Regular blog readers (all three of you) know about my love for the Boston band called Buffalo Tom. (Yes, they’re from Boston and they have “Buffalo” in their name… might help explain why 99% of America has never heard of them.) BT (that’s what we hardcore fans call them) had their moment in the sun back in the early 90s. (OK, it wasn’t exactly a moment in the sun, maybe more like a moment under mostly sunny skies.) Now they still get together to make music occasionally — a new fan-backed album is due out soon — but also have day jobs. The lead singer is a real estate agent – if you’re looking for a mid-century modern in the Boston ‘burbs, Bill Janovitz is your go-to dude.
Bill Janovitz has also been involved in a Boston sports charity for many years, called Foundation To Be Named Later. It was started by former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein (hence the wacky baseball-related name) and his twin brother Paul. Each year they do a “Hot Stove, Cool Music” benefit concert in Boston, and Bill is an organizer of that concert as well as a participant. Now that Theo is the President of the Chicago Cubs, the charity has expanded to Chicago as well.
At this year’s Boston gig a couple of weeks ago, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder played a Buffalo Tom tune called “Taillights Fade,” trading verses with Bill Janovitz. Listen to the first 20 seconds to hear Eddie pay tribute to Buffalo Tom.
“Taillights Fade” is from Buffalo Tom’s 1992 album Let Me Come Over, which is my all-time favorite album.
And a co-worker of mine tipped me to a blog called “One Week/One Band” where:
Every week, one trusted music aficionado showcases a band or artist they feel particularly passionate about. Any artist from any country or decade will do — no rules and no canon. Some of those bands you might know very well; some of them you might have never heard of.
Week #1 was The Replacements, one of my favorite bands. Week #2 was….(drumroll please)…. Buffalo Tom! The writer, Andrew Necci, talks about BT’s song “Birdbrain” which is another favorite of mine. If I were a major league baseball player, “Birdbrain” would be my walk-up song.
Obviously I’m not a MLB player (still working on that knuckleball), just a big fan of Buffalo Tom. It’s nice to know that their music had such a big impact on other folks too. Eddie Vedder and I are practically brothers. OK, at least we’re friends.
A bank based in Cincinnati — Fifth Third Bank — unveiled their new tagline about a week ago. If you already put your socks on this morning, apologies in advance, because they are going to get blown right off by this gem:
This is banking. A Fifth Third better.
OK, you can pick your jaw up off the floor now. What an amazing, stupendous… piece of garbage.
“You know the saying: ‘He gave 110 percent?’ We give 167 percent,” said chief marketing officer Matt Jauchius.
The ads quickly make a point of explaining that five-thirds equals 166.7 percent, then pledge to serve customers that much better.
Yes, that’s right, while customers are expecting Fifth Third to take care of their money, Fifth Third (aka 5/3) is asking their customers to do fractions. Welcome back to 4th grade.
https://youtu.be/BE6EaVcf0gc
The Fifth Third name is rather unwieldy, coming from the merger of the Fifth National Bank and the Third National Bank way back in 1908.
So I’ll grade on the curve. But their slogans have gotten progressively worse over the past couple of decades. They used to be “the only bank you’ll ever need.” That morphed into “working hard to be the only bank you’ll ever need.” Then came the decidedly lame “the curious bank”…
Customer: “Where’d my money go?”
Bank Teller: “I’m curious about that myself.”
It would be hard to lower the bar from that curious slogan, but somehow 5/3 found a way. If my math is correct, they lowered it 166.7%.
“Wow, they really make banking seem simple and not at all intimidating!”
Thanks to my contacts in the Cincinnati ad agency community, I was able to find the runner-up slogans:
Turning fractions into actions
4 is between 5 and 3, and we are working 4 you
Invert your divisor and multiply your savings
Fifth is really Third if you subtract the illegal voters
1.666 – the number of the beastly bank
You’re gonna need a Fifth of whiskey when we take a Third of your money
I’m 166.7% sure that I’m not going to be banking at Fifth Third anytime soon.
My wife Tina is a registered nurse, and works in a wound care clinic at a local hospital. She actually enjoys the gorier aspects of her job… she is a self-proclaimed “picker and popper”… whereas I get squeamish at even the mention of a blood draw, much less an actual blood draw.
