Ed Driscoll at Instapundit posted a tweet by Kevin Sorbo indicating that people could be “radicalized” by watching commercials from the 1990s, and Driscoll posts this one:
Ah, gentle reader. A grainy little box on a computer screen is not the way I saw it.
I saw it projected on the wall of the Northwest High School gym at an all-school or more likely an all-school assembly parted into gym-sized groups of students.
At almost 3 minutes, the pseudo-music-video advertisement wasn’t for television, and it would have taken us several hours to download it from BBSes. No, this was designed just for that: To prepend Stay In School/Don’t Do Drugs mass meetings. And it, like Van Halen’s “Dreams” which I also saw for the first time at one of these assemblies, played upon a young man’s blood, for sure.
On a recent three hour tour of the Nogglestead lawn, the local country and western station provided a point/counterpoint over the course of the afternoon.
Starting with Eli Young Band, “Love Ain’t”:
With its chorus:
Love ain’t you on a sidewalk in your new dress all alone
Love ain’t you callin’ me ’cause he ain’t pickin’ up his phone
The way you’re talkin’, sounds like he’s somebody you should hate
I may not know what love is, girl
But I know what love ain’t
That is, the poet/narrator admits not knowing what love is.
Later, we had Clay Walker singing “What’s It To You”:
With its revelation:
Love is the rhythm of two hearts beating
Poundin’ out a message steady and true
Talk to me baby, tell me what you’re feelin’
I know what love is, what’s it to you?
Is it just me, or is there a whole new subgenre of bro country where the poet/narrator exhorts a woman in a relationship to leave her partner (or maybe Old Dominion’s “Break Up With Him” is just in heavy rotation on a “classic” country station. I suppose it’s catnip to young ladies on the prowl who like to think their options are always open, but it kind of offends me.
At any rate, stay tuned for another rousing edition of “What song came on the (sixteen year old? already?) WorkTunes while Brian J. was mowing the lawn?” Because we’ve had rain in July, so I have at least one more mowing this summer–each time I mow in July, I think Is this the mowing that will turn the lawn brown? So far, it has not, but it’s going to get dry here sometime soon.
So after a couple of morning BJJ classes which were humbling in more ways than one, I decided to prove that I’m still a young hep cat by going to Relics and spending the remaining gift certificate I received for my birthday (I got four, and I spent the others in February and March. As they only are good six months, I had to spend this remaining one before the end of August, and I hoped for some exercise, since two hours on the BJJ mats and having my youngest son dig his hands into my kidneys don’t count because I take my watch off.
Oh, but no. For there’s a new record booth in the first row, and it had an organized and fairly well-stocked Jazz section.
I made it to K before realizing I’d overshot my $25.
I got:
Sleeping Gypsy by Michael Franks.
Cross Currents by Eliane Elias, whose name I can pronounce correctly. I got one of her CDs back in the days when I bought them because I liked a song on KCSM or WSIE. But not this one, which is from…. 1988? How is that possible?
More Stuff by Stuff which was in the “bargain” crate, not the jazz crate, but it looks to be jazz anyway.
Two(?) by Dave Gruisin: Dave Gruisin & the NY-LA Dream Band (the original 1982 release) and Piano, Strings and Moonlight: The Many Moods of Dave Gruisin (from 1962? It fits the cover). He’s the “Mountain Dance” guy if you listen to WSIE, but he’s much more, and I suppose I’ll have to look for him in the wild now. I guess I almost consider Relics to be “the wild,” but at $5 a record, that’s a safari-style wild.
Living Inside Your Love by Earl Klugh.
Twice the Love by George Benson. A promotional copy, not for resale. Which I likely won’t, but my heirs, yeah, likely so.
I spent about $14 in cash on them. Now that I’m out of gift cards, it’s back to $3 and under records for me. These were $5-7, so not terrible, and they were in much better shape than the ratty ones I fish out of estate sales and on Saturdays at the Friends of the Library book sale. So I suppose I should go listen to them now (and by the time you’re done reading this, I will likely have listened to one or more, but not all.
My brother just “retired” with veteran’s benefits and disability, so I asked him on the third day of his retirement if he was making tick marks on his wall.
He mentioned counting flowers on the wall, and I asked him “Gatlin brothers or that other guy who is twenty or thirty years ago now?”
I was thinking of Eric Heatherly.
