Katz’s for lunch.

Sarge’s for brunch.

Stage for breakfast.

Different days, of course.

We were headed to the Carnegie this morning, but hit the Stage first. What a damn treat. When Barb, our waitress with enough eye liner to start her own salon at Macy’s, asked if I really wanted the belly lox platter. “You sure you don’t mean Nova,” she asked? “That’s awfully salty.”

“Barb, I’m not a virgin.”

By the time we left she’d explained how she loved to watch the horses run. “I was in Louisville once. I went to Churchill Downs at night, and tried to look through the gates. Couldn’t see nothin’.

“I sure want to make it to the Derby one time. I want one of those mint juleps.

“My uncle Maury Kaufman, he was the rich one in the family. Made a fortune in real estate. So he retired and bought a horse farm in Ocala. He loved cowboys when he was a kid. We all did. Tom Mix. Especially Johnny Mack Brown.

“So he changed his name for the horse business. Johnny Maury Kaufman. He rode around his farm on a pinto in a cowboy hat.”

Ah. Noo Yawk. Noo Yawk.

* * * * *

The flip side — and, of course, there’s always a flip side in the Big Apple — was the snarling gal at Lenscrafters on Fifth. I needed one little tweak to the nose thingamajiggy on my glasses.

“There’s nowhere and no way to twist this. It’s as far back as it goes already.”

Get that woman an egg cream.

* * * * *

Spent more time on Lexington Ave than any previous trips. It’s my new favorite NYC thoroughfare.

We had dinner last night at a great spot at 62d and Lex: Fishtails by David Burke. The maitre d’s family lives in Morehead.

The fish was boffo, but nothing like the night before at Oceana. Where I ate the finest seafood of my life.

* * * * *

The answer is No. We indeed do other things than eat.

Saw the photography exhibit at the Guggenheim. Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece of a building remains iconic a half century after being built.

The photos were interesting, but explanations on the little machine they give you were awfully pretentious.

* * * * *

We stayed at the Royalton. It’s on 44th between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, right across the street from the Algonquin.

Trés chic.

Did I already mention that in my blog yesterday. If so, sorry.

* * * * *

At the NBA store on Fifth Ave, there’s a table with t-shirts featuring just two players.

Rajon Rondo.

John Wall.

* * * * *

Okay, that’s enough insignificant musing. It’s of interest only to me, I know.

What’s a guy to do while waiting for his flight? Read The New York Post?

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A nickname. Puff Daddy. (Or, if you prefer P. Diddy.)

A moniker. The Splendid Splinter.

An affectation. Lady Gaga.

Or, say, the Culture Maven, to use one very handy example.

No more.

Turns out I’m now a brand. Just like Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.

Who knew?

And no different than Kleenex®.

Or Coke®.

Or Chevy.

Oh, wait a sec. Didn’t GM announce recently that it was eschewing the use of the shortened Chevy, pushing instead the more formal and official Chevrolet®. So customers won’t be confused about the brand. Or, so they believe.

It seems to me that Chevy is pretty ubiquitous. There are songs about this most famous of American cars.

Treat me like ya Chevy/ You can show me off.

Or,

26’s on my chevy (my chevy)/ Chrome on my chevy (my chevy)/ Candy on my chevy (my chevy)/ Flakes on my chevy (oooh)/ Dudes on my chevy (my chevy)/ Girls in my chevy (my chevy)/ Screens in my chevy (my chevy)/ Shove in my chevy/ I’m so hiiiiiiigh/ I’m so hiiiiiiigh

Okay, maybe lyrics like those are why some doofus in the Iron Belt, sitting legs up behind a desk, with too much time on his hands and way too much say so in GM corporate affairs, wants to drive Chevy off the levee.

But I digress.

My point is to decry the commercialization of, well, just about everything.

U of L basketball used to be a program. Now it’s a brand. So proclaims CEO Rick Pitino.

Kinda like Yum!®. Which, in case you haven’t heard, bought the naming (Read: branding) rights to the new arena where the Cardinals® will play starting next season.