She comes home from work and wants to tell the kids and me all about the latest and greatest (read: grossest) wounds she had to treat that day. I immediately go into full ‘ear muff’ mode.
I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t feel like celebrating today. Not only is it a dreary day in Cincinnati, but 5/5 was my mom’s birthday. As most of you know, she died when I was quite young. Three years old, to be exact. Leukemia stole her away from her husband and 4 young kids, at the age of 33 (a.k.a. the “Jesus year”).
Let’s get the easy answers out of the way first:
No
No
Sorry, I forgot this isn’t Jeopardy. The questions are:
Do you remember her?
Did your father ever remarry?
Those two questions are usually the ones I get when I tell someone about my mom’s untimely departure from this world. #1 is a lot tougher to wrap my head around. Trust me, I’ve tried my best to remember her, but to no avail. So how do you miss someone that you didn’t really know? It’s a weird feeling, for sure.
I know the time from birth to age three is a crucial period, and so my mom was my first/best teacher. But when I try to conjure up some sort of happy memory, a warm glow from those halcyon days… nothin’.
I’ll tell you what I do know. My mom was a first generation Italian-American.
She too lost her mom young… and a sister as well. She played basketball in high school. (We had her b-ball jersey at our house in Arkansas… long after we moved from Jersey City, where my mom and dad met and married. I studied that jersey like it was the Shroud of Turin.)
When she went into labor with her third child (yours truly), my dad took a route to the hospital that featured a few cobblestone streets… and my mom gave my dad some good-natured grief about that. (The extra bouncing might also help explain why I’m wired differently.) When she was trying to teach me how to tie my shoes, I got mad and kicked off one shoe, and it flew up and cracked one of the window panes in our front door… or at least that’s what my older siblings told me… or something like that. It’s been too long.
There’s a Superchunk song call “Void” that expresses my feelings very well:
I look for you
And all I see, all I say Is a void All I see, all I say Is a void
“Pity? Party of one? You’re table’s ready.”
OK, I’ll stop wallowing now. Cinco de Mayo’s for celebrating, right? So rather than focus on the negative space, I’ll celebrate the fact that my mother laid such a strong foundation in our short time together that I do miss her to this day, even if my “miss” is different from most. Diamonds are forever, but so are DNA and “imprinting.”
I’m far from a masterpiece, but my siblings and I are her masterpieces. Superchunk, bring it home:
Don’t go wait for me, No, don’t go Wait for me Because I don’t believe I don’t believe everything I see No, I don’t believe I don’t believe everything I see
May 4 has nothing to do with Star Wars, other than sounding like the start of a famous line from the movie… if Obi-Wan Kenobi and friends had just had some dental work done, perhaps.
Or did I miss the sequel that starred Mike Tyson and/or Sylvester the Cat?
But now “May the Fourth” is a thing, apparently, complete with its very own novelty t-shirt.
I have only seen the first Star Wars (I know, it’s Episode 4, back off nerds) so excuse me while I go to sleep.
Our second child, Peter, celebrates his 16th birthday today. Hard to believe. Seems like only yesterday he looked like this:
Peter on June 15th, 2002
HT to my friend Dale Doyle for the wonderful photo – he took some great shots of Peter and our oldest child Gabriel (yes, “Peter Gabriel” but not in that order, and not for that reason, although Peter Gabriel is a great musical artist).
Now Peter’s getting his driving temps:
Peter refusing to smile… because that’s what teenagers do.
I know, “sunrise, sunset…” – I sound like every other parent ever.
Peter’s got a great sense of humor, and I like to tell him about one of my favorite Dave Barry newspaper columns, where he picked up his teenage son at school in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile just to embarrass him.
It’s a funny column – as all Dave Barry columns are. Check it out here. Love the last paragraph:
Of course I did not expect thanks. My reward is the knowledge that some day, somehow, Rob will be a hideous embarrassment to his son. That’s what makes this country great: An older generation passing along a cherished tradition to a younger one, in very much the same way that a row of people at a baseball game will pass along those tasty Oscar Mayer wieners, which by the way also have been shown in laboratory tests to prevent baldness.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/dave-barry/article1934773.html#storylink=cpy
Although the way Peter is wired, I don’t think he’d be embarrassed if I came to pick him up at school in the Wienermobile. Now that he has his temps, he’d want to take the wheel… after attaching his customized sticker to the rear bumper:
Doctor Byrd… Doctor Robin Byrd… please report to the I.C.U., stat!