Ah, gentle reader: Before you ACKSHUALLY me (the semi-modern PDWL!), I have remembered via researching this post that it was the Statler Brothers who did it first.
Ai, they were both old when I was young (Eric Heatherly notwithstanding).
But when Sue F. came to visit us in our trailer in 1985…. I am pretty sure she said the bass Statler brother looked like an alcoholic, and I said he just looked fat. And then I swallowed the echo of my words, because she was overweight. Forty years later, I might be one, I might be both, or I might be neither.
But, no, the Gatlin brothers did not do that song.
Also, if you’re keeping track: Note that in 2000, I was listening to country and oldies. It would be decades before I got into metal, but a little less before I got into jazz.
So I still listen to WSIE from time to time, and Jason Church has mentioned that Keiko Matsui, the jazz fusion keyboardist, is coming to St. Louis in October. I’ve been thinking about picking up tickets even though it’s a weeknight show. However, my beautiful wife has picked up a contract chock full of calls during the workdays, so it might be hard for her to do it. So maybe I take one of my boys or go it alone. I mean, I have nine of her albums which puts her on par with Billy Joel, Pink Floyd, Herb Alpert, and Iron Maiden (if you count the Iron Maiden bonus disc).
But, jeez Louise, look at the ticket sales so far:
They are not exactly sold out yet.
I don’t know what’s wrong with the people of St. Louis. Too many good concerts to choose from. I mean, at the City Winery St. Louis itself, they have Michael Lington and Paul Taylor, Acoustic Alchemy, Eryka Badu, Spyro Gyra, Bebel Gilberto, Esperanza Spalding, Melissa Manchester, Janet Evra, and so on. Plus Jim Manley every week free. If I lived in St. Louis…..
I would probably not make it to as many things as I think I would. After all, I am not exactly tearing it up in Springfield even after seeing Jim Manley and vowing to change, much like seeing vowing to change in 2019.
(Link via Ed Driscoll @ Instapundit.) I haven’t listened to her much recently–I find her vocals a bit breathy and timid for my taste. I did see one of her records at the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library earlier this month, but I didn’t buy it. And I know I’ve read up on her story once or twice and I’ve been surprised by it each time. Probably I’ll remember it now.
I got one of her records in in 2025—In My Way. Too folky for my taste. Seems I’d read about this controversy then when looking her up on the Internet. I guess this is just news now because of the university’s action. I clicked through on the headline, “Oscar-winning folk singer stripped of honorary degree over Indigenous ancestry claims”, where of course did not name her because nobody knows who she is in 2026. Nobody except me, maybe, who has far more folk music in his record library than he listens to. Mostly because of two factors: 1) I got a lot from the record libraries of my mother-in-law and sainted mother and 2) because so many of them feature pretty women on the cover, Buffy Sainte-Marie being in the latter category.
UPDATE: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit covered this story this afternoon, after I posted this. Hopefully, he’s just also tuned into the folk scene, man, and did not base his post on my trackback without attribution.
I saw a paywalled article about the Summerfest 2026 lineup, so I checked out the lineup, and….
Geez, Louise. I don’t really know any of the bands except for singers and bands that I might have seen at Summerfest 30 years ago.
Garth Brooks
10000 Maniacs
The Spin Doctors
Aldo Nova
Bodeans
Christopher Cross
Echo and the Bunnymen
Gin Blossoms
Lisa Loeb
Little Feat
Living Colour (now in dress suits instead of diving suits)
Soul Asylum
Styx
Third Eye Blind
What, no Gufs? No Surf Boys? Or are they nested deeper in the schedules?
The only artists I’ve heard of in the years I’ve been away from Wisconsin (32 years and counting, gentle reader, may the years keep counting but the away may vary) are Jelly Roll, Halestorm, Mindi Abair, and From Ashes to Embers (and this last I’ve only seen the name because my cousin’s husband posts a lot of their videos on Facebook). I mean, I think I might have heard of some of the newer country stars. But the pop and hip hop? Nah.
You know, gentle reader, when I was going to Summerfest several times every year, I saw old bands like Bachmann Turner Overdrive, the Turtles, Steppenwolf, and others. They played before the then-contemporary headliners on most stages, and….
Now, those then-contemporary headliners are now the novelty acts (except Garth Brooks who is on the main stage for two nights).
Pardon me while I go to the mirror and watch the Matt Damon aging from Saving Private Ryan in real time. Actually, scratch that: In the mirror, I always look twenty or thirty. To live the meme, I’ll have to go from the mirror to a recent photo. That guy looks my age.
