Tag: music

Byte Me, Universe

jono55

Before Apple’s Macintosh came out, I had no interest in puttering around with personal computers at all. They seemed perfect nerd fodder, with their dark screens and blinking green cursors. Who cared?

Then one day in 1984 I wandered into Team Electronics in Yankton SD and there was a new Macintosh sitting on a table with a sign that said “Try Me.” So I did. All I had to do was find out that there was such a thing as cut and paste to make me realize that for anyone who needed to write this was a magical tool.

So I bought one. And I installed it on a table on the lower level of our home where I could explore its possibilities without being in the way of normal household activity. I wrote letters, wrote poetry, fiddled with MacPaint to create primitive graphics … a kid in the proverbial candy store was I.

One evening, after I had been working on a talk I was going to give at a staff meeting, I was looking over the several pages I’d created for typos, when my son came down the stairs and flicked a light switch. At that moment I discovered two things. One, that the outlet my Macintosh was plugged into was controlled by that switch, and two, that when the Mac went dark all that precious writing went away. Forever. I had not yet learned to save as I wrote because I didn’t know you needed to. Who could imagine a machine that would take your hard work and allow it to vanish?

For a few frantic minutes I couldn’t believe that my stuff was gone. I read through the computer’s manual several times looking for some loophole, some place within its CPU where that speech still existed, and all I had to do was figure it out. At long last I gave up and gave in. Rather than go look for a shotgun to deal with the problem directly, I resolved to save and save and save my work from then on. Whenever I purchased new software I looked to see if auto-save was a feature or not. If it was, the sale was made.

There were other smaller and less dramatic losses to come before I truly learned my lesson, but that first one was the mind-bender, my “I can’t believe it” moment. Even today when I think back on that moment, I can see where my sense of how the universe should be ordered was disturbed. And in my perfect universe several hours of one’s work did not disappear at the flick of a switch.

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Loser, by Beck

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I used to have a friend who was paranoid-ish. He didn’t own a credit card of any kind, being suspicious that there were people out there who would steal his money. He owned a computer but used it basically as a large calculator/paperweight, since it was never connected to the internet. He worried that someone might get inside his head and he had no intention of letting that happen.

And that was in a much more innocent time, 40 years ago. He and I have lost touch, and I can’t help but wonder what he thinks today of social networking, online banking, and sexting. Must be hard for him to sleep at night, worrying about someone breaking into his home and surreptitiously connecting him to an ISP without his knowledge or permission. It would be a new sort of cyber-crime, in that they don’t take anything the night they enter your home, but over the years to come you are electronically whittled down to poverty and insignificance.

Because once you turn that sucker on and hit that first clickbait screen telling you to come see the 100 most vicious dog breeds owned by 100 of the worst actors of all time, you have a 50/50 chance of disappearing forever into bogus-land.

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I have what might charitably be called irregular sleep habits. Robin and I retire early, as befits persons of our seasoning, but I am usually up again before midnight. Then there will be a variable period of hours where I completely waste my time using the internet as my tool of choice, next it’s back to sleep once again, then awakening before 0400, when I finally decide I’ve had enough of this circus and just get up.

This morning during the internet phase I got it into my head that I wanted to listen to the song Terrapin Station, by the Grateful Dead. And I wanted to listen to the very best version of the song. So I posed that question to the cloud, and while there was not unanimity, the version played at a concert at the Swing Auditorium on February 26, 1977 kept coming up.

This morning during the internet phase I got it into my head that I wanted to listen to the song Terrapin Station, by the Grateful Dead. And I wanted to listen to the very best version of the song. So I posed that question to the Cloud, and while there was not unanimity, the version played at a concert at the Swing Auditorium on February 26, 1977 kept coming up.

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On Amazon the triple CD of the concert containing the “album only” cut was priced at $135.00, which was not a budget item that I had submitted for approval, so I searched further and found the song once again at the Internet Archive, where it could not be downloaded legally. And yet here it is now for your listening pleasure. Don’t judge me.