“Thank goodness you’re here, Doctor Byrd. We’ve suddenly been hit with a massive outbreak of avian flu and we’ve got to find the source ASAP!”
(Sorry for the fuzzy photo – needless to say National Geographic won’t be calling me anytime soon.) You’ve gotta admire this bird’s courage and ingenuity. The heck with dozens of trips to collect twigs and straw… if s/he can get this surgical mask back to the tree, the nest is practically built. It’s the avian equivalent of a pre-fab home.
Wow, free sushi! At a downtown magazine box, no less!
What will they think of next? A pizza ATM? Whoops, that already exists (at my alma mater, no less).
Visitors stand beside a Pizza ATM machine at Xavier University, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in Cincinnati. The university partnered with French company Paline to install the first Pizza ATM in North America. The machine holds 70 pizzas at once as customers will be able to use a touch screen to pick one of the $10 pizzas, which will be heated for several minutes, placed in a cardboard box and ejected through a slot. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
How about a vending machine that dispenses fishing bait? Wait, that exists too.
Guess the only thing left to invent is a soft-serve machine that dispenses Cheez-Whiz instead of ice cream.
A few concert-going odds and ends from the past couple of weeks:
I saw Joan Shelley open up for Richard Thompson two Fridays ago.
Hearing her voice in that setting, it’s easy to make comparisons to the late great Sandy Denny, with whom Richard played eons ago in Fairport Convention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bzXV1UPD80
I know that’s high praise for folkies, but Joan deserves it. NPR is streaming her new album (produced by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco) – spend some time with it.
This past Saturday I saw Cincinnati’s own Wussy at the Woodward Theater. They were a bit rusty (they’re taking a break from touring to record), but amazing as always. The sandpaper & silk combination of Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker on vocals is, in a word, beautiful.
Wussy had two local bands opening up. Note to all local bands: if you’d like to attract more fans, maybe try a volume other than “eardrum-piercing.” Seriously, my friend Dave and I could only last 30 seconds with the first band before we retreated outside. You win the volume contest, local band… but ironically you lose a chance to be heard by more people. Wouldn’t you rather have folks up by the stage rather than rushing for the exits or cowering in a corner? TURN IT DOWN! WAY DOWN! (See, you don’t like it when I turn up the volume either, do you? Now you know how the audience feels.)
Thank goodness I had my Earpeace earplugs. If you go to concerts, do your ears a favor and get a pair. A mere $20 will get you the HD version, and they come with their own handy carrying case.
I spent years using those disposable foam factory/construction site earplugs, which muffle all sounds. Earpeace plugs actually filter the sound, so you can enjoy the bands without killing your hearing.
On Monday I saw a great double bill, again at the Woodward. Ron Gallo opened up for Hurray for the Riff Raff. Both were fantastic. Ron’s songwriting and guitar skills are as impressive as his hairdo, and that’s saying something:
Hurray for the Riff Raff is fronted by Alynda Lee Segarra, a self-proclaimed “New Yorican” (i.e. New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent) and pint-sized dynamo. Her new album is The Navigator, and it’s great. The band sounds fantastic in concert too, and Alynda isn’t afraid to speak her mind about all sorts of socio-political topics. She introduce a couple of tunes by saying “this is an immigrant song.” Here’s their performance at SXSW last month.
Ron Gallo and his two other band members even joined Hurray for the Riff Raff on stage for a couple of songs, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s “Living in the City” (here’s a brief clip)…
…and a raucous encore version of a John Lennon tune, “Bring on the Lucie (Freeda People)” (another snippet):
The musicians on Cover Stories joined the project, in part, because they believe in the cause Cover Stories benefits – all proceeds go to War Child UK, a non-governmental organization supporting children affected by conflict
Hey, it’s Earth Day, the one day out of 365 (or 366) that we actually give a damn about the planet we all share. Each year is the hottest on record. Smog is getting smoggier. Rains are turning to floods. Earthquakes are a fracking nightmare. A 94-year-old engineer may be our last hope.
OK, maybe I’m being overly dramatic. But I’m also being overly Dramarama…
Kevin Sullivan on Life advice from a man who lived it: “A good one Damian. Bring our lens into focus after the long weekend or our long life journey.” Jul 7, 09:38
You done said…