Which is not to say Summerfest would not be a good time, but: I avoid crowds now as much as possible, and my dancing on picnic tables and thrashing to non-thrash music would look far worse now than it did then.
Heard this one on the radio while mowing the lawn yesterday:
Lyrics include:
It’s a lonely stretch of blacktop out into the blue
Ah, gentle reader. As you know, I have vacationed in Arkansas (Hot Springs in in 2017 and Fairfield Bay in 2023 (that long ago already, he asked, nesting parentheses like a programmer)), and I have been to a couple of cybersecurity conferences in Bentonville, and I have been to Berryville in 2021 and in 2024. So I have driven a bit around northwest and central Arkansas, including around Hot Springs, and:
The topography does not lend itself to blacktop extending to the horizon. Probably not even on Interstate 30 which (I just learned, researching this post and discovering it might not be as clever or arch as I thought) runs between the two. It is not Texas or Kansas where the lines are long and straight. It’s curvy and hilly, probably even on the interstate.
Also, of note: In the two-and-a-half hours I spent on mowing part of the yard, I heard three songs that mentioned Little Rock (and not “Little Rock” by Colin Raye, and not “Little Rock” by Reba McEntire which is not about the city). It sure punches above its weight in country and western music, ainna?
Ah, gentle reader. This weekend offers many temptations for Brian J. to spend more money than he should. Springfield is hosting a festival celebrating 100 years of Route 66 downtown. Walnut Street has its annual Artsfest, which we’ve gone to on occasion. It’s Free Comic Book day. ABC Books had a book signing. And it was half price day at the Friends of the Library book sale. Which is where I went.
We got there at a little after 10am, and volunteers were helping people to park, which made it seem like it should have been busier than it was–however, I guess there were other events going on at the fairgrounds, so although the lots were full, the book sale itself was not crowded at all.
I really only browsed the dollar (half off: Fifty cents) records and got 25.
I got:
Jarreau by Al Jarreau. I have a copy already, but I think it skips.
The Love Hours, a Jackie Gleason record. I already have it, I’m pretty sure, but this cover is in very nice condition.
The Hollywood Musicals by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mathis.
Desiderata by Les Crane. A collection of poetry, perhaps. With a poster intact.
Standards in Silhouette by Stan Kenton.
Here Where There Is Love by Dionne Warwick.
Solid by Ashford & Simpson. Did I already have it? Apparently not; I got Is It Still Good To Ya?in 2021 and Send Itin 2023. So I am pleased to discover I did not.
The King of Swing Volume 1 by Benny Goodman.
Friends in Love by Dionne Warwick.
Eddie Haywood at the Piano.
Capitol Jazz Classics Volume 2: Stan Kenton and His Orchestra: Artistry in Jazz.
Dionne! by Dionne Warwick.
The In Crowd by the Ramsey Lewis Trio. I just picked up Reunionin March.
Let the Music Play by Shannon [Brenda Greene].
The Three Suns Play Midnight Time. A bunch of fox trots, it seems. Presumably with squeeze box somewhere in them.
Bobby Hackett Plays the Great Music of Henry Mancini. I thought it was a team-up like The Hollywood Musicals (above), but I see now the smaller text says Hackett is playing the music and Mancini was just cashing the check.
Warm and Tender by the Three Suns. Looking at their Discogs entry, I see that accordion is one of their primary instruments. I am not crazy to mention it.
Dancing on a Cloud by the Three Suns.
The Best of Jackie Gleason.
Four Centuries of Music for the Harp, a Nonesuch Records title. I will buy all the fifty cent Nonesuch records I find.
Born to Love by Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack.
Melba by Melba Moore.
Brotherly Love by Daniel Williams.
For the Young at Heart by Perry Como.
All I Want For Christmas by Jackie Gleason. A two record set. And because I play all platters before shelving them, we’ll be listening to some Christmas music here presently.
Cost of records: $12.50. Total spend: $75, roughly, if you add in the lunch at Five Guys, a tradition that the boys favor–they both came along and were pleasantly surprised that I only browsed the cheap records and did not look through videos, audio books, or actual books–and I didn’t even go into the Better Books section. I have enough to read, ainna? Enough to listen to as well, so only the one stop and only a little more than a sawbuck.
