Mid-Summer Harvest

Can Sam Adams really put out its Harvest Collection in mid-August? Pumpkin Ale is a bit odd with hot, even warm weather, though for numerical correctness, the Octoberfest is always a welcome annual treat. Helps get through grading papers ;)

We've recovered from the Lite Brite Incident and have moved onto nursery school. Can't believe what my kids do and say. Oldest listened to and from school "American Pie" and asked whether it was the basis of the Anakin Skywalker tune he knows. The youngest tonight asked at the dinner table as we were listening to "When the Ship Comes In" on Arlo Guthrie's beautiful "Hobo's Lullaby". "Ship" is a Dylan cover; youngest asked, "Daddy, is this a Bob Dylan song?" Stopped me in my tracks.

While it's now only a couple of hours away, there's no possibility that I can stay awake for Truth & Salvage Co's performance on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Would love to catch it, so here's to a generous someone's TiVO! Here's a great interview with Scott. Still want to lead a group to Sacramento to catch their show on 9/28.

Have been a bit under the weather all week; should have stayed home but am soldiering on. Not a good idea when you stay up late reading or doing this. We're enjoying season three of "Thirtysomething", our favorite show of the last year. I'm off to watch an episode now and this deserves an entire post of its own, so I'll wait.

Happy Thursday and maybe picking up the latest Mellencamp. Intriguing...

Mid-August Musings

Last night's "Jerry Garcia" much of a mixed bag. We missed the music and Phil and Bob singing the national anthem due to crowds and the muni running late. Our seats were great but the Cubs scored early and the Giants played poorly most of the night. Very little Dead-ness for how it was advertised and then the damned game went into extra innings. I'm all for a nail-biter on a weekend with no time commitments but when it's freezing in the city and it's eleven o'clock, I could give a rat's rear end what happens. We made it home at 1:15 and while the Giants eventually won in the bottom of the eleventh, it was not the fun experience I'd hoped for.

Haven't hit the gym in a long while and feel slumpy. Need to go.

One of my twins shoved a blue Lite Brite peg up his nose and so we spent last Friday night in Emergency. Two and a half hours all for a forty-second procedure in which the "specialist", i.e., the guy with the longest tweezers, worked his medical magic. The Lite Brite peg was solidly into the sinus cavity and things were perfectly painful for my little one. Of course, this is one for the record books.

"Croweology" arrived yesterday but I wasn't able to spin it until this morning. An odd set; not up to the reviews I've read that raved about the band's send-off though I will listen to nothing but this for the remainder of the week. Not that it's bad but as I've posted before, their previous output was the album of 2009 and most of this year. There are a couple of tunes, including, surprisingly, 'She Talks to Angels' that soar, like they were recorded at Levon Helms' Woodstock studios. Crying steel pedal guitar, lilting acoustic harmonies and brooding tempos made for the great cuts. Others which I didn't think would catch my ear have but others right now haven't stopped me in my tracks. Hopefully this will change with repeated listenings.

The President did not make it out to Oakland as hoped though my father ended up being the keynote speaker at the Caldecott's dedication. Photographers snapped him in the giant boring machine, like Teddy Roosevelt in Panama a century earlier, and when this project will be complete, people will freely move in the Bay easier than they've been able to in a generation. While this isn't my dad's brainchild, he gets to share a little limelight as he steers the current committee through the proper channels it needs to in order for federal, state, county and municipal governments all cooperate. Go Pop.

Both Giants and A's losing tonight. Oh, well. Off to lesson plan and hopefully catch a little t.v.

Celebration Day and Other Random Musings

Mr. President, may your 49th birthday have brought you peace, relaxation and a day with your girls. Gosh, I sure hope to be able to meet you on Monday!!!

A U.S. District Court judge ruled today that my state's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, is unconstitutional. I was late catching the news and yet, I told colleagues and friends. While many of my friends, family and co-religionists ardently disagree with me on this, marriage is the foundation and cornerstone of society; what brings us together and helps us create family and community, especially in this day in age is critically important. Why deny those who wish to do so? A colleague years ago flippantly told me, "why should straight people have the monopoly on misery?" and yet, I've not once felt that my marriage and its value was being threatened. This will be tomorrow's lesson plan in my civics class and I anticipate good discussion. Hopefully, while we get heated, we can debate this in a mature and progressive fashion. All I know is that I'm thrilled.

My father, whom I've written about many times, is the mayor of my little city. I love my town and I love my dad. I also often get driven crazy by the stories my old man has told me regarding the connections he has made in his tenure of my city's "chief executive". Monday will possibly be the worst: as head of a transportation committee overseeing a federal stimulus program, my father may be able to participate in a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Secretary of Transportation and the President of the United States. I'll save the Horatio Algers story for another time but my dad has done some amazing things in his life. This just may take the cake. I've been begging to accompany him, though I doubt it will happen.

Music: Ah, heaven! The Black Crowes' latest, Croweology, seems to be the dumbest title of an album in a while. At least it doesn't look as dumb as Bruce's latest. Reviews continue to pour in raving about this final send-off by a band that has always done what it wants all the while honoring their rock and roll forebearers. I have to order the dumb thing, though, so it won't be here for a while.
Rock history - we're going to hit the Anthology of American Folk Music and Preservation Hall tomorrow. Can you dig it? Not enough.
Truth and Salvage - you guys are freaking killing me!!! Dates announced will put them in Sacramento, the first day of my fall break and in San Diego when we're supposed to be visiting my brother's family!!! If/when I can catch these, they'll put me at a whopping total of EIGHT times this year that I'll have seen them. Isn't that amazing? And yet, when listening to their record, like I was this afternoon, I'm still blown over at the solid performance, pop craftsmanship and those harmonies that take me to heaven. I can't remember the last time I was knocked out this much by a modern band. Maybe Derek Trucks, but never have I had the opportunity to catch so many performances in such a short time. Keep it up, guys.
The Basement Tapes. I think I agree with Levon, here. The Band and Bob Dylan work just as well for me as Bob Dylan and the Band. Who wrote what matters not; what matters is a series of recordings [album?] that defy time and era. Can one tell it's 1967? 2010? 1923? Does it matter? Content and execution defy definition; here is music that builds truths and pedigree even without lineage. The mystery only adds further beauty to a group of songs that are non-descript and downright plain. There are no "Laylas", no "Born to Runs"; nothing that defines anything for the listener. That is where the Basement Tapes possess their value; the listener must give up everything in order to approach this music, only to see that any music, of any genre, when delivered for the sake of delivering music, MUST be larger than the person/people delivering it. Even when the song is completely non-descript and plain, I find myself amazed at how the stories push the musicians to find THAT take, THAT performance, THAT sound, only to have been shelved and hidden for so long because their only value lay in presenting them to a select few listeners. Not the masses, not the suits, not the labels. How many other nameless and lost recordings have been made by people performing timeless music as such? Why can't I?!?!?!?!

Off to read the latest David Sedaris article in this week's New Yorker!