"Sweetness"

The Donkeys. Tempe, July 2nd

I was walking with my brother
And he wondered what's on my mind
I said what I believe in my soul
Ain't what I see with my eyes
And there's no turning back this time

I am a patriot

I was walking with my girlfriend
She looked so fine
I said, "Baby, what's on your mind?"
She said, "I want to run like the lion
released from the cages
released from the rages
burning in my heart tonight."

I am a patriot

And I ain't no communist
And I ain't no capitalist
And I ain't no socialist
And I ain't no imperialist
And I ain't no democrat
Sure ain't no republican
I only know one party
And it is freedom

I am, I am, I am
I am a patriot
And I love my country
Because my country is all I know

And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
Someday

For My Dad. On My Birthday.

I'm Having an Old Friend For Dinner

The World Cup is so wild and amazing.

(And Joxer Daly's in Culver City serves a very good Irish breakfast and Bloody Mary.)

Driftin' Back

I used to dig Picasso
I used to dig Picasso
hey now now, hey now now
I used to dig Picasso

then the big tech giant came along
and turned him into wallpaper
hey now now, hey now now
I used to dig Picasso

I'm driftin' back
I'm driftin' back
I'm driftin' back
I'm driftin' back

Francis Ford Coppola -- May, 1978

Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away

My college crush. Summer, 2000.

Holy Cow!

My favorite story this year. An inspiration.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Harry Caray diary tracked every drink, every bar in 1972

BY NEIL STEINBERG June 2, 2014 10:06AM

Harry Caray (left) and Steve Stone team up in the Cubs broadcast booth at Wrigley Field in this WGN-TV file photo. No date has been provided.

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It isn’t the “Vampire Diaries” or “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” It sure isn’t the diary of Anne Frank.

But it is a diary, of sorts. An 8-by-5-inch, dark green, 1972 “Day Book” owned, once upon a time, by famed baseball broadcaster Harry Caray.

Grant DePorter, CEO of the Harry Caray’s chain of eateries, inherited the diary, one of eight, all from the ’70s and early ’80s, in four boxes of memorabilia, World Series tickets and cashed checks, that the executor of Caray’s estate found when he cleaned out his office.

Knowing my interest in all things historical, DePorter asked if I wanted to take a peek at one, and I swung by Harry’s and walked away with 1972.

I should say right away that this is not a Dear Kitty, pour-out-your-heart, frank-assessment-of-my-friends kind of diary. Old Harry was not big on introspection, as he was the first to admit.

“I’m a convivial sort of guy. I like to drink and dance,” he told an interviewer once.

Caray was the Cardinals’ color broadcaster for many years in St. Louis. Driven out of town in 1969, he migrated to Chicago, via a misfire year in Oakland, to announce first for the hapless White Sox, finishing his career in a golden twilight glow with the Cubs.

In 1972, he had just begun his tenure with the Sox. A savvy businessman, Caray cut a deal pegged to ballpark attendance, which doubled, largely thanks to his flamboyant presence. It would make him very wealthy, though in 1972 he was still tallying each bar tab.

“Remember, you used to be able to deduct a three-martini lunch,” DePorter said.

Saturday, Jan. 1, lists four bars: the Back Room, still on Rush Street, plus three long-ago joints: 20 E. Delaware, Sully’s and Peppy’s, with expenses for each $10.30, $9.97, $10, and $8.95. This in a year when a six-pack of Old Style set you back $1.29.

You needed to cite who you entertained to get the write-off, so on New Year’s Day he lists Dave Condon, the Tribune sports columnist; Billy Sullivan, who owned Sully’s; and Joe Pepitone, the former Yankees first baseman who had been traded to the Cubs.

And so it begins. A chain of old-time Chicago bars — Riccardo’s, Boul Mich, Mr. Kelly’s. A posse of early 1970s sports figures — Wilt Chamberlain, Don Drysdale, Gale Sayers. Plus a few unexpected blasts from the past: boxer Jack Dempsey, comedian Jack Benny.

“These guys did nothing but go out and have a few cocktails,” said Jimmy Rittenberg, who owned Faces, which Caray visited 14 times in 1972. “I don’t know how they did it. They were 20, 30 years older than me and I couldn’t keep up with them.”

Jan. 16 something unusual happens. Caray is in Miami, yet there are no expenses, just one enigmatic word, “Super.”