Terrapin Station, by the Grateful Dead

After I was done messing around with all of the above electronic stuff, I got up to stretch my legs and found that a beautiful light snow had fallen. Only a fraction of an inch, but enough to make the world pure white. Trackless.

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BTW. The world of the Grateful Dead is not one to enter without a guide. They have released more than 200 albums, mostly live concert recordings, and there is quite a bit of variability in sound quality and occasionally the enthusiasm of the musicians. Fortunately the Deadheads have not all died off as yet, and they are out there vigorously commenting on each band on each album.

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Super 8

jono55

I am having my faith shored up in country music this month. That’s not really accurate because I still think that most of that genre is a musical waste of time. I’m talking about the wide swath of undistinguished pabulum that goes something like this: “picked up my baby in her cutoff jeans and we went down the dirt road in my pickup truck to have a beer and make sweet love but oh Lordy does my head feel bad this mornin’ “.

But there’s always been other threads running through those carpet sweepings. Like traditional Appalachian music, spirituals, work songs, and relatively recently “outlaw” and “alternative” country. Singers like Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson have been examples. Where the lyrics are typically far from superficial.

This week I’ve spent time listening to a musician who has links to many of those threads of “country” and of rock and roll as well. His name is Jason Isbell and he could be the undeclared love child of Neil Young and Lucinda Williams.

Miles, by Jason Isbell

Isbell writes songs that tell good stories, he plays excellent guitar, and he sings well. Interviews he comes across as smart and humble, an attractive combination. Today’s tunes are from a live concert at the Ryman Theater in Nashville, where he and the 400 Unit, his backup band, are in good form. Makes me wish I had been there to hear it.

[BTW – there’s a line that I think we can all get behind in the song “Super 8.” It is “Don’t wanna die in a Super 8 motel.” Can I have an Amen?]

Super 8, by Jason Isbell

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We’re seeing more and more articles on eco-relocation. People packing up and moving to parts of the country where the long arm of climate change doesn’t reach. There is no such place, of course, but they seek at least a spot where hurricanes and rising sea levels aren’t daily concerns.

Paradise is one of those less-affected places, at least for today. Oh, these days we are hotter and drier, but at least our homes aren’t being blown skyward or washed out to sea, and for the less adventurous among us having your house stay in one place is important.

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Living in Colorado has been instructive. Before I became a resident it seemed all rocks and wilderness, and to some degree it still is. But it is harder even just ten years later to get that alone in nature feeling. One of the issues is the mechanization of the mountains.

Colorado’s history of mining left behind a spider web of old, rough roads connecting the small towns and leading to what once were productive mining areas. While ordinary vehicles can’t manage these bumpy and often deeply rutted tracks, Jeeps and other 4WD vehicles can. As soon as the snow melts these pathways are filled with such machines, often traveling in packs.

Some of the pilots of these cars are skilled in navigating mountain roads, but many are not. After all, you don’t need to know what you’re doing to get yourself out there, all you need is a fistful of disposable income and a Jeep. There are now so many unskilled drivers in the alpine areas that a few weeks back a local sheriff was publicly bemoaning the number of “assclowns” on the trails causing problems for drivers who knew what they were doing.

None of these things are impediments to the guy on foot, who can walk past a roadblock caused by a driver who fears going forward and is unable to back up. Hikers don’t get to cover as much ground as the motorized explorer, but they do get to know the ground they cover better. To each their own. I happen to prefer wearing out a pair of boots to a set of tires.

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Middle of the Morning, by Jason Isbell

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I don’t know how many of you are as fascinated by the story of the man eating lions of Tsavo as I am, but there was a tidbit on CNN that I thought worth sharing. The taxidermized lions have been on display at the Field Museum in Chicago for 100 years but recently some small hair fragments noted in their teeth drew the attention of researchers and the guns of DNA study were brought to bear.

What they found was that almost anything on four legs was included in their diet plan, including some large mammals not found today in what is usually considered to be the lions’ range.

And of course, some of the hairs were human.

