Yes, as this Wal-Mart Sunday sales circular points out, “Nothing says summer like fresh berries.”
Of course, you won’t find those in Pop-Tarts¹, Oreos, Cheetos, Star Wars cereal and all the other processed foods advertised on this two-page spread.
¹I know the Pop-Tarts shown are “strawberry” flavor but the chances that they have actual berries in them are about the same as the chances that Froot Loops contain actual fruit.
Here are the thoughts that flash through my feeble yet trivia-packed 50-year-old mind when I see this album cover:
3. “Six Pack” was a fine movie. (co-starring Diane Lane, Erin Gray, Barry Corbin and Anthony Michael Hall, y’all!)
4. Kenny rocked the facial hair long before craft-beer-swilling hipsters made it “ironic.”
5. I miss the corn muffins from Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurants. Mighty tasty.
(Apparently I could still get those corn muffins if I visit Malaysia.)
6. Nobody does duets like Kenny did. Dolly. Sheena Easton. Kim Carnes. Dottie West… You could pair Kenny with a parrot and get a #1 hit.
6. I’m sure it was cathartic for Tommy to beat up the Gatlin boys (“and there was three of them”) but a better course of action would’ve been for Becky to file charges.
7. In the early days of the interwebs, one of my favorite websites was MenWhoLookLikeKennyRogers.com. The concept was so simple yet wacky: find a silver-haired, bearded fella who resembled Kenny, take his photo (surreptitiously if necessary) and post it to the site. Pure genius in the days before piano-playing cats took over. Just look at a single page of photos and try not to laugh. It’s impossible.
Music has the power to heal. Friends are a blessing. And when you put them together, it can be magical.
On Friday night I went to the heart of downtown Cincinnati, Fountain Square (as seen in the “WKRP in Cincinnati” opening credits) for a free indie rock show. Wussy — proclaimed by Robert Christgau as “the best band in America” — was the headliner, and they lived up to that billing, albeit a bit raggedly. Prior to Wussy, another excellent band called Pike 27 played. Their usual drummer is my friend Dave, who is currently being treated for his second bout with lymphoma. I worked with Dave’s wife Jacqui at an ad agency long ago, and I’ve shared a few of Jacqui’s poignant posts about their journey on her “Nashville or Bust” blog.
Yesterday morning I went on a 9-mile run with my wife, who is training for the New York Marathon, and we saw Jacqui running the other way with another running group. I’m guessing her runs are a bit more meditative and therapeutic than mine.
Last night we went to a fundraiser for Music Resource Center and I met Pike 27’s frontman (also named Dave) and his wife Amy. Dave is friends with my friend Jennifer from my radio days. And Amy is good friends with one of my current co-workers. Amy also had played a key role in Friday night’s concert – iPhone cameraperson. Turns out they were able to broadcast (narrowcast actually) the gig to Jacqui and Dave at their home.
Here’s Jacqui’s blog post about it:
Take a minute and let this picture sink in.
This was our Friday night. And it was pretty spectacular.
You’ve heard me mention Dave’s band, Pike 27, from time to time. They are incredible musicians. They are incredible people. They are part of our family.
And last night — the night of the very much anticipated show on Fountain Square as part of Cincinnati’s MidPoin Indie Summer series — they made sure that Dave didn’t miss out.
It was a last minute idea and probably the most hillbilly way to ‘live cam’ — but we did it! Thanks to iPhones, FaceTime, iCloud and Facebook, we patched in from the dining room table.
Dave had no clue that we were doing this. In fact, he was a bit annoyed when he heard me fussing at my computer and told him to, “get over here — you have to see this!” I think he thought I was watching cat videos or something.
I really wished I had a video camera rolling on him when he saw Amy on my computer screen, waving and smiling, and figured out that she was on Fountain Square. Live. Like there at the show.
The plan was really to watch one or two songs. We didn’t want to burden Amy (who was fighting bronchitis) to wear out her arm holding her phone up all night. But others jumped in and kept the feed going. Then there were the message pictures and the selfies and wow… so much love.
We are humbled by and grateful to all the folks that are Pike 27 and for the local music scene who continue to send love and support. It was incredible to see Dave so happy — so alive! And yes, he was singing his ‘girl part’ high harmonies and keeping time with his feet. Would you expect any less? ~Jacqui
My son’s band played a few songs at the fundraiser last night. If they keep playing music, I hope they always remember that it’s not about fame, fortune or glory, it’s about the friendships you form and the love you share.
This past weekend, my wife and I went to Cincy Brew Ha-Ha, which bills itself as “America’s Largest Beer & Comedy Festival.”
It’s a great concept – more than 100 types of beers (most of them of the craft beer variety) and more than 50 comedians on 4 outdoor stages. Proceeds go to charity too.
I’m far from a prude, and nowhere near being a stand-up comedy expert, but most of the comedians we saw took a beeline straight toward the gutter. “Working blue” as they say in the biz. Nothing but jokes that focused below the belt. I’m sorry, but if you start your set with that sort of “comedy” you’ve lost me. My dad always used to say profanity shows a lack of vocabulary, and I think toilet humor shows a lack of originality.
That’s why clean humor folks like Jim Gaffigan and Brian Regan are such standouts. They can be funny without resorting to the cheap stuff. And judging from the comedians we saw, there’s certainly less competition in the clean section.
Today’s the birth date of my absolute favorite author by far, Mr. Ray Bradbury. He’s probably best known for his classic novels like Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles. But truly Ray was the master of the short story, and because I have a short attention span his words and my puny brain were a match made in literary heaven. Of course, it wasn’t just that his stories were short… it’s that they were magical. Ray could pack more into 10 pages than other authors could do in a thousand. Read “The Veldt” and get goose bumps. Read “The Sound of Thunder” and understand “the butterfly effect.” In “Perhaps We Are Going Away” he brilliantly foreshadows the plight of the Native Americans in just a few pages, without any dialogue. If you’ve lost a parent or grandparent, I dare you to read “The Leave-Taking” and not get choked up.
So, in honor of Ray, the man who will live forever, a few of his quotes:
You done said…