So my beautiful wife is at a conference in Wichita, Kansas, to close out the week, and every time she mentioned it, I would lay down the line dun dun dundun dun dun dun:
For a long time, I thought the song was called “Wichita”.
You know, about that era, I had print subscriptions to Spin, Maxim, FHM, GQ, and even Playboy for a year or two . I was staring down the barrel of turning thirty, and I was probably still steeped in both kinds of music (country and western) at the time. So I desperately sought information on what kids those days (which is to say, people who were just a couple years younger than I was) were listening to and, I guess, wearing, although I really never have been a fashion plate. But I remember the White Stripes were on the cover of Spin. As were the Black Keys, I’m sure, and I didn’t pay enough attention to be able to tell them apart.
At any rate, now that their music is “oldies,” not that music is allowed to be oldies these days, I’ll give them some consideration. Because whenever I let YouTube run on and present me new music, I am beginning to wonder if it’s a real band or if it’s AI. And by plumbing the past with actual bands I heard of back then, maybe I’ll find something else new to me.
But I’m not going to like Pearl Jam or Green Day. That’s out of the question.
Ah, gentle reader. As you might have gleaned from the tone of the blog lately, I’ve been fighting vainly the old ennui. But last week, I had a magical moment which might have set things aright, or at least made things a little better.
My beautiful wife had submitted, almost off-handedly, a talk for the cybersecurity day in St. Louis’s Tech Week, and it was accepted. So we decided to make a little trip of it–instead of driving up early on the day of the conference, we went up the night before and stayed two nights. We ended up stationed about two blocks from where I worked when I was an executive at a marketing agency, so I spent a little time while she was in a woman’s event in the early evening walking around, trying to remember where things were. Was it this corner where Carlos with the grill sold me lunch (two brats, plain)? Is this coffee shop where the Starbucks used to be, our daily destination for work breaks? And so on. A lot has changed in the 20 years since I left that office. I walked back to the women’s tech event to escort my wife back to our hotel (“Did you walk with me just for safety?” she asked on the drive back home. Yes.)
The room was nice; I sent a picture to my oldest, and he wanted to know about the foot traffic. Not a lot–a pedestrian every block or so. The hotel is right by the convention center. There are some offices and residences down there, I guess, but the big office towers are a little to the north and the well-known loft district is a little to the west. So the foot traffic is less than what we encounter in Springfield in its more compact and destination downtown. Not too many homeless around–no tent cities, just a couple people wandering around, one guy sprawled outside the venue where her women in tech event was held–and an associate who was trying to rouse him. The pocket park outside the Old Post Office was packed with the indigent, and I picked up the cap from a nip bottle on the bottom of a shoe like a single tap for a couple dozen yards–but I didn’t feel unsafe, just wary.
And our hotel room: Ah, I don’t know whether it was developed as a hotel or was originally a loft building chopped into a hotel. Our room had high ceilings–12 or more feet–and floor to ceiling windows as two walls. Nice, but the southern exposure meant the room warmed up. No problem: Blackout drapes for the win. But it was really nice, although I often punched the wrong button at the elevator because the restaurant, fitness center, and pool were on the upper floors of the five-story building.
At any rate, what about Jim Manley?
Well, gentle reader, as you might not be aware, Jim Manley is a St. Louis trumpet player who gets played plenty on WSIE, which I stream on my computer most days. When I decided to tag along to this conference, I started checking the calendars of the local jazz artists, and–well, I didn’t get far because Manley plays weekly on Wednesday nights at Sasha’s Wine Bar in Clayton. As my wife plays trumpet, I thought this would be the right choice, and it was.
We took a rideshare from another Tech Week event to Clayton, arriving two hours early, and we told the waitress we were in no hurry as we were there for Jim Manley. So we had a leisurely dinner, and our server told us she’d reserved one of her tables where he would play. Sasha’s is a charming little shop, a jumble of rooms carved out of two buildings on Demun, and Manley played in a barroom with, I guess, a retractable roof, which came in handy. His first set started at 8:30.
It was a low-key thing; he was just the guy in the corner with a trio (he started without his drummer, who arrived fifteen minutes late and maybe intoxicated). The other people in the room continued their conversations; we had a large table of a ladies night out beside us. But we were front and center, with chairs the server had turned to face Jim Manley. Nobody else knew it was a Jim Manley concert..
