I know we don’t talk much anymore. Okay, we’ve never spoken before, but I did try to reach you via email the other day. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. Your web site was down, I assume, from so much traffic of all those wanting your ear on the debt ceiling smackdown.
Anyway, we live in the same town, essentially the same neighborhood. I almost built a house several years back right up the hill from your condo. But still live within a jog just a couple neighborhoods over in the Highlands.
We root for the same team, Mitch. I’m talking about the U of L Cardinals we both love so much.
The Cardinal hoopsters haven’t done so well when it mattered the last couple of seasons, in the NCAA tourney. We’re both looking for big things from Rick Pitino and his charges this coming season, maybe even One Shining Moment.
What happens if the ingratiating innovator doesn’t get screwed out of royalties by a scalawag producer named Norman Petty? In Clovis, New Mexico of all places. And doesn’t have to tour the upper midwest in the dead of winter to make ends meet?
What happens if that earnest, creative mind is allowed to mature?
Does Holly continue to dazzle? Is he destined to break new ground? Or would he have crashed and burned figuratively instead of literally?
It is of such ruminations that rock & roll acolytes spend way too much time pondering.
Holly’s importance cannot be underestimated. He wrote, produced and performed his own songs, a paradigm that became the standard for the industry. At least after Holly fans, Bob Dylan and The Beatles, confirmed it as the way to go. Read the rest of this entry »
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” has not always been an easy watch for me.
Not that I don’t think that Larry David’s alter cocker Jewish humor isn’t funny. I do.
It’s just that way too many episodes are just like my life: David, Bill and I watching a ballgame together. Or going out to dinner, either with our significant others or just the guys. It’s like this is me, didn’t I just live this out yesterday watching U of L play?
Old Jewish guys giving each other shit, switching triangulations, complaining about customer service at the florist or our aches and pains du jour. Read the rest of this entry »
It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.
It is the most famous quote attributed to America’s quicksand involvement in the Vietnam War. AP correspondent Peter Arnett never revealed the identity of the member of the military who said it, other than that he was a U.S. Major.
I am reminded of the cruel irony of that statement, during this time of partisan turmoil in Washington — a smackdown that, if not resolved in the next few days, could crush the American economy.
Frankly, I’m not particularly fond of the smell of Naplam in the morning. But that’s the odor wafting through the air when I read the news that somebody or another wasn’t happy with the debt limit negotiating process, so they got up, huffed and puffed their chest . . . and walked. Read the rest of this entry »
Because of circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to actually attend a showing of the finale of the Harry Potter film series. And then review it on the radio.
The reasons: 1) I went to another film on Friday afternoon, but a pressing family matter forced me to leave only 20 minutes in. 2) No other films opened this weekend.
So, HP and his final smackdown with Lord Voldemort it was. And, much to my surprise, I stayed awake for far more of the flick than I would have expected.
Anyhow, here’s the podcast of my review this morning on FPK 91.9. Note that I was doubleteamed by Those Darned Bickers Boys: father James, my usual nemesis, and his son, precocious son Miles, who had no trouble giving me grief. The acorn apparently falls not far from the tree . . . to coin a phrase.
This story ran originally in 2003, when local institution Hawley Cooke closed its doors. With the demise of its successor Borders imminent, I thought it appropriate to run this again.
Graham Cooke is not one to dally when in business mode. He was his usual scurrying self when encountered in his office last Monday afternoon. Then, turning his chair away from the computer screen, he offered, “I can give you a couple of minutes.”
It was not a normal business day. Just a day earlier, he, along with the three other Hawley-Cooke Booksellers’ owners — his wife, Martha Neal Cooke, Bill Schuetze and his ex, Audrey Beach Schuetze — had closed on the sale to Borders Books.
In my mind’s eye, I have this visual of how, in less contentious times, deals used to get done in Congress.
At the end of a day of wrangling over the budget, or another piece of significant legislation, or trying to mesh differing bills passed in the Senate and House, the call would come.