In the photo of the mounted specimens they don’t look nearly as threatening as they must have in 1898, when they killed 35 railway workers who were involved in building a bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. This story was made into a pretty entertaining movie entitled “The Ghost and the Darkness.” There is a fair amount of quibbling about the film not telling the story exactly as it happened, but when has that ever occurred before? It still makes for a good story, and one disturbing enough to frighten small children.

There are suggestions that the lions turned more to dining on softer and easier to catch humans because of dental diseases. Having had many toothaches as a child I can easily imagine how that could occur. Either way, these famous cats are once again in the news.

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I Ate The Whole Thing

jono55

Breakfast with friend Rod yesterday. Something we hadn’t done in some time. Two hours and entirely too many calories later, after we had solved most of the world’s problems and come up with cures for nearly all the discomforts of age, we returned to our respective homes. This had to be done to allow the food we’d engulfed to come to some sort of détente with our bodies. It was nip and tuck for a while, but I finally forced those hash browns into submission.

I had made the serious mistake of ordering a “slam,” which meant that I was served two of everything you could imagine, when one egg and a slice of toast is my usual meal. I did some calculations and if I can survive the next four days my cholesterol will have returned to normal and my chances of survival improved by 15%.

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Brown-Eyed Girl, by Van Morrison

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These days ex-pres Cluck is telling such big, foolish, and easily disprovable lies that I have come to only two possible explanations that make any sense to me:

  1. He has completely lost his marbles
  2. He has grown tired of people coming forward to shoot at him and wants to be defeated in the election so they will stop, but to admit this to his supporters would be to lose too much face. His problem is that those same supporters seem to enjoy being lied to so much that as far as they are concerned, the bigger the whopper the better.

Can’t decide which is the case. Help me out here.

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Cyprus Avenue, by Van Morrison

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It was Willow’s turn to go to the veterinarian yesterday, and he was waiting for her with immunizations in hand. Last night she showed signs of not feeling well, and this morning she still doesn’t want to stir from the comfortable place she’s staked out. I have that “Dad” feeling of knowing that getting the shots was a necessary and good thing, but really hating to see the temporary suffering of the little animal for which I am responsible. (It was actually slightly easier with my children when they were small, since I could administer simple pain/fever relievers and could talk to them.)

Hopefully she will begin to feel better later today, but almost certainly tomorrow will bring improvement. In the meantime, soft words and touches along with offering food and water will have to do.

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The ash trees in the back yard have turned their many shades ranging from gold to red, and they have upped their ante in how many leaves fall per day in the last two days. So far I have been “mulching” them with my lawn mower, but that tool will soon not be equal to the job. There are only so many inches of “mulch” that a lawn will tolerate.

I will do almost anything to avoid raking the leaves, since I have a congenital condition called achingus backus which begins to spasm at just the mention of using any tool that has tines (except for a fork at mealtimes, where I excel).

Enter the leaf blower. This is admittedly a clumsy way of bringing the leaves together into one big heap, but there is something satisfying about blasting away at the problem. Just a squeeze of the trigger and away you go, roaring about the yard until the battery runs down and you get to take a break while it recharges. I am quite fond of those breaks. I could skip them simply by having a spare battery to press into use, but where’s the fun in that?

If we lived in one of those areas of the country where fall rains keep the leaves wet and cause them to mat together, I would have to alter my approach. But in our semi-arid world the leaves remain dry and eminently blow-able for weeks. There is only one drawback to my approach, and that is the one year-old who lives next door. I never know when he is napping, and the noise created by the blower is incompatible with sound sleep.

So far I have been lucky in my timing, but make repeated errors here and I can expect that the mother of said infant might have something pointed to say about my practices. I know that way back in time when I had babies in the house I personally was not very tolerant of anything that stood between me and the serenity of a sleeping infant.

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These Are The Days, by Van Morrison

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Van Morrison has had such a career! From a modest beginning with the great song “Brown Eyed Girl” to 45 studio albums and 7 live albums.

Released in 1967 on Van Morrison’s debut solo album, Blowin’ Your Mind!, ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ was swiftly associated with the “summer of love” which the singer despised.

