The Grammys Always Bug Me

Why do I do it?  Every year, I watch The Grammys, because I'm a life-long music guy.  And every year, I end up yelling at the TV like the crazy coot that I am.  I keep allowing myself to forget that the awards are a celebration of crass commercialism with no regard to what I consider talent or quality.  They are so tantalizing, like when they announced a lifetime achievement award for Leonard Cohen, but then they introduced Pink for a production number of her own that should have been on "Circus Of The Stars."  At least I got a brief performance from Leon Russell but he was embedded with The Zac Brown Band, yuk!  At this moment Andrea Boccelli just finished the first verse of "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" and it sounded fine, but then they have to bring in Mary J. Blige and she trashed the melody by over-ornamentation.  Tasteless!  I am looking forward to the upcoming Jeff Beck salute to the late Les Paul - I hope they don't make me wait too long.  Otherwise I'll play some vinyl from Norah Jones' dad, Ravi Shankar, doing east-meets-west improvisations with Jean-Peirre Rampal and Yehudi Menuhin.

Today's pictures once again I took in my own back yard.  It's not much but I think I'll miss it if/when I can't make the mortgage payments any more.  I can't have too many more unemployment checks left, and Marcy is not getting Medicaid or Social Security yet.  I had to put ads on this blog.  Maybe we'll have to take in boarders like the old days.  Anyway, this bug is a blue dasher, a relative of the dragonfly.  He probably stopped by to feast on the mosquito larvae that breed in our pool.  Yummy!

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Back In The Saddle Again

I took these pics of another wild edible plant from the backyard. This is the ground cherry, sometimes called husk tomato. It's a relative of the tomato, which you can kinda tell by the leaf shape. It has a yellowish bell-shaped blossom in summer which develops into this papery-husked fruit. Around October, usually after first frost, you can open it and find a yellow-orange marble sized fruit with tiny seeds inside. Since they volunteer to grow by the patio I munch on a few as I work the grill those last few times of the season.

I'm feeling a bit sentimental tonight. My parents got us a Canon AE-1 35-mm camera as a pre-wedding present over 25 years ago and Marcy & I have been going through all of the photos that I've taken over the years, trying to get them all labelled and sorted in order, and put into boxes or an album as we see fit. Oh, the kids in their innocence, the friends that have drifted apart, the effects of time & gravity & care upon the faces & bodies of ourselves and our loved ones. It's a great camera. I carried it over thousands of miles, fell in a cold Tennessee river with it once, captured many a fun time and major life milestone with it. Spent a ton of money on film & processing. For that reason alone I'm thinking of selling it. I have no idea what to ask for it, if there's any market, but it has has some real nice lenses to go with if you're interested. I take all my pics digital now, but I still listen to my music mostly old-school analog, vinyl on the turntable. Tonight I dipped into Marcy's Dad's collection and am listening to Gene Autry's Golden Hits as I post this.

I'm just not that turned on by much new stuff anymore unless I know the composer personally. But I'd rather hear deep cuts or fresh mediocrity than grow tired of something I once liked. Beware "classic" rock radio for that reason. Fox 92.5 made the mistake of playing Yes' "I've Seen All Good People" twice as I was out driving yesterday so I had to change to WNKU 89.7, much to my son's dismay. Derek doesn't like much new music either, but he is much less patient of mediocrity than I am now. He is a sharp crystal, I'm worn driftwood.

Sifting The Debris

This is another of my back yard pics. Plain old thistle weed. They say you can eat the stalk like celery if you scrape off the spines. I've never tried it, but maybe this summer I will. I've always foraged wild food for fun, but maybe some of us will resort to it out of necessity.

