ... or ... do they?

Just kidding. They totally do.



The Mountain Goats - Cubs in Five (live at Pitchfork 2006)

Friday Nite YouTubeBox - 70s Hard Glammy Psycho Pop Edition

Suzi Quatro - Daytona Demon



The Sweet - Little Willy



Wizzard - Ball Park Incident



Nazareth - This Flight Tonight



Alice Cooper - Is It My Body



X-Ray Spex - I Am A Poseur



David Bowie - Oh You Pretty Things

And it's not even his birfday!

I heard two Dobie Gray songs on two different radio stations today. Which doesn't happen every day. Which is why I consider it noteworthy.

On the morning commute, I heard this one on 94.7, the oldies station:



The In Crowd

During afternoon drive-time, 97.1 "The Drive" played this one:



Drift Away

Or maybe it was the other way around. And the radio stations might have been reversed. But still. Two -- some would say "both" -- Dobie Gray songs, in one day.

Yeah, when I finally put my feet up and take a load off at the close of bidniss each night, I'm tired, sure. No doubt about it. But it's a good kind of tired, you had better bet.

Say it loud!

I'm back and I'm proud!

Vacation time is over. Back to work like a cranked-up monkey on crank. And after work is done ... No time to blog-ue, blog me the idol, I blog you the whip! Oh, that's just my pet blog, Reggie. I hate blogs!!!

Yeah. There were some totally superfluous references to the opening portion of Raiders of the Lost Ark in the last part there. Did you spot them? Did you notice they are standing in for any substantive content? Me too.

Vacations mean good times, good topics. Check back in the next couple of ... indeterminate time units ... for More to Come on some or all or more or none of the following topics:

• La Festa Italiana
• Hookah with a heart of gold
• Vintage Base Ball World Series
• Harold Ball and Kumar Than Dirt Go to Pizza Hut
• Habaneros and Brimstone Diet: A Recipe for Pain

For now, here's this one-part lesson on How to Tell You Are on Vacation. Lesson One: You wake up with a splitting headache, and a real dog with you in bed.