The Ninth House

…I’m feeling a little down.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry

edfa

February 23, 1932-December 18, 2008

Don’t say I never share.

“Now go dress up like Yeoman Rand. I’ll meet you in cargo bay 12…”

Ah, spring. Winter’s chill gives way to balmy days…

…and the wild back garden blooms.

The first lettuce of the season yields to a gentle tug…

And the little lizards frak, in the front and in the back.

(Despite it all, Mr. Toad retains his dignity.)

Anthony Bourdain is a chef. He’s an author and he hosts his own TV show, No Reservations, on the Travel Channel. All of this will come into play six paragraphs from now.

My wife is not a chef. My wife’s a cook. She began making puff pasty when she was in grade school, taught by the women in her family. She spent the next several decades cooking for friends, for the commune, for her first husband, for her two boys, then for me. Cooked practically every day because that’s who she is, and everything she cooks is just nailed to the damn plate.

My wife always dreamed of being a food professional, of one day maybe even opening her own place. We’d been married nine years when she informed me she’d quit her job that morning, called a local caterer before lunch, interviewed that afternoon and would start the next day.

(more…)

Listened to it for the first time last night. All Dusty Springfield covers, with one original.

Just A Little Lovin’ is excellent, and excellence should always be supported and encouraged. And if it moves you to buy more of Ms. Lynne’s music, even better. Buy it.

TNH

I swear, I just peed myself a little…

The official site is here.

(Boy, it had better not suck.)

TNH

It was probably 1980. Although it could have been 1979. The album, Bombs Away Dream Babies, was released in 1979, and I was a college freshman in the fall of 1979, and that’s when I first remember hearing it. So it was probably around then.

I could have heard it on any number of radio stations, but I probably heard it first on WQDR Raleigh, back when it was one of the Southeast’s pioneering album rock FMs, the first station Lee Abrams consulted, the one that put the Superstars album rock format on the national map. ‘QDR was a glorious cliché, staffed by laid-back jocks who sounded stoned and probably were. When I think of it, I invariably envision Q-SKY, the fictional West Coast album rocker from the 1978 radio fairy tale FM. ‘QDR might have been nothing like that in reality, but who cares about reality?

I visited ‘QDR once, before the owners flipped it to country in 1984 while it was still at the top of its game. I don’t remember why or how I got in there, but there I was. Just a couple of years a jock myself then, and there I was, standing in WQD-F-ing-R.

All I remember is, the lights were low and the hallway walls were carpeted and hung with gold records – Clapton, Tom Petty, Heart, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Eagles, The Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan…

I swear you could smell the pot smoke soaked into the shag. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. It was cool as hell.

(more…)

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while now. The holidays got in the way, but maybe that was for the best. It gave me time to really think about what I wanted to say.

And here it is.

It is okay to like Dan Fogelberg.

Go ahead. You can say it. Here, watch me:

I like Dan Fogelberg. Some of Dan Fogelberg’s music, I loved. And still do.

Dan Fogelberg died of prostate cancer on December 16th, 2007. He was 56. His most recent publicity photos show a good-looking guy, clean-shaven and smiling, the kind of guy who makes middle-aged moms blush and their daughters giggle.

Unfortunately, his reputation didn’t weather the years as well as he. For some folks of a certain age, Fogelberg’s name has become the go-to punch line for jokes about 1970s-era granola-munching, Chukka boot-wearing Sensitive Guys. Many critics loathed him. Rolling Stone’s review of 1979’s Phoenix is so contemptuous, you can damn near picture the author spitting on the album cover.

It’s less troublesome to dismiss Dan Fogelberg, as have most eulogists I’ve read, as that “1970’s soft rock singer-songwriter” who scored a few hits than it is to set aside that fashionable prejudice and honestly consider his work. Or, more telling, his work’s popularity.

The fact that so many people evidently aren’t willing to do that – and worse, are dismissing Fogelberg as little more than a footnote to 1970s and early 80s pop – is really getting under my skin.

(more…)

Casey and Rudy at Galacticast send a shout out to striking writers.

Why I care:

I’ve got fifteen more just like it. Different years, of course. But all consecutive. And most of them minus the wallet creases.

To me, it’s a simple equation: if you don’t value your work enough to fairly defend it, whatever that work is, however much money you make, union or not, you and your work will be taken advantage of. And you will have only yourself to blame.

Some WGA members make a lot of money. Good for them. We would all like to make a lot of money. If your work is good enough to convince some Hollywood producer to write you an obscenely large check, fair play to you.

But if you’re thinking you really have no sympathy for some whining Hollywood fat cat writer who’s driving to the picket line in a Porsche after a $200 lunch, ask yourself how much you would have to earn for your work before you felt you could give the rest away.

What’s that figure?

By the way, I drive a 1996 Ford pickup with 192,000+ miles on it and get queasy if I spend over $20 for lunch. I’m not one of those big shot Hollywood writers and never have been. But I want fair pay for my work, regardless of what that work is, where it is or who’s writing the check. I’ll bet you do, too.

Because you can bet your employer has his/her/the company’s best interests in mind. That’s their job.

Standing up for your interests, is yours.

And now, a cute widdle bunny:

Peace…

TNH

Martin Sexton.

He latest CD is Seeds. “Wild Angels” is on it. Mr. Sexton is very good and we should encourage him.

TNH

I love chess. Mind you, I’m a fair player at best, but I love the game. I love to play chess and I love to read about chess and chess personalities.

Even if you’ve never touched a chessboard, you’ve probably heard of Garry Kasparov. Until his retirement from competitive chess in 2005, Kasparov, though not unbeatable, was damn near so. He has enjoyed the highest rating of any competitive player in the world in the recorded history of the game, with a peak FIDE rating of 2851. The current world #1 player, Viswanathand Anand, is currently rated 2801. Kasparov, in retirement, is currently rated 2812.

So he’s a bright guy. And at age 44, he’s currently running for president of Russia. Most folks say he’s got little chance of success, and that’s being kind. It’s not that Kasparov isn’t qualified for the gig, though who knows if he’s got the chops. It’s because it’s Russia, and current President Vladimir Putin’s got a lock on the government, and things are getting scary over there again. Hell, they’re scary over here.

I happened to stumble upon Kasparov’s appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher a couple nights ago. Thought you might enjoy it.

I’m thinking we might all want to play more chess.

TNH

I saw my first episode of Star Trek when I was eight years old old. The original series was still in production then, third and final season. You wanna know how old I am, have Spock do the math for you.

I even remember the episode: “The Mark of Gideon.” It was a thinly-veiled cautionary tale about the dangers of overpopulation. All I remember was all those banging heartbeats and all those sardine-packed people spooked me. It was scary, at least to an eight-year-old, and it wasn’t because of the Spandex.

And yes, I know most all Star Trek episodes were thinly-veiled cautionary tales and/or morality plays and/or paeans to democracy and/or enlightened secularism. Except for “Spock’s Brain,” a not-so-thinly-veiled cautionary tale about the dangers of being so desperate for a script you’ll film anything.

And at the center of it all, there was The Man.

(more…)

As long as Steve Earle is still doing his thing, I feel okay.

There it is, in the grocery store parking lot.

A big, black, gas-guzzling SUV.

On the back window, two stickers.

One of them, the dignified white “W” on a black square, in support of the president.

The other: “WWJD,” for “What Would Jesus Do?”

Lord, I don’t even know where to start.

TNH