We’ve sure come a long way since some wary rancher burned a symbol on the hindquarters of his whole herd, to psychologically ward off rustlers. (Quick aside having very little to do with this rant: The slyest rustler film ever made is “Rancho Deluxe” featuring Slim Pickens as Henry Beige, Cattle Detective.) The word itself comes from German, meaning “to burn.”

The term evolved to designate the identity of a certain product, business or service. So says Wikipedia. Which brand stands for the place we go to find an immediate answer for any question.

But now schools and teams and people are brands.

Most especially King LeBron®.

And, sigh, me too.

I sit here drinking my Heine Brothers brand coffee, typing away on my MacBook brand laptop, writing a piece to appear on my culturemaven.com brand blog.

(When I first registered the name, these things were still called websites. Now they’re branded blogs. But, hey, don’t get me started on the evolution of that appellation.)

So, you get my point. I find this whole branding thing a bunch of bunk, a trend most heinous.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Truth in Advertising Caveat: My name is Chuck Kaplan, actually Charles David Kaplan. I only started calling myself c d kaplan when I began writing professionally. Am I being duplicitous? You decide.

Guess I’m double branded?

Oh well, double your pleasure, double your fun.®©™

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Just the way the Good Lord meant for it to be.

So Bless Ya, M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel, you made my day.

Frankly, She and Him’s entire set was a wonder for me. I’m old school. Grew up with rock and roll. Have always had a sweet spot for 60s girl groups. (And there’s always been a space in my parking lot for crackly voiced Ms. Deschanel, truth be told.)

But I wasn’t all that familiar with the music of this conglomeration. My first impression after dragging the Film Babe down close was that Deschanel’s voice is a might brittle. After a song or two, she settled in, then starting morphing into Robin Ward (“Wonderful Summer”), Kathy Young (A Thousand Stars”), Leslie Gore . . . you know what I’m sayin?

Here’s a video of Zoeey and pal, paying their respects to Smokey Robinson:

When the backup singers joined the band on stage — the Paris Sisters incarnate? — they channeled the Murmaids (“Popsicles and Icicles”) , the Jaynettes (“Sally Go Round The Roses”) , the Angels (‘Til”), etc, etc.

I’m such a sap for those songs. (I’m listening to a great compilation as I write: “Girls, Girls, Girls.”). Okay, how about another little diversion. Thank you for making this the most wonderful summer of my life. (It really has nothing to do with Forecastle, but, hey, it’s my blog, and I’ll do what I want.)

Then She and Him came back for an encore, and I’ll be damned if the group didn’t rip into a rousing version of “Roll Over Beethoven.”

There was a time — and such a time it was — when any rock band worth its salt would at some time during its set would ask: “You wanna hear some Chuck Berry?”

So that’s one of the things — among many — I loved most about Forecastle. Sittin’ on the riverside, listening to summer rock and roll. A genial gathering. Food that was a cut above corn dogs and elephant ears, especially that from the folks at Basa.

I also enjoyed Minus the Bear, whose music was accomplished. And Spoon, with their spare but interesting arrangements. Neither of the bands’ music was familiar to me beforehand. I didn’t make it out on Saturday. Much to my chagrin. I did want to hear Devo.

None of the music on Friday really grabbed me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat: Widespread Panic is B.O.R.I.N.G. And, while I understand the amazement at the extravaganza that is The Flaming Lips show, I find their music simply mundane. When I went to hear Heavyweight Du Champion at the Ocean Stage, he simply hadn’t caught a groove. Though I understand the techno deejay dance venue rocked most of the time. Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, and Frontier Ruckus also caught my attention. When Dead Confederate played, I kept wondering where the song was amid the cacophony?

But I loved the festival. Great layout. Bucolic setting, especially the North Stage. Real activism.

Finally, after decades, Louisville has an annual event that’s a real honest to Betsy rock festival. Locally grown too.

J.K. McKnight, hats off to you, dude. You done good.

