TMI: My Tangents

Concretely cross-tied.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Mon, 6 May 2013 17:33:00 GMT

Later the same (or similar) Friday of the band rehearsal, previous post, I was online listening to some war horses of the symphonic realm and noticed a sidebar picture of the Apocalypse Now poster and a performance of the ride them there Valkyries took, as imagined by Wagner.

First, too many late night comedy monologues: the main shock was YT wasn't throwing so many left turns at me on the sidebars. Such as things related to the one time I watched a video of a slime mold which could outpace most gastropods.

Later yet that same day one of my train boards had a thread commencing called---Apocalypse Now? It seems the railroad is replacing a lot of the once future solution concrete ties (Thoreau's sleepers in a distant incarnation) with good old fashioned wooden ones on a major mountain crossing.

As gondolas laden with the wooden bucks pass him, the poster says he loves the smell of creosote in the morning. That's the material with which the ties are treated and cuts the fire risk down if not out and protects them from moisture.

Moisture which proved to be the undermining of the hype for concrete in this application.

Hey, I'd like to think many things, including my personal favorites, are cosmically connected, ma-a-a-an. But as opposed to the train infrastructure, my alleged concrete evidence doesn't hold as much water as I thought.

Not to be Les Mis(s)ed.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Mon, 6 May 2013 16:54:00 GMT

During the 80's I was in the studio audience for two episodes of the Carson era Tonight Show, courtesy of tickets presented to my Mom. The first time was a Thanksgiving night when Mom and a few of the brothers, somewhat disinterested and tripto-glazed, trundled over to Burbank. It was "standard issue", with Johnny, Doc, and while our family is big on anything a shillelagh's shadow from Irish, the sneered at Ed.

Ask me to do the laugh---at your peril.

It was an enjoyable show, with Bruce Dern as a guest and participant in a mad scientist skit. At the next show I was on my own, as everyone else was out of town and probably happy about it. There was indeed a Les Miserables number performed, but not "On My Own". It was "I Dreamed A Dream" sung by Randi somebody, a member of the cast at the time.

It was up my alley. Tales of a impossibly long lines and the synthesizers still stored on stage followed the previous evening's guest Madonna, but tonight the fabled band---Pete "Deacon Blues" Christlieb was the evening's tenor sax soloist/gloat gloat/Dan's memory---took on a pair of French Horns to face the Revolution's aftermath.

Before that performance, we had a charming young Pennsylvania (my family again!) lady, either side of eleven, who was an academic enfant terrible---spelling, I recall?---and a liberal era Dennis Miller. He spooled out his then standard line for all the shows on which he guested, "I want to see Nancy Regan in a Riddler costume". Another much better than average episode for the era.

Decades later it's a Friday morning and the Burbank Band is in the eponymous but not affiliated high school's band room a few miles away for the first of a pair of combined rehearsals. One of the joint numbers is, indeed, a "Les Mis" medley and of course "I Dreamed A Dream" is in it. A dream, indeed.

While banners and notes abound in the room touting web sites and social media servers to which to send sound and image, we are in there moving air (after last minute chairs): the notes on the page may well end up as impulses on tablets, phones and the usual stuff I'm late to get, but we are, seasoned by a most happy pair of band leaders, putting them into the visible world.

Can you hear the people singing? Most probably Mentor, and many others, will hear the people playing.

On wandering the local streets---with even more "smog".

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:49:00 GMT

Two blogs I regularly read have just dealt with getting around. My former woodwind section mate had a gosh awful accident; out one truck and one wonder phone but another phone is in slightly chewed up hand and another vehicle on the way, all (Grammar intact) paid for. And I covered the thankfully simple injury.

Mentor wants to make more of transit, but in this area she notes the disjointed nature of same. Some great convenient rides are around, such as in my case music venues less than a half hour walk from Red Line stations, but go "somewhere" and it becomes academic---not to mention time consuming.

Summer is coming and I hope several trips to Castaic Lake. Not the Pacific Ocean but that's for another discussion if indeed it takes place/ahem. A very green driver friend from the bus lot would remind me of a project I never act on: first, take the cute fifty cent Dash Bus outside the door down by the Orange Line. And it's not the only bus. Get on the Orange Line to the North Hollywood terminus and get on a Santa Clarita Bus which ends up at the S. C. transit hub. There the Castaic bus also lays over for a bit as I well know.