After that break, if indeed it was, comes 288 consecutive days in bars, not only in Chicago, but New York City, and of course on the road with the Sox, beginning with spring training in Sarasota.

The unbroken streak pauses Nov. 3, when all we get is “to K City @310.” The only completely blank day is Monday, Nov. 6 — what must THAT have been like? Then off to the races again.

Clay Felker, founder of New York magazine. Caray’s former boss, A’s owner Charlie Finley. A few surprises: Sox owner John Allyn. Several times. That surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. All I knew about their relationship was that Allyn fired Caray, and Caray replied with this timeless retort:

“I can’t believe any man can own a ballclub and be as dumb as John Allyn. Did he make enough to own it, or did he inherit it? He’s a stupid man. This game is much too complicated for a man like John Allyn.”

But that was 1975, the epic year when White Sox players complained they did so poorly because of Caray’s critical broadcast booth assessments, drawing my favorite Caray line: “Hey, you can’t ballyhoo a funeral.”

So what was it like to stand in the Pump Room (16 visits in 1972) and hoist a few with Caray?

“I was out with Harry Caray a couple of times,” the Tribune’s Rick Kogan said. “It was always at the Pump Room. He was one of the most charming people in the world.”

How so?

“Drunk but joyful,” Kogan said. “It always wound up being a joyful, laughter-filled time.”

Caray was always surrounded by friends like TV sportscaster Tim Weigel.

“He really liked Tim Weigel,” Kogan said. “I was an audience, at best, with those two characters around. They had incredible mutual affection. There was no better place to share that mutual affection than over way too many cocktails.”

I assumed that White Sox broadcasters today do not hang out in bars every night fraternizing with ballplayers and other assorted celebrities. But, not liking to assume things, I phoned the Sox and asked whether current announcers Steve Stone, who shared a mike with Caray, or Ken Harrelson, burned the midnight oil.

They declined to comment.

That kinda says it all, huh?

Toward the end of the diary, on Dec. 24, comes the kicker. After spending at least 354 of the previous 357 days in bars (DePorter counted 61 different tap houses) Caray writes, in a bold hand, “Vacation in Acapulco. Then “Vacation” every day until the year runs out.

Which makes me wonder how he knew he was on vacation. I guess if nobody was playing baseball in front of him and when he looked over the rim of his drink he saw Mexico, then he knew he was on vacation.

But give Caray credit. As old-fashioned, and perhaps even pathological, as the bar-crawling seems today, there is another truth worth mentioning: Harry Caray could have taken his drinks at home. He went out because it was his job.

“He felt the bartender and bar people were his fans,” Rittenberg said. “He felt he was responsible He would stop in 10 joints. He was just a gregarious guy.”

All Apologies

Peter Gabriel, Kiss, Hall & Oates, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, the E Street Band...and then Nirvana performed. And I forgot that the previous three hours even existed. In the wake. Powerful stuff.

Writing

"When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate."

--John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Radio City Ghost -- 5/22/00

Pearl Jam Here Come The Midwest

DATE                          CITY                              VENUE
Oct-1                          Cincinnati, OH                US Bank Arena
Oct-3                          St Louis, MO                  Scottrade Center
Oct-3-5*                      Austin, TX                      Austin City Limits Music Festival
Oct-8                          Tulsa, OK                       BOK Center
Oct-9                          Lincoln, NE                    Pinnacle Bank Arena
Oct-10-12*                 Austin, TX                       Austin City Limits Music Festival
Oct-14                        Memphis, TN                  FedEx Forum
Oct-16                        Detroit, MI                       Joe Louis Arena
Oct-17                        Moline, IL                       iWireless Center
Oct-19                        St. Paul, MN                   Xcel Energy Center
Oct-20                        Milwaukee, WI                BMO Harris Bradley Center
Oct-22                        Denver, CO                     Pepsi Arena

Workingman's Dead

I'm on a huge Dead kick right now. This sounds like an enjoyable read in the 33 1/3 series.

Workingman’s Dead- Grateful Dead

By Buzz Poole

Coming September 2015!

Released in 1970, the Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s Dead is cold-water-shock departure from the Acid Test feedback madness of the late ‘60s material, exemplified by songs like “St. Stephen” and “Dark Star.” Rather than relying on chemically-fuelled guitar licks and spacey improvisational explorations, this album is the first listen to what would become an extensive songbook informed and inspired by dusty, rough and tumble American history and world mythologies, charting the long, winding path to self-discovery and individual empowerment.

