Wednesday is my day off from retail work, which makes it my designated day to record my parts for each week's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio and to try to get around to doing whatever else needs doing. I always run out out of Wednesday before I run out of Wednesday things to do.
A break in the hectic! Between out-of-town trips, medical appointments, various commitments, and the occasional actual fun thing to do, the past month and change has sometimes felt like a loop of just Go, man, GO!!
That period culminated late last week with a trek to Pennsylvania to attend a funeral of a very close family friend, someone who had been almost a second father to my wife Brenda. Marty was 91, and his failing health prompted us to make a surprise visit to see him in August, a trip we're very glad we decided to make. He passed on September 11th. Now, he suffers no longer, and we're grateful that he was a part of our lives.
My stamina as a driver is not what it used to be. I'm slower, occasionally subject to open-highway feelings of agoraphobia and acrophobia, plus claustrophobia when passing. I try to channel an awareness of my limitations into being a safe and steady pilot by force of will. We get there, and we get there intact. I'm exhausted for a few days afterward, but it's worth it. Both this trip and the August trip were definitely worth it. We regard the Pennsylvania family as an immediate part of our family. During the calling hours, we were seated near the front of the receiving line, next to Marty's daughter, Brenda's de facto sister. We mourned together. But we were together, and we also laughed and reminisced together, immersed in the memory of a great man and the positive impact he had.
We'd left Syracuse on Thursday morning, arrived at our hotel by mid-afternoon. We checked in, found a restaurant for a dinner of really, really good cheeseburgers, and then took the twenty-minute drive to the church for calling hours at 6 pm. Back at the hotel and in bed by 10:30, we slept comfortably, got up early enough Friday to grab the hotel breakfast, check out, and return to the church by 9 am. There was one additional hour of visitation before the church service at 10, followed by the interment at the cemetery adjacent to the church. We joined the family and other mourners for lunch in the church basement, then left for home by 1:00.
Our daughter Meghan and son-in-law Austin also had out-of-town plans for the weekend, so we'd agreed to take care of their dog Cider while they were gone. Austin dropped Cider off at our house while we were at the funeral, and Cider was fine waiting for our arrival back home just after 6 pm. Cider likes us (the feeling is mutual), and we took good care of her until Meghan and Austin returned for her on Sunday night.
I was back to work on Saturday, usual day off on Sunday, back to work again on Monday and Tuesday. While Dana and I usually program the radio show on Tuesday night and I then record my parts on Wednesday, scheduling conflicts on Monday and Tuesday made Saturday night a better time for settling the playlist. I recorded my parts for the show during breaks at work during the day on Monday and Tuesday, and finalized the folder Tuesday night.
(This week's show leans big into Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, both as songwriters and as performers [as a duo and as part of Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart], plus Boyce and Hart songbook selections executed by the Monkees, the Flashcubes, the Four Tops, the Downbeat 5, the Skeletons, Anne Richmond Boston, Redd Kross, and more. So this Sunday night, we invite you to join us by paraphrasing a famous song written by Tommy 'n' Bobby: Come and hear 'em sing and play.)
Monday night I attended a local author event for my friend Dave Murray and his wonderful novel A Breath Of Fresh Air. On Tuesday night, while Dana went to Rochester to see the great Amy Rigby, Brenda and I had a chance to catch up with some old friends we hadn't seen in a whole lot of years. Good folks, and we wish they still lived in our neighborhood rather than three states away.
Doing the radio show ahead of time freed up a lot of this week's Wednesday. My car had been sounding rattly for a few weeks, and sounded neither better nor worse since last week's Pennsylvania run. We dropped the car off with our mechanic Tuesday night. I got up Wednesday morning around 8:30, did my weekly balancing of accounts, downloaded some music I'd been meaning to get to (superb new single by Dom Mariani, new expanded digital reissue of New Math's Gardens album), replied to some folks (one artists and one label) about new music submissions--I am always so far behind in keeping up with that--and purchased Omnivore Records' new reissue of the Cowsills' 1978 album The "Cocaine Drain" Album.
Brenda and I had a brunch date at The Daily Diner in North Syracuse, and man, that was delicious. I know I'm prone to hyperbole, so while one should perhaps take my earnest proclamation of Best pancakes EVER!! with a grain of salt, it's my duty to remind you that one should not put salt on pancakes, ya soulless Philistine. Bacon, eggs, and home fries were also top notch, as if they'd been prepared by the Frantiks--that's an in-joke for my paid subscribers--and I'll even forgive The Daily Diner for their lack of Sweet-N-Low for my coffee. Terrific meal, and the leftovers from brunch also made a terrific supper. Our first visit to The Daily Diner, and definitely not our last.
Shortly after returning home, we got a call from our mechanic telling us my car was ready. Brenda dropped me off for a reunion with my intrepid Ford, and I zipped to Comix Zone and the North Syracuse Library for pick-ups of essential reading material.
I got home by 2:00, and we used the rest of the afternoon to systematically deal with a number of little tasks that had been on our To-Do list for a while. By suppertime, we'd whittled that once-lengthy scroll of stuff to address down to a single remaining item, and we'll get to that this weekend.
Daily Diner leftovers for dinner. Later on, ice cream and cookies for dessert. We watched a few more episodes of Season 3 of Ted Lasso, spaced out before and after Wednesday's Jeopardy! A full Wednesday, but still a welcome relief from our recent immersion in the hectic.
I do know that I need to do more. I need to write more. I need to get back to work on my book about the Flashcubes, I need to work on my novel, and I need to move a bunch of other projects forward. I was planning to publish a collection of my short stories in the spring, but such a collection needs a few more new stories, and as I write those, the possibility of trying to sell them first to AHOY Comics--MONEY FOR WRITING!!--postpones the idea of including them in a short story anthology. I put more cash in my pocket by selling the stories to AHOY than I'll ever get from the eventual book. Bloggers gotta eat, y'know.
Though first, of course, I've gotta write the damned things. "The Fast Food Of Your Life." A couple more entries in the Guitars Vs. Rayguns! chronicles. As the state of hectic abates, the possibilities of Wednesday remain in place.
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I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.
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