Usually I drive to the Newhall Metrolink station and wait for the only bus I need.

Granted the North Hollywood to Santa Clarita bus is three fifty, but big deal. The heels dig in when it comes to time---come on, a summer weekend night and one wants to get back to dinner and whatever else. One of these days, Alice.

For a lot of running around there is my trusty ten speed. One a past blog I talked about heading to the gym for the wrong time. The follow up is that day I headed back to the class, and the way home tied my friends' blogs together.
I came east up a side street to Kester, no signal, and started out to cross to go north when I figured my neurons hadn't calculated the speed or, I admit, presence of oncoming traffic well. I turned around and nearly encountered a red SUV who had commenced a right turn behind me. I didn't fell down but looked my otherwise "aesthetic" self.

I give the driver of the SUV great credit. She asked twice, with no reprove, if I was all right. I was, but once on Kester I was hailed by a fellow with a general east European accent, in a suit jacket and no tie, waving a note pad and calling to me, "Phone number! Phone number!"

Really, bud? How's about the magic number with two more digits? Okay, one less; we have to use area code for any number these days.

But for a while after getting home I wondered if I had blocked something horrible out. No red fluids soaked my clothes, I walked just fine and nothing was dangling beside my usual participles.

Still, figuring out the getting around will put you round about around here.

Life is disheartening, old chum . . .

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:42:00 GMT

From taking the parents to Mass for about four years there is a parishioner I encounter here and there and from whom I hear news from that church. Yes, I was a little surprised to hear the high school is putting on "Cabaret" and during prime time Sunday masses the cast files in and a selected song is performed.

Providence? Or our online age reducing coincidences? Different interpretations for things out of the swirl that is within even a rigid, and the "good news" is there are worse, institution: During a search for something unrelated I noted an organization with "Our Lady" in the title has a protest boiling against these performances.

God, always "Our Lady" with this bunch with their hate disguised about as well as with a fake eyeglass/nose/moustache. That parish and play is promoting homosexuality, is key in the rant.

A historian friend, who still goes to some Masses in another parish, tells me "Cabaret" is different as a play compared to the film.

Sunday, due to timing, I found myself fifteen minutes to the last Mass of the day picking up a bulletin for Mom. Around the church the protesters, many of high school age, waved their signs. Big smiles, and honk for family values.
The constant barrage of horns stabbed me far worse than when, in a community band, the massed forces make their first fumble on a difficult piece presented at the beginning of rehearsal.

Family values. A popular student and athlete is coming out of a Catholic youth leadership and rapes a girl also coming from the meeting. No action is taken by the adults after a brief consideration of the girl's charges---"Our Lady" indeed; yes, I'm obvious. Show your Christian love and poop out your time withered insults.

The boy is hailed in the halls while the victim is buffeted. Where would these, "Look at me!" Catholic kids have been?

This did take some years back place between here and Long Beach. But that's from that atheistic, homo sump pit of a press, right?

The tin drums have been supplanted by car horns and the blaze of an internet in which these protesters have lodged their sewer pipe on a, wait for it, electric protest site. Anyone remember how "Cabaret" ends, or even what the actual theme was?

The zombies of Coughlin and Ratzinger stumble through the church of Rome.

All in the wash, Mrs. Vanderbilt.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 08:39:00 GMT

Our jolly, jumpy bunch had just completed the usual/unusual cardio kick class. The chain lists the club as Sherman Oaks, not North Hollywood as one would think in this Valley of otherwise murky postal zones, but I like to joke it's across the river from the latter. Yes, the L. A. River goes by and the building resides at the bottom of a slope which puts our concrete channel below street level in this area.

There's not as much taken for granted or mundane after all these decades. The Saturday sky was pasted with an under a thousand ceiling which after all these years we know is a respite from the often unhealthy blaze which follows. Not to worry and to worry. On Blue Bossa's radio is a Beatle-"onia" themed show and the announcer says he is going to play some Wings from Wild Life with George and Ringo to follow.

