Fresh release!

Music from the Motion Picture is 10,000 Maniacs first record in 12 years. This is the first video from it and it's lovely. I have a long history with this band, over thirty years and it's great that they are still going strong.

The people in the video, other than the band, helped fund it through the campaign the Maniacs had on pledgemusic.com. Nice touch.

Assuming room temperature

A friend of mine died on Monday. A brilliant, witty (the subject line is one he would use often) and opinionated man was taken from us and his amazing wife way too soon. Just a couple of years older than me, he beat me at chess while staring at an empty board on the other side of the room while I had the board with the pieces in front of me. Cancer sucks. I first met him through a friend of my wife and I, who told us she was marrying this man she met at her brother's wedding a few months earlier. She thought nothing would come of it. They had twenty three years together. Not enough if you ask me. Not enough if you ask anyone who knew them.

At first they lived on a rural road in a holler on New York State's southern tier. Outside the house was his Jensen Healy, no longer running. And it sat there for years, home to chipmunks and leaves for several years.

He did finally get it restored. I rode in it. There were no seat belts. There were always risks Jeff was willing to take. He should have had many years of life left.



He is missed so much by many already. Rest in Peace, Jeff.

Tonight I think I'll walk alone I'll find my soul as I go home

Pandora keeps playing this song for me. This band was different. Never heard anything quite like them when Blue Monday hit in Fredonia. The production, panning, the spaghetti western themed peter gunn bass throbbing. They had their time in the sun, and never seemed to want it. Like a lot of acts in the 80's, they did not seem to enjoy what they were doing when they were doing it.

When your girl has left you on the pavement

The Lexicon of Love is one of my favorites. Great pop record from the early eighties. A go to at WCVF and Rascal's. Martin's a bit indecisive in this song. He goes from one extreme to another.

I say maybe, there must be a solution to the one thing, the one thing we can find.



Poison Arrow's great too, if you know this song, you know that already.

Earworm

Heard this song for the first time about ten years ago of the closing credits of an episode of the TV show Ed. Did not really listen to Blue Rodeo back in the day, but this is a darn good tune.

Our intentions were good

To get out of the house for a little while, and get off the computers for a bit I suggested to my wife that we take a walk around the Scioto Mile today.



It was a spot chilly, about twenty degrees, but there was also a stiff breeze in our faces.



My wife was struggling with her scarf, and the elements. I was not doing very well in the wind either.



Columbus was losing its color in the grey chill.



A cold train made its way through downtown. It shivered over the tracks.



We cut our walk short more than halfway through.



We made the right decision crossing over the Town Street bridge.



Because Milestone 229 was our original, final destination.



It's a good place to have a pre-grocery shopping drink, in any weather.

Welcome to my bridge

You have to be larger than life to be Mayor of New York City and Ed Koch certainly lived up to that billing. He served three terms as Mayor in the late 70’s to 1989. I lived in Fredonia most of his term, but his actions always echoed across the state, especially when he called the suburbs sterile and ridiculed the rural areas. Not a great idea and it was one of many reasons why he never became Governor.

He was a self-proclaimed liberal with sanity who endorsed many republican candidates after leaving office. A controversial master of self-promotion he was always in the media spotlight as a film reviewer or judge on The People’s Court.

To me, he’ll always be the cantankerous, brash yet loveable Mayor of New York. Whether or not I agreed with his politics no longer matters, he died this morning at the age of 88.

Last year he appeared in this fluff piece for Emperor Bloomberg, his twenty five second cameo (Yes, the bridge is named after him) blows the current mayor out of the water.



He will be buried in Trinity Cemetery, the last cemetery in New York City still doing burials, because he did not want to be buried in New Jersey saying, "The idea of leaving Manhattan permanently irritates me." An ambassador for New York all his life. A New Yorker until the end. Rest in Peace.