Several months ago our son Derek agreed to swap bedrooms with us because Marcy was having too much trouble getting upstairs. I coordinated the move with our kids & their friends doing a lot of the grunt work. Our upstairs bedroom's arrangement had been the result of nearly 18 years of Marcy getting it just the way she wanted, which was totally disrupted by us guys clearing it all out, stacking it all wherever was expedient at the moment and then getting Derek's gear in. Lately Marcy & I have finally got around to putting our now-downstairs bedroom into some sort of order. Several bags of her clothes & shoes have gone to the local thrift store. Today we dealt with lots of old pictures, certificates, memorabilia, etc. I still think of her late father a lot. The news today of reviving rail service at Cincinnati's Union Terminal and street cars downtown would have thrilled him.

It was Derek's first day at Lifeskills. When we picked him up after he was not impressed. Sounds like the inmates run the asylum. But he started in the transition lab or some such, where they get assessed and get their bearings. Some will fall out. If anyone knows of a free school, either physical or online, where he can earn high school credit at an accelerated pace please let us know. He wants to get his diploma and move to Finland and attend Sibelius Academy and study music theory & composition. He is pretty damned determined, and I wish I could do more to help him make it happen.

State Of The Union

I took this pic in the back yard. It's a type of jelly fungus called Auricularia aricula-judae, commonly called the judas or Jew's Ear fungus.

We got Derek enrolled in LifeSkills school today. Yay, progress. He starts tomorrow and is eager to earn his credits and move on.

I watched Prez Obama's State Of The Union Speech tonight. He gives good speech but talk is cheap. I liked it that he called out the Supreme Court for selling democracy out to corporate money. Still no public option for healthcare. We might still be in business if we had that.

Speaking of that, while watching the speech I was also trying to decipher a court document titled "NOTICE TO THE JUDGEMENT DEBTOR OF GARNISHMENT OF PROPERTY OTHER THAN PERSONAL EARNINGS" to figure out if defaulting on our commercial loan from Fifth Third Bank means we lose our house, vehicle, wheelchair, pants, etc. Does anybody have an old barrel I can put shoulder straps on and wear so I won't be indecently exposed? They can't squeeze blood from a turnip, but will they take my turnip? Time will tell, stay tuned.

Wishing for nicer weather

I took this pic when it was more pleasant to hang out in the backyard. It's too cold out now, though we really haven't had a very bad winter so far.

We had to go out today to Mt. Healthy Schools admin office to look for paper work. ECOT online school was supposed to send our son Derek's records there but they couldn't find them. I went home and called ECOT and they will send copies directly to Lifeskills where we are trying to enroll him.

Recent vinyl on my turntable: Carpenters - A Song For You; George Gershwin - The Works for Solo Piano; Nat King Cole - Ramblin' Rose.

Currently reading: Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Christopher Ricks - Dylan's Vision Of Sin

George Beam

January 23rd would have been the 94th birthday of George Beam, Marcy's dad. He lived quite an interesting life, which I'll try to tell you more about in future posts. Here's a pic of him as a kid with his brother Tony and their dad, Sgt. George Beam, who came to America from Greece. Obviously, I did not take this pic - it was done on Memorial Day 1925.

Stella

We went to see Marcy's mom yesterday. She's not doing so well. Here's a pic of Stella that I took on 8/25/07.

Baoku & The Image Afro-Beat Band

We went to see Baoku & The Image Afro-Beat Band at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club tonight. What a great way to spend a rainy Sunday night! The horn section has really filled out the sound and added much more variety in solos. The Nigerian Baoku is a positive, energy-filled force that drives the whole crew to new heights every time we see them. Check them out every 4th Sunday at the Blue Wisp and next weekend - Jan 31st - at a huge benefit for Haiti at The 20th Century Theater. Here are some pics from tonight.

Finally Getting Started

That crashing sound that you hear just might be the collapse of the middle class. My cholesterol is higher than my credit score. I just found my first white chest hair. My teenage son is reading Nietzsche, so I am too. I think about lots of things I want to share with you. Sometimes I'll share a picure or song or story or recipe. It's late now and I'm sure I'm not impressing anyone, so I'll get a few hours of sleep then get up and watch CBS Sunday Morning with my wife. Good times.