Oh, oh, that flat picked tuba toned bass line: "Bip Bop"! When it came out it was like so much I'd hear too often, imposed on bright young me, and hey, I was after my own thing. Four decades later through far more outlets I've had a lot of things and now, digitally mixed as all has been, it is kind of cute with the stepping over curbs ragtime guitar line.

Not that I'd buy it, but in looking it up on Amazon MP3 to make sure I got the title correctly after hearing the break-up Beatle sing "Whim, wham" more often, I noticed that the individual track was not 99 cents, the same price for which some long and blazing jazz and virtuoso rock tracks can be landed, but $1.29. Perchance it still goes to a Wildlife fund.

As it played I saw, down the slope from Coldwater Canyon, a group of young adults, appearing to be a on a lightly organized outing, observing the L. A. River. There, across from a block occupied by Valley College and, in the near scape, Grant High School, is a long series of student murals of historical and ethnic themes on the wash's west wall.

Great to see someone appreciating what, taken in a slower mode than driving by every day, reveals more and more.

Now it's Monday with a body works class and two bands ahead and I just can't bring myself to write a "Grant(ed)" pun for the end. Swore I had one figured out that morning. Yes, so much time passes by and yet memory cannot be taken for . . .

Carded, conflicted.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:56:00 GMT

What track number does "I don't know why I . . ." occupy on the mental tape deck? Arriving in the parking lot of the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market I reflected as I often and mysteriously do on a long abandoned friend Tom, seen once since 1986; a bundle of contradictions as he'd ask during things like this shopping trip, "Why are you doing/buying/believing this? Why aren't you . . .(lather, rinse, repeat)"?

I made a good haul mostly from the clearance section of the market, and at the exit was a store employee sorting a dolly of empty boxes, limiting my exit. Early middle age, bald, moustache. Reminded me of a look of person Jackie Gleason used to joust with on his variety show, the tense aura of the era included. I pulled back a couple of times for other people including a mother and child.

Then the store guy asks me if he can please see my receipt. Odd, I've yet to see this in too many, probably, visits to this chain. I had the receipt in another bag and produced it. In a sigh with maybe an agenda behind it he said, "Thanks, appreciate it."

Well, I didn't. The feeling of violation and aback-taken sticks like bad carbohydrate "linger". And I looked at the store entrance when I drove out and didn't see him.

I hung with Tom for about 20 years. This fellow who was so self-righteous in sequence about such as long hair, the draft, marijuana, and civil liberties nevertheless hewed to the Republican side like few I'd had the perspective of trying to analyze, and lamented knee-jerk disrespect for authority.

But, while he wouldn't have initially exploded at this guy the temperature would have risen like a reactor boo-boo as he'd---no, not at first demand to know the reason but say this was out of line.

Tom also was dogged by a perception he was gay. He wasn't. But homophobic insults were in his put downs of music, impolite people---you know. And he would have accused the fellow from the store of committing one of "those" stealthy acts---in this case "surveillance"?---the persecuted develop over time.

Me? In the middle, conflicted; a collector of things in an intellectual way that waves a flag of good material and easy notice.

Yeah, a writer.

Opening statement: Ennis the Menace.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 09:07:00 GMT

He was nicknamed, based on call sign phonetics, the "golden voice of garbage" and "gag, vomit, gag". Mr. Ennis was, I think, a college professor and former preacher. Very former, and very not surprising, for in one repeatedly encountered variation of the true believer fall away he wore atheism much like Penn Jilette.

It was everywhere during his early 80's operation on the ham radio bands, including the lower frequencies in which he'd seemingly run enough power for a strip mall to accommodate his speeches and even, not approved by the FCC, tapes.

He'd run down religion, Reagan, religion, childish behavior by the other hams, ignorance of science, and many social trends. His oft repeated phrase in a crusty and bellicose voice was, "If you want to be an intelligent, well informed individual . . ." Line up with me?

It was surely also the voice he used when someone from India or the region, during one of his shows on the far-carrying low bands, continually was trying to get a break and he admonished the poor fellow with something like "Shut up, Punjabi."

