First Friday in 2014…
Today’s music trivia comes from an English rock band fused
with a bit of classical music producing an unique sound that was only rivaled
by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and Yes.
Beginning in the mid 1960s, this band changed members frequently due to
the large membership of active musicians.
Looking over their collection of 17 songs on their “Best of…” album,
many songs are not immediately recognizable by their name, but just a couple of
lines into the song, you say to yourself, “Hey, I know this song!” For my buddy Robert’s birthday maybe 20 years
ago, I took him to their concert. He
said he only knew one of their songs. As
each song began to play, I would turn to him and say, “Have you heard of this
song? And he would reply, “Yes!” With popular hits such as, “The Voice” (one
of those songs you don’t know the title of), “Tuesday Afternoon”, “Ride my
See-Saw”, “I’m Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band”, and their most
successful song to date, “Nights in White Satin”, they received a lot of
airplay way back then and even today. Their unique symphonic rock sound makes
them immediately recognizable when heard.
Can you name this English rock group?
Did I ever tell all of you that I can be such a complete
idiot? Not just a part-time idiot, but a
complete, card-carrying charter member. I have been known to screw up a one-man
funeral. I believe I have a
self-destruct button inside my head that allows me to screw up my life at a
moment’s notice. Sometimes it is just
little things, and sometimes it is great big colossal things that could affect
the entire world. Sometime I post things
that Snoopy should edit out, but she has been slacking lately. Anyway, I need
to get her back involved in these blog posts before I screw up again. Bad dog!
Bad dog! J
Tomorrow would have been my Dad’s 82nd
birthday. Happy birthday, Dad! The last six months of his life, and after my
Mom had already passed over, I began to find our about Joe, the guy, rather
than y=the guy who was always my Dad.
The selfless guy who had to quit school after the 10th grade
to go to work to support his family. He
kept a black and white photo portrait of my Mom when she was 19 years old up on
top of the TV and he would point at the photo and tell me, with tears in his
eyes, “You see her? That there was a great woman!” He would go on and on about
her. He was so lost without here in his
life. He began to open up to me in ways he never did as a Dad. When I would call him on the phone several times
a week, he would answer, “Hey buddy!” which I thought was pretty strange
because as some of you may know, Buddy is my little brother Greg’s family nickname. Maybe he just considered me his buddy now
because I was the closest thing to himself? I’m not too sure, I just tried to
be a friend and a good son to him those last several months that he had left. I
know that he and my older sister Joyce would talk on the phone for days on end
about all kinds of things such as TV shows they both watched. They both had
that gift of gab which worked out best for them both. Joyce was always my Dad’s favorite for some
reason. I know she needed it and he
needed it, so I know their frequent phone calls worked out best for them
both. You are missed every day. God speed, Dad!
This Sunday, January 5th is my 2015 retirement
date! I have already begun the countdown
and am really looking forward to it. A
year flies by so quickly as you get older, I hope by then the days begin to
slow down once again so I can enjoy them all.
I have to quit watching the TV show, “Ramsey’s Kitchen
Nightmares”, because it scares me that restaurants can have such bad food
practices such as very poor food storage, serious cross-contamination issues,
and such a lack of food education and lack of knowledge when it comes to
food. Some of these places I am sure
people must have died or got insanely sick from their god-awful stupidity. Sure, it is good that the Chef came in and
straightened them out, but these are owners that asked for his help. What about the other 99.9% of them that
continue to use poor food storage practices?
I get ill just seeing these places.
I used to work with this older guy who every week would read the
restaurant health inspection reports in the newspaper and he would refuse to
ever eat out at a restaurant. I used to
think he was paranoid, but as I get older and wiser I think he may have had a
valid point. I actually ate at a
restaurant next-door to one of the restaurants featured on the show, which was
pretty scary. I think twice about eating
out and where now days. Ugh!
Today is the last day of peace and quiet before everyone
comes back from their holiday vacation on Monday. It has been nice to be here without some of
these people I’d rather be away from.
The work environment has been so peaceful and serene without any A-holes
here. This is the way it should always
be here. We could only wish it could stay the same.
One thing about living here in Southern California, is they
are always filming some kind of movie, TV commercial or other production here
or places I am familiar with. From
seeing downtown El Segundo in a movie such as, “Dude, Where’s My Car?” or a
strip mall featuring one of my old watering holes in the movie, “I Heart
Huckabees” or a Antique store in ES always used in the “Storage Wars” reality
show (which is not really reality), The Wyle Laboratories always used to
perform third party scientific testing, and also I see “Tropical Reef Imports”
used in the show, “Tanked”. I also have
seen several commercials that have used the very West end of the 105 freeway. I seem to see many places in films,
commercials and the like from this local South Bay area.
There is a Jack Russell Terrier used in many TV commercials
that is hugely talented that looks pretty much like my dog, Snoopy. This dog I am referring to is named, Jesse
and he can be found easily by Googling, “Just Jesse”. He has many You Tube videos which are
available for viewing and he has so many talents and abilities, it is
amazing! Snoopy would like to aspire to
be that talented, but she is more stubborn than talented. She is very smart but she has a mind of her
own. She does not play with any toys at
all. She only wants to eat treats and to go for a walk, or go to the tavern
(for all the people and the constant attention she receives). She likes going
for drives in Linus where she takes her rightful place in the copilots seat.
She likes to hang out the window and yelp at people as we drive by. She loves
people and loves to be petted, have her belly rubbed (like, who doesn’t?), and
go for walks or go outside, or come back inside, or just lay on top of me on
the couch. She loves to go to bed early
when it gets dark out unless she hears that I am getting ready to go out for the
evening, then she mysteriously shows up at the front door ready to go out. She
looks at me like, “What? I know you plan on taking me with you.”
I saw a meme on Facebook that was joking about what if your
dog could text you. It was hilarious! It’s below…
http://internationalassociationofhaters.com/hilarious-texts-from-dog
It shows the world according to the dog’s point of view. Where we consider the dog to be our
possession, the dog sees us as his butler. I never really thought about it that
way, but it makes perfect sense from the dog’s perspective, doesn’t it? Even the dog calling himself, “Master
Woofington Von Barkshire” cracks me up!
Okay, time to close this for now…
As Snoopy always says… Bark Less and Wag More!
Until next time… Be Good!
- cb
No comments:
Post a Comment