brainsplotch

I've been on a Kinks kick of late, probably as a result of receiving The Kinks: The Anthology 1964-1971 five-disc box set for my birthday. It's an amazing box set, and I didn't expect to acquire it--mainly due to its rather steep price (it's just not the sort of thing I'd go out and buy for myself without feeling really guilty). I had checked out a digital copy of it via Hoopla and raved about it so much that a certain person took notice and got the physical version of it for me. I am extremely grateful. Along with the Beatles--and in fact maybe even slightly more so than the Beatles--there is hardly a single song by the Kinks that I can't at least tolerate (at least from the band's beginnings in 1964 through the Muswell Hillbillies album in 1971). I suppose some of the Kinks' earliest songs, when Ray and Dave Davies were still honing their songwriting chops, are a bit spotty, but from 1965's Kink Kontroversy album through Muswell Hillbillies...

I'm taking a few minutes to get this out there while I'm thinking of it, so it may not be a perfectly formed post. At work, I'm processing books in our library's technical services department when I come across the early 1990s reprints of Beverly Cleary's Ribsy . The illustrations are not the classic Louis Darling ones that I remember from my youth in the '70s, they are--at least in my judgment--inferior "modernized" illustrations. 1950s Louis Darling illustration from a Beverly Cleary book Part of the charm of the old Beverly Cleary books was that they were from the fifties, and the characters portrayed in the illustrations dressed differently from the Pro-Keds and cut-off jeans of my 1970s youth. I liked the exoticness of it all. It was an artifact from the past, yet the stories still had a universality that applied to my life in 1970s Detroit as much as 1950s Portland, Oregon (where the Beezus & Ramona and Henry Huggins books were set...

My goal is to crank out more content in this blog, even if the content is crap. So don't say I didn't warn you. I have 30 minutes to get this in before it's officially February. I'd like to actually get in three blog posts in one month. That'd be amazing. So I'm drinking a glass of shiraz and watching the local news, trying to simultaneously type and stop the cat from destroying the living room. So now Saturday Night Live has started and the opening sketch is one of ersatz Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch hosting their own TV show. Not as funny as Key & Peele's Super Bowl Special that aired last night. Watching the opening credits of SNL, the current cast are young enough to be my children. They all look like fresh-faced kids. I love J.K. Simmons and he's the guest host. Doing a fun riff on his maniacal music teacher role in Whiplash. Various cast members flailing away on the drums while Simmons yells at them. Now Fred Armisen, a real drummer,...

Remember that ebola post I wrote several months ago (see below)? Isn't it funny that we heard absolutely NOTHING about ebola in the United States immediately after the elections took place? Nothing, At. All. At least nothing from the major mainstream news sources (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN). If you wanted to hear anything about the ebola epidemic in Africa, you had to really dig for information. It's not as if it was over, either. Though the situation seems to be under control in Liberia, the last I checked it was still a serious problem in Sierra Leone. Now all we hear about is something called "DeflateGate." Suddenly, The biggest news in the United States are footballs that weren't properly inflated in the AFC championship game (Super Bowl semifinal for anyone who doesn't follow American football) between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts. The 24-hour news networks like CNN have been treating this ridiculously overblown and ultimately u...

I have a few minutes to spare, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to drop in and say hello, while also making an attempt to not be a stranger to this blog. I have about ten minutes, so I'm here to try to crank out ten minutes of content. As usual, I'm experiencing both the "post-Holiday blahs" and the "pre-birthday blues." I'm rapidly closing in on birthday #47 (on March 1) and I have to tell you that with each passing year they become less and less exciting. Actually, that's an understatement. I think the last time I was truly excited about a birthday was when I turned 21. It's been downhill ever since. Thus, the two month period between January 1 and March 1 tends to verge between boredom and anxiety. What makes it slightly more bearable is that my younger son's birthday is on February 26, so at least the focus is more on HIM and less on ME. This year in particular will be eventful because he hits double-digits. Looking at th...

I've been ridiculously negligent towards this blog this year. I'd make a New Year's resolution to rectify that, but I doubt I'd stick with it.   Anyway, I wish anyone who reads this a happy 2015.   2014 was, overall, a decent year for me. My running continued and, knock on wood, I feel in good health. I hope this continues, and I certainly wish the same for all my family and friends. Once one gets to my age (46 going on 47) good health is no longer something to take for granted.   I don't know what else to write at this point. I will try and get to this blog more often in 2015, but won't guarantee anything.  I did receive a tablet for Christmas, which I am determined my kids won't touch, so that may encourage me to blog more.   So anyway, have a great new year, and I hope you all celebrate New Year's Eve responsibly. I doubt anyone reading this blog is a party animal. I, for one, plan on simply having a few drinks at home and going to be...

Ebola is in the news these days. We have two cases of Ebola in the United States, and the national media is on DefCon 1. Meanwhile, the real crisis is in West Africa. This is where the world's focus needs to be. Instead, our national media is in full sensationalistic mode, the point where the only place I want to get my news--and a more rational approach--is NPR. Look, I know that a disease, in which one's survival is no better than a flip of the coin, is understandably frightening. And the way the missteps by the CDC and Texas Presbyterian Hospital (woefully unprepared for an Ebola patient) don't make things any less scary. But it does seem that both are making amends and doing their best to make up for their mistakes. Panic, conspiracy theories, and the "blame game" don't get us very far, though. And there has been plenty of that to go around recently. Americans seem especially skilled at concocting conspiracy theories or blaming someone else [cough, O...