Racial slurs, homophobia, misogyny and other crowning features of an intelligent et cetera individual cropped up during his rants, which I caught on the two-meter band accessible to scanners of the day. Well, the bartering of goody points, and I'm certain the "church of Rome's indulgence" issue crossed a few polemics, frequently emanates from what's atop many stiff necks.

My bad and not the first time in two days: by God, he was an atheist and who more entitled to have leeway with those in agreement?

On the two-meter free speech repeater he didn't carry and was jammed a lot even though a lot of the hams were free thinkers. Hey, he put down rock music.

And "Star Wars".

Late night crack-ups.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Thu, 4 Apr 2013 16:49:00 GMT

Mentor and section mate have recently posted blogs of very heartfelt and painful experience about social issues that have to change and are glacially changing. Okay, glaciers are harder to find. Channeling Trotsky here (at this point mentor is casting me from her office).

Oh, yes, so about what is Mr. Nobody here to write? Talk show wars, or something.

On Mondays Jay Leno generally has the "Headlines" feature involving gaffes usually from newspapers, ads as well as stories, sent by viewers. The first involved a restaurant advertisement which contained a line about an item "Straight from the chef's crack . . ." I trust your diaphragms haven't suffered too much overload from this rich bite of humor. Out of the office a second time...

Then there was the one that set this off. It was a public service about strokes; mentor recently sent me an email about recognizing stroke symptoms, especially ones involving affected speech and thinking.

In Leno's item, words were scrambled within directions for when strokes occur with the reader there. It told the reader to decode this, post it and have it handy for when the unthinkable strikes.

Gales of laughter from Jay and minions: He wise cracked along the general warp of, "So when someone has a stroke you ask them [gibberish, gibberish]?"

Pun intended, unhappily.

Strangely and not uncommonly the reasons for the ad's strategy were there onscreen for a second.

We have been long told talk show hosts are, for the masses, more important disseminators of events than the mainstream news. Leno is far more middle of the throughway than Colbert or "The Daily Show", but he's in there.

His first guest was Matthew Perry, and the initial thing the ex-Chandler Bing brought up was, "Just what was this 'crack' supposed to be?" And he and the host actually couldn't figure it out.

Celebrity; what a crock.

Carded and serenaded.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 08:54:00 GMT

I remember the price was 94 cents, and surprising, but it was the source I was after anyway. A wheels-down airport coming under the stabilizers Dan had visited the San Fernando Mission gift store during the initial days of practically being retired. A dear friend had just lost, with Christmas approaching, a parent and I recalled, according to Mom, the store had really good Catholic cards. For the surprising price a gesture as much as I could make.

Mom has always been annoyed "people don't [tend to] send Easter cards". So I came to said gift shop for one. Cards are not their major commodity, the reader has figured, and no Easter ones were found. It was more of a specialty thing, especially ordination congratulations.

Yes, the "battle cry" has been dictated to my, as they say in the consciousness biz, tapes: If only these ***really*** moved in our times. Oops, Mom again: How about a certain son who never took up his chance to be a magnet for these.

Uh, okay, back in Blue Bossa to cross the Valley. Out of the parking lot I turned the possibly blasphemous KCSN back on and here was Billy Bragg in a live interview. After a joke about being a commie/atheist/pinko he played, live, the song he wrote for a collection commissioned for the anniversary of King James Version.

Gosh, he, preambled, what could a Billy Bragg do with this? A tribute to the Golden Rule, "From Luke, [he supposes]," (needed a rhyme!)something which applies to all. And then he warmed up in the ensuing talk portion. How he can't be absolutely hard line, though plenty of fundamentalists ride rough shod over the Golden Rule, after listening to Mahalia Jackson and his respect for those of faith who worked for the poor and abused. And his bit of annoyance with the certainly accomplished Richard Dawkins for pronouncing the entire demographic ignorant and lazy.

Here was my next stop, the Irish shop. This time a young man was there along with the other post's young lady. Indeed, they had a few Irish examples of what I'd been seeking, and I asked about the long time proprietor. Oh, she was fine, and gone a lot attending to her Alzheimer's afflicted husband.

Ask and ye shall find, often enough. Bits of light, things in common, and differences that shouldn't be fatal considering all that goes on. Sounds a little Irish.