What a treat.

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It’s forty years gone this weekend since those nicknames were bestowed upon my pal Stephen and me at the Atlanta Pop Festival.

Many if not most of the memories of that magical interlude have long been lost in the daze of time. But this I can say for sure. We came upon those identities honestly.

As for the rest of that Fourth of July weekend outside Byron, Georgia, the tales told here may be true or not. Only the synapses of my cerebrum know for sure. And they’ve long since lost most if not all connection to that time and place.

Stephen was The Mailman; I, Captain Canada. The sordid details:

We knew there was going to be triple digit Fahrenheit at the festival. So the day before we left, we purchased pith helmets. If such a chapeau provided protection for long lost Stanley Livingston in deepest, darkest Africa, we presumed one would work for us.

I went with basic khaki.

Stephen opted for that light grayish blue with maroon straps that we’ve come to associate with the United States Postal Service.

So hot was it that the very first day down there, we, along with our traveling companions Don and Merrily, sought respite in the nearest body of water. Which lake or river or pond — frankly I can’t recall — we found by following the gaggle of hippies on hoods of cars all headed, they said, as if guided by a stoned Trip Tik in that direction.

When Stephen jumped in, pith helmet firmly in place, one bleary-eyed bather adroitly observed, “It’s the Mailman.”

Firmer monikers have been borne of lesser tales.

The origin of Captain Canada is somewhat more convoluted. The statute of limitations having lapsed, the story can be revealed. With haste and for the last time, so we can move on.

The day before we departed Louisville, our friend Becker needed help moving from one furn apt. to another. Among the items he intended to discard was a flag of Canada. Which artifact I commandeered, immediately tying about my neck like a cape.

That’s only the germination of the nickname.

Which flowered fully on the first night of music at the festival. (Caveat: The imagery that might manifest from the description of the following interlude is not for the faint of heart, grannie or youths under the age of majority.)

That weekend marked my first experimentation with psychedelics. When the mescaline kicked in, it started to rain. At which point it seemed eminently logical to my then “experienced” mind to fully disrobe. No matter that we were sitting in throng of several hundred thousand. It seemed the natural thing to do.

Besides, I didn’t want my clothes to get wet. I had hand fashioned with a magic marker a “Who is Ron Dante?” t-shirt which I thought too clever and pithy to not be able to wear again once the showers had abated.

From such reasoning, wackier tales have been told.

The inclemency didn’t however prevent me from wearing my Canadian flag cape. From which point on, and for several years thereafter, I was known to a few as Captain Canada.

Enough of that.

Admittedly I am finding it difficult to accurately describe how wonderful and fun that weekend was. The experience is proving sensible description.

When I’ve attempted to do so through the decades, I have reverted to this. That weekend is something outside the timeline of my life. It is as if it was all a dream, so fantastic, so unreal, so joyous was the moment.

The performers included the following whose music I do recall if only to a limited extent. Jimi Hendrix, who played with fireworks filling the sky behind him at midnight on the 4th of July. The Allman Brothers Band, including a jam with Johnny Winter. The Chambers Brothers. (For which set, I stood directly in front of the speakers, as a result of which stupidity, my hearing has never fully recovered.) BB King. Grand Funk Railroad. Hampton Grease Band. Ten Years After.

Among the groups that I have no or only vague recollection hearing: Procol Harum. Poco. Terry Reid. Ravi Shankar. John Sebastian. Mountain. Spirit. Ginger Baker. Chakra. Cactus. Gypsy. Bloodrock. Captain Beefheart.

I know a number of folks who attended. I have read remembrances of the festival online. What fascinates me is how few speak of the musical moments.

The sounds were more a nucleus around which this grand, garish carnival evolved, an excuse for the gathering of southern tribes.

Considering the entire experience, I do have an acute feeling of personal evolution. I had taken the bar exam the weekend before the festival, didn’t think I’d pass it since I hadn’t studied much. And hadn’t a clue what was in store for the rest of my life.

