Tag Archives: Music

Rock On

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Rolling Stone Cover

Rolling Stone Cover

This picture is the cover of the bio-book for Anne’s and mine 40th high school reunion. We were not proactive enough to submit our bios, but it was enjoyable reading those that did. Some were serious accounts of their lives, while other had their tongues firmly placed in their cheeks. Friend and groomsman Peter told a somewhat fanciful recounting of his career over the past forty years. He worked odd jobs from Pinto fuel tank designer for Ford, to navigator for the Exxon Valdez, with layovers as a consultant to the Ukrainian nuclear power industry and an election official in Florida. Certainly a storied, it not exactly a starry career. I guess his work in IT was just a cover?

The ‘high-five’ reunion speaks to the five Ann Arbor high schools that have joined in this reunion, Pioneer, Huron, Earthworks (also-known-as Pioneer II), Greenhills and Saint Thomas. Think of this weekend as a grand reunion tour, like getting the band back together. Ageist jokes aside like, “Still rocking, in spite of the gray”, “Can they remember?”, and “put to the test as they try to relive their glory years”, I must say that many of my classmates still look pretty good. Our mortality rate has been surprisingly low. This is all goodness for a population with a median age of 58 and a standard deviation of less than a year.

This book’s cover features Bob Seger, rock-and-roll musician and Pioneer High alum. Back in 1972 Seger had working as a Detroit area performer. He played a concert at Pioneer in January of ’72. He headlined along with the MC5. This show was Anne and mine’s first date. This was before he became more famous and successful, with such hits as Against the Wind, Night Moves and Old Time Rock and Roll. The ‘rumors’ of his rare surprise appearance seem somewhat fanciful, but stay tuned until tomorrow, to know for sure.

Last night was a dark and stormy night and tonight is shaping up to be a repeat. Anne had planned on wearing the same shear dress that she had worn at our 30th reunion, but with wind, rain and temperatures in the low forties, she has retreated to wool. Did I mention that tonight’s party is under a tent? 

Hakuna Matata

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Beachy Ground Squirrel at Lovers Point

It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

Anne and I went to see ‘The Lion King’, the musical, at the Fox Saturday night. Saturday morning, she expressed the hope that the musical’s circle of life would also include the decomposers, but as this is a Disney production, I don’t think that will happen. Too bad.

I would have loved to have used a photo from the musical, but none had been made available for my legal use. Disney is such a greedy company, IMHO. So, substituting for a lion king photo, I give you one of Monterey’s fat and not-so-little Beachy Ground Squirrels. 

This particular specimen was photographed at Lovers Point, so named because legend has it that a pair of ill-fated lovers leapt to their deaths there. These squirrels grow big and fat on tourist treats. They can get as big as a ground-hog. They have no fear of humans and can act aggressively if food is about. I know. That makes them the lion kings of the beach.

This is the second time that we’ve seen this musical. The costumes are fantastic. So is the dance. So may photo-ops, so little legal standing. The plot is lifted from the cartoon. The score is embellished. While initially reticent about attending a show on the last holiday weekend of the summer, what with the advent of Isaac, this show will likely be the highlight of our weekend.

Interlude

Now having actually seen the musical again, I hold a somewhat more favorable opinion about it. The costumes and the puppetry are really fantastic. The music is better than I remembered, but the lyrics are not really any better than the cartoon. Likewise the plot. Some bonus points should be awarded for going from a cartoon to a staged musical. One is left to wonder if the original cartoon had been better, might not the subsequent musical too?

Anne loved the show as did the rest of the audience. So, just chalk me up as a crabby old man. I did manage to snap some promising photos of the fabulous Fox Theater.

OMG We’re the New FL of MO

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Chipmunk on the Woodpile

Missouri held its non-presidential primaries last week. After this election, I recapped the results. I wrote the following:

Moving closer to home, our incumbent State Representative Stacey Newman (D) had a very close election with another victim of Republican gerrymandering, Susan Carlson (D). As of now, the vote count is 1823 for Newman and 1822 for Carlson. That’s right, just a one vote difference. In a percentage format, that is a 50.01% to 49.99% difference. I’m sure that there will be a recount. Whichever one eventually wins will be our state representative.

They’ve held the recount and discovered some voting irregularities. One of the Brentwood polling places that is partially in our state representative district and is neither our polling place nor the polling place that Anne worked on Election Day was responsible. This was a great relief to Anne, “Not my fault.” This Brentwood poll, like ours and the one that Anne worked serves multiple precincts. At the Brentwood polling place 102 voters who were in a precinct outside our state representative district were given ballots for our state representative district. With only a one vote difference this is a huge error and would have gone undetected without the recount. This election is now headed to the courts. Does this make us the Florida of Missouri yet? No? Stay tuned. Anne expects extra Election Official training for the November election, because of this incident.

I’ve always been a fan of Devo. It’s good to see that they are still rocking. Now that the Olympic Games have ended let the political games start in earnest.