The eight songs that comprise Workingman’s Dead will serve as points of entry from which will form a fully-rendered portrait of an exceptional musical recording, both in terms of the songs but also, and perhaps more importantly, how these songs speak to late twentieth-century America, and the attendant cultural and political anxieties that resulted from the idealism of the ‘60s giving way to the uncomfortable realities of the ‘70s, making a case for the relevance of this music nearly forty-five years after it was recorded. Based on research, interviews, and personal experience, the book will probe the paradox at the heart of the band’s appeal: the Grateful Dead was about much more than music, though it was really just about the music.

Louie Season 4 Has Begun

Spontaneous moments of beauty in this life.

Grateful Dead -- Roanoke, VA. July 27th, 1974

Back in Savannah from Tryon. Drinking Abita on this Sunday afternoon.

Stepdad Mike saw the Grateful Dead twice. In Roanoke. For sure once in '74.

He doesn't recall much else about it... so he was definitely in attendance.

Here it is. The Wall of Sound days. A nice Charlie Miller SBD.

Set 1:
Bertha
Mexicali Blues
Row Jimmy
Jack Straw
Mississippi Half-Step
It Must Have Been The Roses
Me and Bobby McGee
Tennessee Jed
Playing in the Band

Set 2:
China Cat Sunflower->
I Know You Rider
Me and My Uncle
Ramble On Rose
Big River
U.S. Blues ->
Promised Land
Not Fade Away ->
Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad ->
Johnny B. Goode

Nick's Picks

Some Grateful Dead shows I wouldn't have bothered to listen to without this article. Notably, he has an ear for eighties dead.

1/22/78, MacArthur Court, Eugene, Oreg.

1978 got a little sloppy, but this one is a monster. Start with “Terrapin,” or else “The Other One.” Listen for the “Close Encounters” theme prior to “St. Stephen.” “Not Fade Away,” often rote, shows some special snarl. Sounds like Garcia was abducted by aliens. (Listen here.)

1/15/79, Springfield Civic Center, Springfield, Mass.

The end of the Keith and Donna Godchaux era had its ups and downs, this night being no exception. But the way the “I Need a Miracle” crashes into “Shakedown Street” is unique and stately. It sounds almost (banish the thought) pre-meditated. The pretty, chimey jam out of “Drums” into the so-called “Playin Reprise” ends with warp-speed Garcia fingerwork that boggles the mind, until you hear the band careen into “Casey Jones,” and then it all makes pharmacological sense. (Listen here.)

11/30/80, Fox Theater, Atlanta, Ga.

An old cult favorite. The whole second set, courtesy of Dr. Bob Wagner. The “Scarlet Begonias”-“Fire on the Mountain” may be the main attraction, but the “Playin’ ” jam is a headlong fever dream—not for the faint of ear. The way “The Wheel” comes out of the “Space” is real purty, though, as is the weepy, deliberate “Ship of Fools.” (Listen here.)

8/29/83, Silva Hall, Hult Center, Eugene, Oreg.

In the early- to mid-eighties, there were marquee nights and grim ones. You could build a rescue raft out of a dozen sturdy “China”-“Rider”s. I just adopted this version, even though no one else I know really seems to know it. The band plays faster than ever, tight and coke-y bombastic bluegrass. The recording is rough (this is why God made equalizers, or other bands), but Garcia blazes. You’ll shed a few pounds. (Listen here.)

7/13/84, Greek Theatre, Berkeley, Calif.

The “Scarlet”-“Touch of Grey”-“Fire” (this was before “Touch of Grey” had been recorded; it’s brisker here) is a beloved oddity. Garcia, often AWOL in 1984, comes to play. The synthy keyboards may frighten off “Alligator” fans, but let’s not forget this was the era of Wham! There’s also another beautiful “Space”-“Wheel” (it’s happenstance, the combo is not a fetish of mine), a death-shrouded “Stella Blue,” a floor-bouncing “Sugar Magnolia,” and then a rare thing for this era, “Dark Star,” as an encore—in the lore, a shooting star blessed the breakout. You’re not in 1969 anymore, but still, a taste of the old magic. With apologies to 10/12/84. (Listen here.)