It was your classic pivotal moment at the onslaught of adulthood.

So, hey, let’s go get stoned and rock.

I’d lived at home with my parents until my senior year in law school. My growth had thus been stunted. So my socialization abilities were still in their early stages.

Hey. let’s mingle en masse and talk jabberwok.

So, without getting too awfully philosophical, I’ll just offer that this eminently eye-opening weekend fostered a sense of freedom and wonder and creative possibility which I hadn’t previously conceptualized. Mostly it was just a load of fun.

As for specifics, there are but a few I remember.

An interlude where I handed a merchant enough Uniform Commercial Code razzmatazz in the middle of the night that he cashed a personal check for some biker dude. Which black leathered hulk expressed his appreciation by telling me he had my back in case I needed something taken care of during the festival.

Not wanting one blistering afternoon to walk all the way to the water spigot a mile away, I, much to the chagrin of Don and Merrily, filled our thermos with $3 worth of Pepsi.

Through my own personal haze, trundling back to our campsite on the final morning, while Richie Havens sang “Here Comes The Sun” at sunrise.

Camped next to us was a group, which included a gal who wore a wig the whole weekend in that  awful heat, because she didn’t like the color of her hair after dyeing it. How antithetical to the whole counter culture ethos, I thought at the time.

A couple having sex the next blanket over, with the girl shouting in ecstasy “Ooooooooh, the stars!” While her head was resting on my lap. Trust me, it felt as odd at the time as it sounds now.

The pathway from our camping spot to the stage, lined with hundreds and hundreds of people selling drugs.

Laughter. Early. Often.

Juicy peaches bigger than my fist for a nickel.

The Heat. And I’m talking Fahrenheit not cops, which were essentially nowhere to be seen.

The Chambers Brothers doing “People Get Ready.”

Hendrix playing the “Star Spangled Banner” at midnight on the Fourth.

The Allman Brothers Band, whom I’d never heard before. Specifically, “Every Hungry Woman,” during which I was drawn closer to the stage as if it were a siren call.

The Hampton Grease Band.

Frankly, sadly, that’s about it for the music.

It’s not like I/ we weren’t paying attention to the sounds. It’s just that the entire experience was so overwhelming, that there was so much sensory input, so many diffused interactions that the music was but one element. An important one, but just one of many nonetheless.

I guess it’s fair to ask, beyond the fact that it was a super time, if there were any cultural imperatives to be learned from Atlanta Pop?

Well, yes. One, there is power in numbers.

Law enforcement was basically non existent. Byron had a couple of part time cops. A number of state troopers were sent to the scene. I’ve read that nobody was arrested, despite the drugs and nudity. There were just way more of us than them that weekend. Besides it was a ferociously peaceful gathering. (Apparently there was a brouhaha about opening the gates and freeing up the festival. It passed me by. We actually bought tickets in advance. $14 for the weekend.)

Pepsi doesn’t quench thirst like H2O.

Nobody had a clue who Ron Dante was? Nor much cared. (FYI, he was the studio guy responsible for The Archies. That’s right, “Sugar, Sugar.”)

Pith helmets are an effective way of protection from the sun.

Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman — both of whom died within months of the festival — were the best. I’m grateful that I heard them live when they were still around. That I remember at least some of their playing there.

And that I can now, forty years after the fact, lord it over today’s guitar fawning youngsters.

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The other weekend I was on a road trip with friends. We were playing oldies on the box.

One of the most maudlin tales of tragedy played — Ray Peterson’s “Tell Laura I Love Her.” Those of you who grew up with rock & roll, know the details all too well. Laura and Tommy were lovers. He wanted to buy her gifts, most of all a wedding ring.

Oh, why should you hear it second hand? Here’s Ray himself, still sharing the sadness after oh so many years (Wearing a tux out of respect for the departed.):

Listening in the car with more mature ears, I couldn’t help but wonder: 1) If Tommy and Laura were so close, why didn’t she know he was racing that night? 2) If Tommy couldn’t get Laura on the phone, why didn’t he text her? And, most of all, 3) Where was Laura that night, with Tommy’s best buddy, who apparently wasn’t at the race either?