As he played, storms started rolling in from the west; when I turned to glance at my wife, she was framed by flashes of sheet lightning behind her. In the middle of his set, a downpour provided its own percussion. God didn’t know it was a Jim Manley concert.
After his first set, my wife went to talk to him, and he was very gracious as they talked trumpets and then came over to talk to me was well. Because I knew it was a Jim Manley concert.
We took advantage of a brief interlude in the storm to head back to our hotel; as we began, the tornado sirens went off with a tornado warning. As St. Louis had a bad tornado rip through last year, no doubt they’re pushing that button a lot this year–it was the same after the Joplin tornado down here, where the weather people lit it up many times the next year or so, reverting to the mean (one or two a year, maybe) in more recent years.
And after a chapel service at the Lutheran seminary just a couple blocks form Sasha’s, we returned home.
I mean, people in Clayton can go see Jim Manley every Wednesday. But would I? I dunno. When we lived in Old Trees, we lived two blocks from the theater where the opera theater group and the St. Louis Rep play, but I haven’t been there in…. Almost thirty years? I guess we were in a different place then, with very young children, but…. Eh, who knows? Before children, I/we got around a little more. But now it’s fairly rare, although maybe we’ll get around the Springfield area more often. Or maybe (and probably more likely), this trip, like my “trip to see Janet Evra” in 2019, will just underline how I enjoy these little concerts. More than I did when I lived in St. Louis and could see a corner musician in a coffee shop all the time. Perhaps these experiences are more meaningful because they are excursions, expeditions, and not just part of the background noise of everyday life.
Ah, well. Jim Manley didn’t have an CDs for sale, so I didn’t get any autographed, and it looks like his most recent releases are download-only. So when I get a couple bucks, I’ll order a couple of older releases on CD. Until then, I’ll hear him on WSIE almost daily.
On Saturday, Brian J. was a good, good boy and completed all of his weekend chores, which included dusting and vacuuming the common areas of the house and doing a quick, expensive wipe of the hall and foyer. After a martial arts class, too.
So I thought I would head up to Relics and buy a couple records using the gift certificates I received for my birthday (like I did the previous weekend). However: Relics had an event of some sort, and parking was at a premium, so I did not go in.
But: I had an errand (coincidentally!) that took me to the area yesterday, so I stopped in for twenty or thirty minutes, just pawing through the same booth, and picked up 9 records.
I got:
Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. The song from The Exorcist. Looking at it now, I think I might already have it. Which so often happens. But generally not at these prices.
The Baddest Hubbard by Freddie Hubbard.
Surprises by Herbie Mann featuring Cissy Houston.
Μαζί Με Τον Σταμάτη by Σταμάτης Κόκοτας. Because I cannot tell the difference, at a glance, between Hebrew and Greek. I thought I’d troll my oldest who is steeped in podcast politics and would be scandalized by a Jewish album. But this is Greek folk music by Stamatis Kakotas.
Low Ride by Earl Klugh.
The Changing of the Gard by Stargard. I told the young lady ringing me out that buying this made me the biggest Stargard fan in Springfield.
The Beginning and the End by Clifford Brown. Hard not to type Jr. behind it, but this is the DJ’s father. Apparently, the booth was not rife with them–this is the only record they had.
Reunion by the Ramsey Lewis Trio.
Land of the Midnight Sun by Al Di Meola.
A couple of trumpeters, a couple of jazz guitarist, a flutist. Left behind: A couple of Moody Blues records. A couple of David Sanborn records, as I mentioned. No further Billy Joel records in evidence.
The total was $73 and change, which is the perfect amount in one sense: As it was just under the total of the certificates I had, I paid two gift certificates plus some cash. But I don’t expect to go next weekend. Let’s let the stock turn over for a month or two. Or I can find another booth and give myself permission to spend more than three dollars a record.
So I received four $25 gift certificates to Relics Antique Mall for my birthday. If you recall, gentle reader, these are certificates, not gift cards, and Relics does not give change from them. So you have to spend the whole amount (or more), which is why I had four certificates and not one for $100. Also, remember, gentle reader, these have fairly quick expiration dates–six months from issue.
So I made my way to the antique mall, hoping to find a katana in the bladed weapons cabinet since I bought a tachi/wakizashi pair last year and had purchased a rapier that I mentioned caressing in 2023 with some other gift cardery or certificatage. But, as periodically happens, the bladed weapon cabinet was gone. No axes, no sword canes, and certainly no katana.