Pass the hat---or the horn.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:39:00 GMT

Monday evening I was closing in on band practice, rolling down Newhall Avenue; it was my night to drive for our duo carpool. The cell phone rang for a voice call and I told my passenger I was about to be illegal, at least to see what the number was.

Not just a number but one of my names: it was the music store to which I'd taken my baritone sax for a look by either or both fellows who did repairs. Jazz band had been "dark" that day so the it had been in for a few days under the proviso, "No hurry."

Okay, I carefully answered. Yes, the sax was ready and they had "found a few things"; leaks, loose keys... It's always reassuring to know some kind of improvement often results. In this case, he said in addition to the general swarm "we found something you'll like". Why, sure, you find something and make it go away and it's no longer---something.

No, "a" something I'd like.

"A vintage coin."

An 1899 half dollar was in the saxophone, thought they said "neck" but it wouldn't fit there, and working loose; the weekly mechanic who visits two days a week couldn't get things optimal when he played on it, which sounded like my own moderate restlessness with the horn of late, and, as the charity shills say, dug deeper. There it was after me having this old Conn since roughly 1987.

So in the middle of a Tuesday run, the zany part of the day.

The repairs were $75. You could say $74.50 but perhaps the surprises aren't over.

Playing chicken with the Ultimate Clock.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:15:00 GMT

Is it illegal to have a Lorikeet? I don't think that's what I saw, but getting back home today I saw one of the other tenants' bird cage for the first time, though chirping certainly bounces around here from various units in ambient zags, sitting on the a/c unit. Something like that was in it, but when I said hello it went straight into its little house. I'm not a scary guy!

Not the oddest part of my day. A minute before as I drove into the parking area three of the roosters/chickens from across the street were along the far wall. Unfortunately at least two haven't made the trip across the street lately but three or four continue to pop up. No, not the oddest part either.

Back up a long half hour and I was visiting my favorite news stand. On the cover of my purchase, "Uncut Magazine", was David Bowie, gracing us again after a decade of no albums. The facial expression was like someone getting hip to the reality atmospheric pressure is 14-psi and change. The furrowed look was redolent of another veteran, Neil Young. At least to me.

Then there was another magazine, another visage: Robert Redford. Bad pun, worse "happy Tuesday": Face it, folks, there are things in my closet I just haven't thrown away with fewer wrinkles. Okay, a little scary, pretty bird.

No, still not the oddest part of the day, even considering on the way home I'd watched a guy in an Porsche on Kester avenue shooting footage with his tablet on a stick.

Top honor was for the errand after the news stand. Bet your bottom dollar, by half.

An unsettling shade of brown for Murphy.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:09:00 GMT

A recent Calendar article in the Sunday L. A. Times featured Romanian director Cristian Mungiu and his film "Beyond The Hills". It depicts as much as transcripts can show the events that led to a sensational legal case in that country in which a priest and four nuns in an Orthodox monastery performed an alleged exorcism which killed a young lady.

She was tied to a cross and left alone with no food in a room for three days, among other things. Oh, how we hate the alleged devil.

As an avid reader of film reviews the ones I've seen for this film reiterate Mr. Mungiu's statement he has portrayed events that occur in real life: no Friedkin's need apply. Naturalism, in short order.

And no editorializing. But the director says that in that poor country, with little spent on education, things mix together.

In a junior college political science class I took some time in the 80's the well-traveled instructor talked about a big source for communist Romania's brutal secret police: the hideous orphanages in the country. Unloved and abused children taught cruelty and subterfuge recruited later to potently ply what they've "learned".

As a liberal, Professor D. was calling for actual family values. There was a gardener in whose route the school where I was Plant Manager was included and he was in the class. One day at work I talked about it with him and he said, yes, he liked Mr. D but boy, did he run "liberal". Oooh.

Today in the L. A. Times my regular not so favorite Tuesday op-ed writer, one "J-Gold", has titled his column, concerning family values "we" should have known all along, "The Wisdom Of Dan Quayle".

God, no. God, no. God . . .no!!!