… In 2009 he told Time magazine: “‘Brown Eyed Girl’ I didn’t perform for a long time because for me it was like a throwaway song. I’ve got about 300 other songs I think are better than that.”

Wikipedia

I never like to argue with my betters but if I could take only one Morrison song to the proverbial desert island it would be “Brown Eyed Eyed Girl.”

He made musical history with the album Astral Weeks.

Morrison’s first album for Warner Bros Records was Astral Weeks (which he had already performed in several clubs around Boston), a mystical song cycle, often considered to be his best work and one of the best albums of all time.  Morrison has said, “When Astral Weeks came out, I was starving, literally.” Released in 1968, the album originally received an indifferent response from the public, but it eventually achieved critical acclaim.

The album is described by AllMusic’s William Ruhlmann as hypnotic, meditative, and as possessing a unique musical power. It has been compared to French Impressionism and mystical Celtic poetry. A 2004 Rolling Stone magazine review begins with the words: “This is music of such enigmatic beauty that thirty-five years after its release, Astral Weeks still defies easy, admiring description. Alan Light later described Astral Weeks as “like nothing he had done previously—and really, nothing anyone had done previously. Morrison sings of lost love, death, and nostalgia for childhood in the Celtic soul that would become his signature.” It has been placed on many lists of best albums of all time. In the 1995 Mojo list of 100 Best Albums, it was listed as number two and was number nineteen on the Rolling Stone magazine’s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003. In December 2009, it was voted the top Irish album of all time by a poll of leading Irish musicians conducted by Hot Press magazine.

Wikipedia

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Adios to Yet Another Amigo

jono55

Aaahhhhh, dang it. You know how there are people you’ve never actually met who have had a greater effect on you than people you see every day. For me, some of them wrote novels, some wrote poetry, some wrote music. Kris Kristofferson was one of the latter. When I read this past Monday morning that he’d died I felt a sharp hurt. There were tears shed at our home on Monday at the sense of loss that was felt.

Me and Bobby McGee

If Kris had only written the one tune, Me and Bobby McGee, it would have been enough to put him in my personal Hall of Fame, but he went on from there. He wrote the best hangover song I’ve ever heard in Sunday Morning Coming Down.

Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down

He also wrote some of the best breakup songs in For the Good Times and Loving Her Was Easier Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again.

For the Good Times
Loving Her Was Easier

And he wrote some songs that were at least partly autobiographical, using his wry sense of humor to great advantage. He was a good man who lived his life well enough that others can take lessons from it. Love the phrase from The Pilgrim: “He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, taking every wrong direction on that lonely way back home.”

The Pilgrim, Chapter 33

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Kristofferson was a Rhodes scholar, football and rugby player, boxer, helicopter pilot in the US Army, actor, singer, and songwriter. One of those folks whose life story absolutely forces one to accept that they are just more interesting than you are. (At least than I am.)

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I haven’t talked about his movie career at all, but he appeared in nearly 50 films, including two of my favorite movies, which are Heaven’s Gate and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Here’s a clip from Heaven’s Gate, featuring him waltzing with Isabelle Huppert. Sweet.

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Now it follows as the night the day that some of Kris’ music was recorded and made famous by others. A prime example was Me and Bobby McGee, recorded by a former lover from Port Arthur, Texas.

While Kristofferson’s original version was typically laid-back, Janis Joplin’s was kick-ass. I include it because I can’t help myself. It’s a favorite of both Robin and I.

Kristofferson recorded his own version of the song on his debut album Kristofferson in 1970. … Janis Joplin recorded the song for inclusion on her Pearl album only a few days before her death in October 1970. … Record World called it a “perfect matching of performer and material.” Joplin’s version topped the charts to become her only number one single.

Wikipedia: Me and Bobby McGee

Me and Bobby McGee, by Janis Joplin

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Just a thought. If Janis Joplin had lived, she would be 80 years old. Instead, she is forever twenty-seven.