“Everett, Lyndon here. Sam’s in my office now. I pulled out a bottle of Jack, and thought you might come on over and share a shot with us?”
Thus Everett Dirksen (Rep. Illinois) would join Lyndon Johnson (Dem. Texas) and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (Dem. Texas) for a tipple or two after hours.
They’d schmooze. Share a few off color jokes. Tell tales about some naive freshman congressman from Florida. Consider the physical attributes of the secretary of John Sherman Cooper (Rep. Kentucky). Invite that statesman from the Bluegrass to join them if necessary for additional wise counsel. Read the rest of this entry »
My latest techno obsession is solid state hard drives. Like Apple introduced in the latest ideation of its Air laptop.
They’re a lot faster than old school hard drives, which work still kind of like a turntable playing an LP. With a fast fingered DJ.
So I dropped by the Apple store at Oxmoor the other day, figuring one of Steve Jobs acolytes working there would be more than anxious to share if there was any buzz that SSDs would be standard in the next go round of iMacs?
So I asked the first geek that pounced in my direction.
“I’m curious,” said I, “whether there are rumors that maybe the next edition of the iMacs will have solid state drives as standard issue.”
“You know, we just came out with a new line of upgraded iMacs . . .”
“Yes, yes, but I was wondering about the next release, and whether you’d heard anything?” Read the rest of this entry »
What I expected from a Saturday evening of music on the river was simple. Some good Q. More than a few Muddy Waters cover songs. Bonhomie.
Little did I expect to hear arguably the most fetching set of R & B cover songs . . . perhaps . . . ever. With a major surprise thrown in.
Joe DeBow is a southpaw.
There was simply no warning that at a blue festival he’d pull out a tune from left field.
The Joe DeBow Experience kicked it off with rousing versions of “Hey Joe” and “Foxy Lady” Danny Henderson plays Hendrix better than most. It’s the lofty height to which all guitar players aspire.
Then came a stirring “People Get Ready.”
Followed by the kicker: A smashing, marvelous, gleeful take on America’s “Horse With No Name.” No, really, that’s what they played. Honest.
Here’s a youtube video of a previous performance of the tune at the Derby Chow Wagon. (It’s part of their repertoire??? Go figure.)
I, and a whole lot of others in the crowd — old, young, black, white — couldn’t stop smiling and grooving to the rendition. Read the rest of this entry »
Trust me. Meyer Lansky and the Corleones weren’t the only ones who was hurting after Castro took over Cuba from Batista, replacing one dictator for another.
Music fans around the World not within the Communist Block missed out on arguably the sweetest sounding singing group this side of the Ink Spots. Or beyond.
Los Zafiros (The Sapphires) never played the U.S. of A., meaning a doo wop crazed nation never knew the incredible tenor of Ignacio Elejade.
Until 1999 when a compilation of the group’s tunes with a brief history of the group was released on CD by World Circuit/ Nonesuch Records. You could do a lot worse than tracking down this gorgeously harmonious collection of tunes.
When my friend Jane arrived to our table at Jim Porter’s on Friday night, she was holding her head with both hands in wonder, her mouth agape, her eyes befuddled.
“Look at all these people,” she, H.S. Class of ’62, gasped. “Everybody’s so . . . old.”
“Jane,” I replied, “this is us.”
The occasion was a show commemorating the 50th anniversary of Cosmo & the Counts, one of Louisville’s seminal early rock & roll bands.
Cosmo is Tommy Cosdon, a seriously talented R & B singer — trainer of last place Derby finisher Rae’s Jet and former entrepreneur of Cosmo’s Wiggery — whose voice still holds sway as he rockets toward age 70. He was lead singer of The Sultans, the most popular Louisville band in the early 60s. At least in the East End. Johnny Hourigan and The Trendels (originally The Four Frantics), teamed with The Carnations, were as popular in other areas of town.
As such evolutions are wont to happen, Cosmo split off from The Sultans and started his own group in ’61. Friday night, he was still at it a half century later. Read the rest of this entry »
Dear Mitch,