M Is for the Many things she gave me, …

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Flowers for Mom

The original lyrics were written in 1915 by Howard Johnson and the song is titled Mother: It turns out that Howard Johnson also wrote, “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream”.

M Is for the Many things she gave me,
O Means only that she’s growing Old.
T Is for the Tears she shed to save me,
H Is for her Heart of purest gold.
E Is for her Eyes with love light shining,
R Means Right and Right she’ll always be.

Put them all together, They spell MOTHER

A word that means the world to me.

The picture with this post is of some flowers for Mother.

This is a repost of a post that was written three years ago. It was written for my mother, but also for my mother-in-law. My mother passed last May, while my mother-in-law is still kicking. Actually, Gene, my mother-in-law really owns this post. Her three lovely daughters grew up singing this song to her, much to her chagrin. Maybe this parody of the Mother song that I found on the internet, is closer to what she hears when the original lyrics are sung:

M is for the many things she gave me
O is for the other things she gave me
T is for the things she gave me
H is for her things, which she gave me
E is for everything she gave me
R is for the rest of the things she gave me

Anne asked me not to repost this post for fear of the pain that it might cause her mother. I only heard her childhood guilt speaking. In truth it is I who should feel guilty, because it is my naked ambition that drives this post. Informed readers might ask, how is this different? Since, ’09 this post has been a gold mine of blog hits. Every April it begins. About now, it begins to crest and come Sunday, interest will crash. That is why now is when I should act. I just did a google search looking for the author of this song. I typed in, “M is for the many things she gave me lyrics” and RegenAxe is the number one website returned. I feel lucky. Thank you, Mother.

To all of the forlorn sons and daughters that have found the previous post, the poem MOTHER is in the public domain. It is an old troupe, much copied, but it is free to use. If you are emailing your mom, I cannot compete with the simple cut and paste. If you are willing to go the extra mile, I offer this advice. Say, “I love you Mom.” Praise her. Say she looks nice, say she said something interesting. Tell her something you did that would make her proud. This last one is the toughest, but is likely the one that will make her the happiest on Mother’s Day. 

Super Maroon

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Tomorrow night, is the night of the super moon. This full moon is the biggest, 14% larger than normal and the brightest, 30% brighter, of the year. This is because it is at the moon’s closest approach to earth for the year. The following photo was taken yesterday, two days before full.

Super Moon

While this post is ostensibly all about astronomy, it is really all about the good doctor, Gerry. He prefers to be called Gerald, but I am old and set in my ways and have always called him Gerry. Gerry sounds cooler than Gerald and Gerry really is cool. Besides, the only other Michigan grad named Gerald that I know, was also named Ford.

Gerry happens to play in a band named Super Maroon. Originally, they were going to go with Super Moon, but too many other bands had already adopted that name, including one in Alton. Hence the name Super Maroon. Physicist by day, Rocker at night, it is quite the combination.

Midwest at Night

The above photograph is a NASA picture, taken from the International Space Station (ISS). Taken on a crystal clear night,it shows the American northern Midwest. Above and behind the Midwest is the Aurora Borealis and a portion of the ISS. You might think of this as the moon’s view of us.

An Old Man’s Gripe

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The day started with Anne looking out the bedroom window at our array of bird feeders and then noticing the perfectly aligned pair of wheelbarrows, facing into the sunrise. “We could do a redneck Cialis commercial.” It would have made for great blog fodder, but fortunately, it was still too cold to be anything more than a joke. I couldn’t imagine us crawling into those grungy, old, dried cement encrusted wheelbarrows, in any state of dress, let alone undress.
The concrete guys finished their work today. The still drying concrete looks fine, but the rest of that section of the yard is a mess. I feel plaintiff’s remorse. Maybe I should have lawyered-up or at least asked for some punitive driveway replacement. I now understand one of the values of punitive damages. Actual damages never cover everything, so charging punitive damages covers what wasn’t originally comprehended. Still, I’ll probably just lump it and just carry on. my Mom would not be proud.

The other frost on the bloom was caused by Pippin, also-known-as the alpha predator, the cat from across the street. It was checking out Anne’s bird smorgasbord, when it spied us. It started running towards us and I tried scaring it off, but Anne the critic, complained that I only scared it on to the still drying concrete, all the while doing nothing to help. I suspect that she is a card-carrying member of the international cat conspiracy. We now have a few cat’s paw prints in our new concrete.

Dave is leaving tomorrow, but he will be back again next weekend. It is nice to have a child back in the Midwest again. I was speaking with him about one-sided political rants, like the one I made earlier this week about Missouri Primary politics. I made the statement that it was as one-sided as a Vanilla Ice 45. I saw the confusion on his face from this statement. He knew who Vanilla Ice was, because he appeared in one of the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies that he had loved when he was little, “Ice, Ice Baby”. It turns out that the confusion came with the term, 45. I was not speaking of a Colt handgun, but an apparently hopelessly archaic music delivery system, the 45 rpm record, once the preeminent music delivery system. I explained all this to Dave and he divined, “Like a one hit wonder.” I always find that when you have to explain a joke, it loses all of its humor. This was no exception.