Musical Monday: The Blues Brothers

Funny how life works. For reasons unknown to me, I found myself thinking of The Blues Brothers–the actual musical act, not the movie; I’ve never seen the movie–yesterday morning while scraping snow off my driveway. I was thinking how at first it seemed like a novelty, a gag for Saturday Night Live like John Belushi’s […]

Christmas Preparedness, and Music!

Well, well, well, we are just a week and a half away from Christmas and…I am totally not ready for it. I did spend about ten minutes moving some stuff out of the living room yesterday so that we can (eventually) put up a tree and decorate. Because we are ‘live (or, as my brother […]

Blah, Friday

It’s Friday. Normally, I get my blog posts done in the morning, but I’ve been slipping lately. I haven’t been thinking about the blog post much this week (I lie; I’ve thought about it several times this week, but never got much beyond “Friday’s coming.”), and we went to the school musical last night which […]

Echoes

While writing this weekend I listened to One From the Vault, a commercial release of a Grateful Dead concert from August, 1975. The show was notable in part because it was one of only two times the band played Bob Weir’s short instrumental, Sage & Spirit: Sage and Spirit by Grateful Dead on Grooveshark Sage […]

Ah, December

This post is coming to you from the Department of the Top of My Head. IN the sports world, when a team is struggling through a rough patch, every win is treated as something of great significance. “This game is could mark a turning point in the season,”  the broadcasters and beatwriters say. “They really […]

Weekend Updates

Nothing especially organized about today’s post, just the ramblings of a confused mind still waiting for his first cup of coffee. – The high school musical was this weekend, an ambitious one this year: “Les Mis.” 2-1/2 months of often grueling rehearsals (the directors of the musical for the past six years in our school […]

A Quote

“The Beatles haven’t got any magic you haven’t got.”–John Lennon It’s easy to be discouraged by the works of others. “I’ll never turn a phrase like that one,” you think. “I wish my descriptions were as lush and full.” When we read a finished product, those phrases, those descriptions, those characters seem so natural, so […]

Musical Monday: Birdhouse In Your Soul

They Might Be Giants–a quirky band if ever there was one. I remember seeing them on TV somewhere before I’d ever heard them on the radio and thinking, “Who are these guys?” They make me think, which is good, and they make me smile, which is even better. This song contains what may be the […]

Musical Monday: Still Fighting the War

Heard this on NPR’s folk program last night. When I was kid, if I heard someone refer to ‘The War’, it meant WWII. Twenty-five, thirty years after the end of that conflict, WWII still shaped so much of the world, and my perceptions of it. We had the Cold War as a direct result of […]

Friday Music: Say It, Blue October

I’ve been thinking a lot about words (that’s a good thing, right?) and their effect. Unfortunately, the thing I’m working on just wasn’t going to be ready in time for today, so I’m filling in with this number from Blue October. A bit bitter, but very powerful. Oh, one blatant F-bomb in here, you have […]