I saw LOTS of live music in the 1980’s in Portland. I was living a work-hard, play-hard lifestyle. I didn’t get much sleep, and when I did it was fitful. I listened to lots of music, and much of that was on TV watching MTV and then either that pioneering station or VH1, but I…
For many years I’ve been telling anyone who would listen: “I wanta die like Leroy Nichols.” And then I have to explain who he was, and how he died. Leroy died the way that almost everyone wants to go…before they become just a memory. Or worse, a drooling doofus. People wanta die quickly, and with…
Yesterday was a True Trifecta: (1) a life event; (2) a first time tune; and, (3) a song “on repeat.” Back when I was working guy, I remember that there were these things called “life events” from an HR perspective. And probably all of us have seen a “life stress test” or two. Their separate…
The folks at Hallmark have missed out on this one. Thank goodness. There are several “Hallmark holidays” e.g., Grandparents Day, Sweetest Day, and Boss’s Day…“holidays” that exist primarily for commercial purposes, rather than in recognition of a traditional or historical event. And then then is the “holiday” that I fell for a long, long time…
I was drafted into the Army 2 days after I turned 22. I was discharged 1 year, 6 months and 6 days later. Thanks to Tricky Dick’s Vietnamization military draw down, “early outs” were the norm…and the lifers definitely wanted people like me gone. The copy of Robert Sherrill’s “Military justice is to justice as…
It was spring of the year 2000. The world had survived the Y2K scare…amazingly using a 2 digit year hadn’t brought the planet to its knees. We had taken a family vacation to Arizona during the December school break to evaluate AZ as a place to move. There had been some executive level changes at…
Why is there a bromance? From my perspective, Joe Jackson’s lyrics nail the romance between the media and Lane Kiffin, offensive coordinator of the Alabama football team: “Is she really going out with him? Cause if my eyes don’t deceive me, There’s something going wrong around here…” I just don’t get it. It’s a love…
First-time-tunes…continued. I left off in 1976. It looks like there were 25 years when I don’t seem to have experienced any “first time tunes.” Really?? I certainly never stopped listening to music, but I did mostly stay in my musical comfort zone and listened mostly to “old favorites” during those years. Those were “work hard,…
When I posted my Facebook status yesterday, January 6, 2016, I was pretty sure that a good friend’s reply was right on. I wrote: “OK…alright…i know that the odds of winning are 1 in 292,201,338. But you can’t win if you don’t play. It was either a couple of bottles of two-buck-chuck, or this: Charles…
I’ve loved listening to music as long as I can remember, but growing up in a conservative baptist home I had to sneak around to listen to my music of choice: rock and roll. Surprisingly I don’t remember any “first time tunes” from the late 50’s when I was clandestinely listening to Top 40 countdowns…