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Everyone’s A Target

jono55

Let’s just begin by clearly stating my position. I hate waiting for call-backs. At this moment I have five of them pending.

  • When will the people come to put the lawn sprinkler system to bed for the year?
  • Where is my replacement tent fly?
  • When will the technician show up to fix my internet battery backup?
  • Where is the refund for a piece of clothing that was ordered and does not fit?
  • When will the stump grinder show up to remove the eyesore from in front of the house?

In each case I am in someone else’s hands, and they have the power to irritate, stonewall, or infuriate me. Or they can make me happy, grateful, and singing their praises to the heavens. But the point is … I am expected to be content with “we’ll get back to you” even when I think that they have completely forgotten me. In the case of the tent fly, my entreaties are almost certainly falling on ears that have long ago lost interest.

When I was a working stiff I (or my staff) dealt with 50-100 phone calls every day. Our aim was to be as clear and decisive on each occasion so that we didn’t turn one call into two or three. Also, when people were calling for advice about sick children, for some reason they wanted help now rather than in three business days.

To avoid delays in being called back, I have begun to try to make myself more memorable, thinking that if I am not quite as anonymous as the other 500 callers that day that perhaps my pleas will make it to the front of the line or top of the heap. So far I have found that flattery seems to work the best.

For instance if I begin a phone call with any of these phrases I usually get nowhere.

  • you idiot!
  • where the hell is my _____?
  • I’m calling my lawyer!
  • are you really that incompetent?
  • I know where you live

But if I say one of the following that seems to fit the situation my chances of getting what I need are improved.

  • you have a lovely telephone voice
  • are you calling from India? Is it awfully hot there today? I hope you are working in an air-conditioned room, you deserve it.
  • thank you so much for understanding
  • you have been very helpful
  • I have never had better service than you provided today
  • I think I love you

I only use this last one sparingly, since one never really knows who one is talking to, and they actually do know where I live.

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Stand By Me, by Tracy Chapman

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It is more than a bit ironic that the man who almost daily stokes or threatens violence of all sorts has now been the quarry of two different men with rifles. Despite his bluster, he must be just the slightest bit nervous. At least I would be if I were in his shoes.

I deplore this violence against him just as I deplore the threats and violent language he has used against others. Ever since the assassination of John F. Kennedy I react to news like today’s with nausea. It’s a physical reaction, like a blow to the gut.

Realistically I know that with all the guns out there and all the mental screws that are loose in our large population it is probably going to happen again and again, but try to tell that to my mid-section. All it knows is to tighten into a fist.

The idea of settling affairs with a gun is such a persistent and deep-seated one with Americans. Boundary disputes, marital problems, disagreements with a teacher, disobedient children, need a little extra cash? Why, just get that ol’ AR -15 down from the wall and blow your troubles away. Instant resolution. If you need inspiration all you need to do is watch the John Wick movies or the old Death Wish series of films.

Every single day there are multiple shootings in this country. And we only read about the worst ones, not the near occasions as in the golf course incident involving the ex-president. If this hadn’t happened to Trump we’d never have heard about it.

As a retired pediatrician I was shocked the first time that I heard that guns were the number one cause of death in school-aged kids. Number one. It’s really not to be believed. The second amendment cannot remain absolute, as it is presently interpreted. Either reconcile it with modern realities, or repeal it altogether.

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I’ll Be Seeing You, by Vera Lynn

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Robin and I are still watching the series The Good Wife, which stars Julianna Margulies, formerly of ER fame. The show is a very well-done soaper about lawyers which reveals them to be conniving, amoral, jealous, dishonest, backbiting, and narcissistic. Reality TV, some might say.

It’s hard to cheer for any one of the characters in the series because they all take their turn in the wicked and nasty role, and that includes Alicia, the heroine of the title. But no one gets away with things forever, and much of the fun comes with the comeuppances that arrive, often cleverly done.

We are hooked. Margulies is great. The rest of the cast is first-rate. A steamy and sinful stew of smarm. IMHO.

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Lawyers, Guns, and Money, by Warren Zevon

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