Our daily bread and reminders, 3/24 edition.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:18:00 GMT

Sunday morning, typical plus: First there was indoor cycling, then a visit to the train station to watch the coming and going of the Coast Starlight. A bonus was the empty tank car train headed for the lower Salinas Valley for another 7500 tons and gallon count later/maybe of oil for export to make asphalt. The March glare rendered the various lined up valves and spigots on the tanks as an impressive train-o-pede through the track weave.

Then off to three stores, each a half mile apart and don't ask. The last one was my Tesco market and I was looking through the used---I MEAN CLEARANCE---section for a bread product. Yes, at this age I ought to know better. Maybe I'd find sourdough or rolls to accompany a concoction I would make at home with a couple of Asian noodle packages, a bit of leftover chow mein and cashew chicken from a previous foray to the used-whoops-markdown section, and brussels sprouts.

See? You didn't want to ask.

But what I did see were four loaves of Sheepherder bread, unusual for this place, at ninety cents marked down from two bucks. Ah, Dad; in those always exacting visits to another market with him we'd pick up this type of bread, a favorite of his, after an inital look into that place's bakery clearance rack.

I bought a loaf. Then it was home, keeping track of a rotating mish-mash of groceries, keys, the wallet---in gym clothes with warm weather so no jacket pocket---and bags. But forgetfully no cell phones.

One phone at home had a text from a Washingtonan brother: going to San Fernando today? Well, I was there the 14th to view a detouring southbound Coast Starlight go that way, and we do talk trains. But, gee---?

He reminded me. Dad passed this day two years ago. Then the good shepherd poked me with whatever that stick is called. Maybe mentor's gift of a word a day will supply the name.

I am headed for the Mortuary, on the outskirts of San Fernando, and I will have a slice of the bread with me. By the way, the Coast Starlight detours again tonight.

Passing the buck but not "muster".

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:11:00 GMT

As finally noted by some of us ripe specimens, the idea of every store, brand and rock having a web site is by now so Pleistocene. Soon to join this phenomenon is the concept of the "app". What's coming next? Many things surely are but meanwhile some of us are still peeling off the pavement from being run over by the now if not soon to be obsolete ones.

Dollar Tree. I'll bet they have an "app". Now, if this app is special to a very certain model of phone slash personal whiz bang module, would we have an "I-Dollar Tree"? The pursuit of the buck only to wring it dry is as babbling a tower as there can stand.

Something about little shops and 3/17.

catfishrowe@aol.com (dangent) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 18:49:00 GMT

St. Patrick's Day means different things, and when some hear of "Laurel Canyon" they may not picture its northern/eastern miles. Exiting North Hollywood and passing through Sun Valley, Pacoima and San Fernando there is a sweatier and dustier feel.

Rock gardens, small industry and farther back than this essay centers there was a dairy. Going farther away from the fabled close quarters of Joni, CSNY and the Mamas and Papas' "12.30" it makes a curve, and just before this curve was a charming little Irish themed store.

The proprietor had a brogue that chased off the sternest layers of choking brown air we had in the era when I first visited, and always had a pot of tea and some simple cookies---one of the Irish brands but of course---to add a touch to purchasing genuine Irish St. Patrick's Day cards, variously with simple prayers and explanations of legends.

The shop would have banners of various local events of and for the Gaelic of gene and heart.

Later on the store moved to Magnolia Boulevard, in sight not of the oft desiccated rearing of the San Gabriel's but the lower, usually greener and closer escarpments of the Coast range which sleepily looked over Ventura Blvd. a mile south. The side street on which I park has hand laid bricks instead of curbs in front of the above median homes. Not the Old Country but more evocative.

Last week I knew I let the deadline of the 17th draw close and visited for the cards. The shop seemed to have not as much in it though the variety was there, such as groceries (no jokes---"G" rated), apparel, even jewelry. A young lady was the only one there. I didn't ask about the long time proprietor, and the question I did ask about SPD cards---well, they didn't have them now.

I was just listening to some Clancy Brothers on the 'net and boy, you see the often trolling politics in the comments. Whatever the ups and downs of the Irish connection I abhor green food dye and haven't been to a bar scene on this day seemingly forever. I've always worked, gone to band, wore enough green to draw looks but not approbation.

And I work at the writing "thing"; for Irish and all writers part of the bill of fare involves sadness and passing. It is hoped my readers had a fine one and we'll see about next year.