I’d also thought that I would look through some of the higher-priced record album booths since I have the notion of rebuilding my Billy Joel record set. I’d gotten a pretty good set of the late 1970s and early 1980s works around 1990 from Recordhead in Milwaukee, where records were cheap because everyone was getting rid of them to go to CDs. But I sold them at garage sales in the middle of that decade when I needed dollars more than LPs, and after I’d sold the stereo that had a turntable.
But: No Billy Joel records. Seriously, where have they gone? I have not seen many in the wild–I picked up Songs in the Attic and 52nd Street at some point (Songs in the Attic in 2008, The Bridge in in 2023). But I haven’t seen a lot of them in the wild. Which is odd: He sold a pile of records. So where have they all gone? Do Billy Joel fans have them? Did Columbia Records cheap out on the materials?
Ah, well. At any rate, I was going to just quit and save the certificates for the end of July (right before they expire, where I would be a little less choosy and more driven to spend them) when something caught my eye.
Can you guess what it was?
Yes, Fandango, by Herb Alpert. Which I have on CD, but now I have it on vinyl. I might have mentioned that Herb Alpert is the only 4-media artist at Nogglestead. We have records, cassettes, CDs, and MP3s–albums bought electronically (the CDs have been ripped to the electronic library as well).
So once I committed to, what, $6? I had to spend the remaining $20, so I got two Bob James records (“H”, which also features Grover Washington, Jr., and Rameau) and a David Sanborn record (Close-Up). The booth had a lot of David Sanborn, but records I already have.
So I still have $75 to spend, most likely this summer. And once I have to spend it, maybe I’ll pick up some of the inexpensive Clifford Brown records I saw. I do listen to his son’s radio program on KCSM sometimes.
I mentioned that I was starting to watch the Bruce Lee boxed set that I bought in 2024. And WSIE, the jazz station out of Edwardsville, is putting me in the mood.
They currently have Kamasi Washington’s “Fists of Fury” in heavy rotation.
Additionally, I heard The Olympians’ “California” and thought it sounded a log like the music in The Big Boss (aforelinked):
I actually ordered the latter’s In Search of a Revival (from Bandcamp, since I’m almost sorta still on an Amazon Tweehad).
My oldest son has started to be thoughtful and to give gifts that he selects on his own. Well, started is not the right word–he’s been doing this for over a year. But it’s nice that he’s starting to remember things like birthdays and Fathers Day on his own.
Although how well he knows me is a little, well, wanting, perhaps based on what he got me.
He went to an antique mall and got me three books:
The Runaway Jury and The Judge’s List by John Grisham. You know, I’m not really a big fan of the legal thriller; I think I read a Scott Turow thing in the 1990s. I do read Erle Stanley Garner books from time to time, but Perry Mason mysteries are not the modern legal thriller. Are they even a thing any more?
Bastion of Darkness by R.A. Salvatore, book 3 of the The Chronicles of Ynia Aielle. I don’t have the first two, of course. It reminds me of the lot of books I got from my brother that he’d picked up in the Corps but divested himself of by giving them to me for seven years’ worth of Christmases (in one box). He’d picked up the first or the first two books of trilogies but not the last, so I don’t know how so many things turned out. I did, at one point, but the complete omnibus of Salvatore’s Icewind Dale trilogy for them when I was hoping to get them interested in reading adult books. I just claimed it for my own in January when we culled my youngest son’s room. So, who knows? I might read this book independently. The cover doesn’t have a drow on it, so it’s got that going for it.
He also got me a Marvel Heathcliff #3 comic (the lower shelf of the chairside table is full of the comic books culled from the youngest’s room, and a lot of them are of the older brands, and he (the gift giver) knows I have some Heathcliff paperbacks, so I can see what he was thinking here). He also got me a gospel record, Whispering Hope by Jim Roberts and Norma Zimmer, because, as he said, I like church music on Sunday mornings. Ah, gentle reader–I played Take a Little Time to Sing by the Swedish Gospel Singers every week for a long time, and I’ve been known to spin some Tennessee Ernie Ford or Nat King Cole gospel platters, but I’m not a big fan of the small-label, regional or local gospel acts–although I do have a lot which I got from my brother at one point, and several I’ve received from my mother-in-law or my sainted mother. When I got the crates of records from my brother, I listened to them over a long period of time because, well, they’re not my favorites. But the boy, I guess man now, saw them around, and so he got me one.
