The Summer Turns to Winter Overnight

Or Basingstoke. Or Reading.

This is the most depressing day of the year. At least if you have a job.

The day after the clocks change in the Fall.

The sunset has been getting earlier and earlier. But you could maybe pretend it wasn't true. That you were still stuck in that endless summer lull.

But not today.

It's one thing for the sun to set at 7. Or even 6.

But when it's dark at 5 or 4, you know the winter's coming on.

And with it all the darkness the year has kept at bay.

It's a smooth, long glide into dead trees and snowfall.

And then the long, cold winter.

But maybe this winter will be the exception.

An endless railroad trip north. Farther north than you can imagine.

Until the sound of the wheels on the track fades away and the sound of ice and snow under your boots takes over.

And you wonder again, as you have every year around this time, if this is the year you finally push yourself over the edge to madness.

And you turn up your collar, brace yourself against the cold, and head home in the dark, knowing every day you'll lose a little more daylight.

And every night you'll have a little more time.

To dream.

Hey Kinks!

I am in paradise

(With another h/t to Peter's Power Pop blog...)

You don't get this at Amazon.com. Sadly.

I was in a used bookstore the other day. In a part of town that had 10 used bookstores 15 years ago... and now only has one.

It was 95 degrees and I didn't want to go back outside. So I hung around, thumbing through volumes in sections I ordinarily avoid.

And there, in the poetry section, in a thin paperback of free verse, was a single, yellowed sheet of lined notebook paper. Folded over neatly, but thin to the touch -- like it had been unfolded, read, studied, and stored away again many times.

On that paper was this poem (or maybe a letter from someone whose identity was so obvious it wasn't necessary to sign it):

Your touch, light like the sun peeking through clouds
Your kiss tender and sweet.
You sprinkle smiles down on me from above
Making me so happy I forget you make me mad.

I struggle for words.
Sentences.
Paragraphs.
Of nonsense. Ridiculousness.

And then you smile.
Billions of years of evolution
To lead to your smile.
And I almost forget everything.

Remember this when you go away next week.
Remember the times.
Remember me.

Always.

There was no name in the book. No way to track down the former owner and find out what happened, how it ended, why it was finally time to get rid of the poem (or letter).

So I spun the tale in my head. Inventing dozens of reasons, excuses, and scenarios.

Dozens of possibilities. All hauntingly familiar, but none exactly sounding right.

And then I was late. And I had to get going. 95 degrees or not.

I tucked the book back into the shelves. Leaving it to someone else to find, someone else to unravel the mystery.

Hey Lord, Don't Ask About Screenings...

Graham Parker via Michael Gramaglia

There's a certain irony in naming a documentary Don't Ask Me Questions, but that's the name of the just-completed Graham Parker doc. Directed by Michael Gramaglia, who did the amazing Ramones doc End of the Century.

Here's an account of the first (semi-)public screening from Graham Parker himself.

Can't wait to see it.

Hey Kid

Ridiculous stereo panning alert

I was in Whole Foods the other day and they played this song:


And all I could think was What is it about stuttering rhythms, absurd stereo panning of individual bleats, bass lines that go nowhere, and nonsensical lyrics about teenage longing delivered in an overly dramatic (but not quite melodramatic) style that desperately makes me want to buy overpriced artisanal cheeses?

Where do we go from here? Which is the way that's clear?

Who knows? But we do what we must.

Which, apparently, is rocking on.

Happy Halloween

Beyond the pale

You saw something.

You can't explain it.

So your mind works overtime. And you cling to something, anything.

Because you can't have it unexplained.

That way is madness. That way is horror. That way is terrifying.


Hundreds of years ago, this wouldn't have been a problem.



We knew there were a lot of things we didn't know. And yet our minds still spun in circles.

It's the explanations that were different. Otherworldly. Relying on magic and the supernatural to explain the most sublime of pleasures and the most terrifying of horrors.

We've turned away from that now.

Well, mostly.


Happy Halloween.

Flags Over the Supermarket

Years Ago, We Watched the Flags

We stood in front of the supermarket. The one on the hill.

And there were flags on the roof. A dozen flags with the name of the supermarket.

No American flags. No state flags. Just the flags of the supermarket.

"Maybe the store is its own sovereign nation," I said.

And she thought for a second and shook her head. "I'm pretty sure we're still in California."

Years later, I stand in front of the same supermarket. On the same hill.

The name on the building has changed. One giant supermarket chain bought another one and rebranded all the locations.

And since I moved 3 miles away, I never go to the store on the hill anymore. The one that was "our" store, then "my" store.

The still have flags on top of the building, even if the name on the flags is different now.

I thought I heard her voice and turned. And she was standing there. Older.

"Isn't this the store you claimed was part of Nevada?" she asked.

And I smiled sadly. And shook my head, watching the flags flap in the ocean breeze.

Meanwhile, I'm Still Thinking

Peter Brown called to say you can make it okay...

Over on The Beatles Complete on Ukulele, Tred weighs in with one of the weirdest Beatle covers in history. Declaring "The Ballad of John & Yoko" as the world's first tweet (albeit in song form and with a lot more than 140 characters), Tred deconstructs the song.

He also claims it's the precursor of today's societal inability to distinguish between celebrity's private lives and their art.