I’m not sure exactly why, but there were any number of these teen weepers back in the Days of Top 40, News, Weather & Sports. The reason why is a cultural contemplation too serious for examination at this time.

But I do have some queries, since more than a few of these songs raised salient questions, which, frankly, we never asked back in the day. I guess it’s never too late to investigate.

Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel” died in a car that was stalled on the railroad tracks. But, 1) If she went running back after safely out of harm’s way to get the high school ring, why wasn’t she wearing it around her neck, as was the style in the day? Didn’t she want her friends to know? 2) Why did the car stall? Didn’t her boyfriend have it serviced before their big date?

Did her family sue?

Speaking of stalled and smashed cars and dashed relationships, J. Frank Wilson’s “Last Kiss” was most sad:

I mean what happens if the kid 1) heeded his daddy’s warning to get some new tires and a brake check up at Ken Towery’s, or 2) kept two hands on the wheel instead of trying to cop a feel while driving?

Speaking of what on earth was he thinking — why was Jan Berry of Jan & Dean speeding in a Corvette at Dead Man’s Curve just two years after he sang these ominous lyrics, “Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve.?”

That, my fellow rock & rollers, is life imitating art.

It’s been said that his girlfriend’s dad put a voodoo hex on Jimmy, the Leader of the Pack. We’ll just never know.

But life back then was fraught with more than car crashes or motorcycle wrecks.

A walk on the beach could mean an end to a relationship that maybe just maybe wasn’t meant to be. Listen to Johnny Cymbal’s all too sad tale.

I mean if the kid was strong and courageous enough to kill the shark — with his bare hands — why on earth didn’t he do it before the beast chewed his significant other to death?

Speaking of being chewed to death, how about poor Timothy?

Well, we could go on and on, wallowing in the angst, decrying cars that stalled at the wrong place and wrong time. So let’s call it a day. But only after allowing eminent cultural observer Julie Brown to put it all in perspective.

Which means that all the questions I’ve got boil down to one.

Who’s Johnny?

Okay there’s more. Read on, s’il vous plait.

After being publicly humiliated by my host James Bickers during my weekly film review this morning, I feel compelled to add one more song to the mix: Dickey Lee’s “Laurie (Strange Things Happen)”. Laurie was an angel. Perhaps literally. Though she’s not to be confused with Teen Angel, who didn’t even live in the same town.

Anyway, the kid hooked up with Laurie — or so he thought — and she asked for his sweater to stay warm. Oh, the tale is too weird. I can’t go on. So, here’s Dickey:

Even though this was 1965, I must ask: Was this kid on LSD or what? Or was Laurie’s dad just being a schmuck?

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With two exceptions:

1) It won’t scour the toilet in the bathroom when your cleaning service doesn’t show up.

2) Its reception — sketchy already with AT&T’s lack of enough towers and bandwidth — is further compromised when you hold the phone in a normal manner.

Since there came an avalanche of complaints about the latter from first day customers — Apple acolytes disinclined to utter a discouraging word — Mahatma Steve Jobs came out from his cave and pontificated.

To paraphrase The Holy One: “Get over it, dumbasses. Hold it differently.”

So much for the oldest adage in commerce, “The customer is always right.”

Seems the problem hasn’t a thing to do with a possible design flaw — the antennae is in the metal edge strip where 99% of users hold a cellphone. It’s the fault of customers who stayed up all night to be first in line to plunk down hundreds of dollars and be the first on their block with the latest of Jobs’ gadgets. They simply didn’t read the manual to learn how to properly hold the new smart phone.

And what a contemporary device it is. Tens of thousands of apps. It does everything. (Except scrub the tub.)

It does everything, that is, except connect speedily to its network.

Am I missing something here? Isn’t that the baseline?