So: It is the thought that counts, and I am surprised and pleased that my son thought to give me something.
However, it kind of matches my disappointment in myself and my own gift-giving these days. I know I’m having more and more trouble buying gifts as the years go by. When the boys were young, I bought them a lot of toys and novelties, too many, probably, but they seemed happy unwrapping. Now, though, they’re hard to buy for. The oldest, like me, buys what he wants to support his hobbies and interests. The younger does not do much outside the glass screen. And I’m not fond of just giving gift cards, but sometimes we do.
I am not sure if I’m lamenting the trappings of our relative affluence–we have what we need and what we want–or the atomization and separation in even our family. Maybe this is just a part of them growing up and me having to let go. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
So my beautiful wife is on her way to a conference, and she has a layover in Charlotte. So, on the way to drop her at SGF this morning, I told her that they hated it if you called it C-Harlot–actually, no, nobody knows what that means.
Today, I came across a post from last week on Stuff Nobody Cares About indicating that “Charlotte the Harlot” was the most underrated song on Iron Maiden’s first record.
Ah, gentle reader. My wife, an Iron Maiden fan from way back, might have thought I was making an Iron Maiden allusion with the quip. And I am not going to dissuade her if it makes her fall more in love with me.
To be honest, I mostly listen to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and No Prayer for the Dying when I’m in an Iron Maiden mood, so I’m less familiar with the earlier work.
Spotify’s 2025 summary reveals something…. Mostly untrue about me.
84 years old? More like 84 decibels minimum, you mean. And Tine Thing Helseth? I bought one of her CDs a number of years ago, but she’s not my favorite trumpeter by any means–and classical is not my favorite genre.
What Spotify’s algorithm does not know is that I favor metal for workouts, and most of my purchases are in the vein; over on YouTube, I let its algorithms (“radio”) run on to see if I will hear something new (not often–it insists on replaying things I’ve seen before to keep me engaged). That my radio presets are to the best of 80s, 90s, and today. That I listen to country whilst mowing the lawn and sometimes whilst dusting the upstairs. That I play a wide variety of genres on the turntable upstairs. My computer tends to stream KCSM or WSIE jazz radio stations for background music all day.
But, Spotify. Which I stream in one circumstance: In the evenings, when I am reading in the common area downstairs. My beautiful wife sometimes reads/works there as well, so she prefers instrumentals. And trumpet. So I stream Jackie Gleason. Or Herb Alpert. Or Chuck Mangione. Or Cindy Bradley. I select an artist or sometimes a genre and let it roll. And, you know what? It tends to fall back on the same things over and over again. No matter what I pick (David Sanborn! Miles Davis! Bert Kaempfert! Freddie Hubbard!) it all circles back to Herb Alpert and Chuck Mangione. Which is why I don’t stream Spotify on the computer to find new music. It ends up back at Amaranthe and Within Temptation all the time. Apparently, I have streamed the Tine Thing Helseth “radio” eleven times last year, because its playlist is probably relatively limited and played this song every time.
Maybe I’m an outlier because so much of my life is outside the reach of data brokers and algorithms, but Spotify does not know me very well. And most companies, except the ones listening to me on phones, don’t, either.
KCSM played “Triangle” by Herbie Hancock this morning, and I sat up and took notice. Especially at about the 7:23 mark.
That jangle sounds just like my weather alert radio which I have set to go off only in the event of a tornado warning.
Won’t I be surprised if there’s a nuclear assault and I don’t get the alert.
But I had to turn down the speakers to make sure it was the song on the Internet radio and not an actual tornado in the clear blue sky. Or a failure of the weather radio.
My beautiful wife had submitted, almost off-handedly, a talk for the cybersecurity day in St. Louis’s Tech Week, and it was accepted. So we decided to make a little trip of it–instead of driving up early on the day of the conference, we went up the night before and stayed two nights. We ended up stationed about two blocks from where I worked when I was an executive at a marketing agency, so I spent a little time while she was in a woman’s event in the early evening walking around, trying to remember where things were. Was it this corner where Carlos with the grill sold me lunch (two brats, plain)? Is this coffee shop where the Starbucks used to be, our daily destination for work breaks? And so on. A lot has changed in the 20 years since I left that office. I walked back to the women’s tech event to escort my wife back to our hotel (“Did you walk with me just for safety?” she asked on the drive back home. Yes.)