Actually I’m an old school guy. I understand that smart phones are the future. The present actually. Pretty soon they’ll be able to safely drive your SUV, so you can text without worry while speeding down Shelbyville Road. But I’ll only have one when it’s the only type of cellphone available.

My current phone can send and receive calls. Period. (Okay, it has rudimentary texting capabilities, which I never use.) And that’s it. No internet. No email. No travel directions. No videos. No camera.

I bought this particular model because all the reviews said it had the best voice quality incoming and outgoing.

It wasn’t an easy purchase. When I hit the Verizon store, my trusty and helpful rep had never heard of the model. “Customers could care less about speaker quality.” She found one on a bottom shelf in the corner. The box was dusty. Literally.

I don’t have an innate dislike for cellphones. Except when people use them for any purpose when driving or at the dinner table or when I’m trying to talk with them face to face. You know, in person. I sit at a computer most of the day, so I don’t feel it necessary to have www access when I’m away from my desk.

Besides everybody else has one. So when I was at my daughter’s birthday party last night and wanted to know the draft status of UK’s Fab Five, several guys scurried to show they could connect the fastest.

As for my response to Steve Jobs: “Rotate on this, dude!”

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Here me now and believe me later. Little Feat is the most unappreciated band of rock’s halcyon days.

Period.

Bill Payne’s piano. Richard Hayward’s and Sam Clayton’s syncopated percussion. A southern sensibility that is both traditional and innovative. And, of course, Lowell George’s intelligent, nuanced, evocative and clever lyrics. Oh yes, there’s his signature slide guitar stylings, which legend says was taught to him by Bonnie Raitt.

When this album was released in ‘73, the band, with a few personnel adjustments, had put out two albums to considerable acclaim, “Little Feat” and “Sailin’ Shoes.” Both are worthy of your attention.

But “Dixie Chicken” put it all together. The sultry funk. The aroma of magnolia and marijuana. The slinky sensuality. Plus it rocks and you can dance to it.

How about a taste of the title tune, with some superstar help:

In case you miss the rock & roll elegance of that cautionary tale, here are the lyrics:

I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis/ And the Commodore Hotel/ And underneath a street lamp, I met a southern belle/ Oh she took me to the river, where she cast her spell/ And in that southern moonlight, she sang this song so well

If you’ll be my Dixie chicken I’ll be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland

We made all the hotspots, my money flowed like wine/ Then the low-down southern whiskey, yea, began to fog my mind/ And I don’t remember church bells, or the money I put down/ On the white picket fence and boardwalk/ On the house at the end of town/ Oh but boy do I remember the strain of her refrain/ And the nights we spent together/ And the way she called my name

If you’ll be my Dixie chicken I’ll be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland

Many years since she ran away/ Yes that guitar player sure could play/ She always liked to sing along/ She always handy with a song/ But then one night at the lobby of the Commodore Hotel/ I chanced to meet a bartender who said he knew her well/ And as he handed me a drink he began to hum a song/ And all the boys there, at the bar, began to sing along

If you’ll be my Dixie chicken ill be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland, Down in Dixieland

Now, that’s a song, kiddies.

My favorite song on the album — truth be told, my favorite Little Feat tune of all — is “Fat Man In The Bathtub.”

Check it out:

Okay, some more over the top praise. Little Feat is the most underrated band of all time. How’s that for devotion.

Anyway, as happens so much, it was too good to last. At least in the group’s best incarnation. George, founder, leader and most aggressive drug advocate, broke the band up in the late 70s, casting aspersions on his bandmates Payne and Paul Barrere. Lowell George died not long thereafter of a heart attack, probably drug induced.

In ‘88, the remaining members, with some additions, reconstituted. The group’s first gig was on the Riverboat President at the New Orleans JazzFest. (Did you have any doubt, we’d end up there?) Bonnie Raitt sat in on slide.

The band has evolved through the years, and still gigs. Various personnel changes on the periphery haven’t changed the essence of the group. They’ve put out any number of albums through the years, including some amazing live shows. Most all deserve a listen.

“Dixie Chicken” is still the standard.

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