Looks like snow, but not enough to stick. There were a few flurries downtown already mixed in with drizzle. Not ideal biking weather, but I’m trying to bike more, especially with gas prices so high. So what the hell, I’ll be out in it today. Hopefully it won’t be too bad.
And if it is, I’ll just take the bus. I’ve been meaning to write about how nice it is that you can just throw your bike on the front rack and go. It’s such a great freedom to be able to have that as a plan b, and not have to figure out what to do with your bike. I got mine stolen about a year ago, and I’ve been worried about leaving the new one around ever since.
So if we have more than flurries when I’m heading home, or if I just don’t feel like riding, it’s nice to have an alternative.
Today is blogger appreciation day.
Thanks, lefty bloggers.
I’ve given up on walking and biking (the bus is useless where I’m at) and have been just using my car to get around lately. It’s just too nasty outside and the distances I have to cover are too far. If I only had to go a mile I probably still be biking and walking, but I’m going more like 2.5-5 miles from the house.
Hurry up and get here spring!
We had a dusting of snow on the ground this morning in Everett. It doesn’t look like anything serious, however. Which is good, because we have a lot going on this week.
I don’t think this is an open thread, but I thought this was worth posting:
* While Republicans are encouraging the Israelis to bomb Iran, the U.S. has reached a preliminary agreement with N. Korea for them to stop their nuclear program. Thanks, Hillary!
* Actor/singer Davy Jones (of the “Monkees”) died at age 66 of an apparant heart attack. Most of us from that era remember him from that show and as a tenny-bopper heartthrob. But he also was on the same Ed Sullivan show with the Beatles – he was appearing on Broadway as the lead in “Oliver”, and he sang a song from the show. The audience was impatient, they just wanted to see the Beatles.
Buses work the best for getting to Seattle or Bellevue, otherwise it’s a pain in the neck with the transfers. For my commute from Bothell to between Renton/Kent, it’s two transfers and ends up taking longer than just driving the nastiness of I-405.
Maybe someday my grandkids will get to enjoy the train on Sound Transit when they complete a rail line to connect the I-405 corridor
@4 Although the Monkees are kind of a pop music footnote, for a short time they were very popular. Their brief success owed a lot to some great songwriters and studio musicians. Their TV show would have totally sucked otherwise.
Against my will, really, I actually liked a few of their songs. One of my favorites – I wasn’t free at the time myself – this is one I hadn’t heard since the days it played on the radio, with lead vocals by Davy Jones.
The Monkees, I want to be Free
The silence of the falling snow kind of reminds me of the attention paid to the GOP presidential race over at (un)SP. I suppose it makes sense. I can see how what they’re witnessing must really suck for them. It kind of sucks for the rest of the nation too.
Tornados hit the lower mid-west.
# 6: The Monkeys were a creation of the music producer Don Kirschner, who had a lot of success over the years at the “song factory” which was the Brill Building, bringing in Neal Sedaka, Carol King, Paul Anka, James Taylor, Billy Joel, and many others to write songs for others to record. Many of the song writers were still in their teens at the time.
Brill Building & Aldon Records
This producer saw the teenage excitement over the Beatle’s movie “Help”, and decided he wanted to make a TV show with the energy – and cash potential – of the movie. He envisioned something which could be done cheaply, with the actors/musicians being young unkowns, and the actual music written by his stable of talent and performed by studio muscisions. The actors were just supposed to lip-synch. So a lot of the Monkey’s songs were actually written by Carol King and her then-husband, Buddy Goffen. “Pleasant Valley Sunday” is an example.
But Michael Nesmith was a budding song-writer, and worked out a deal to have each Monkey’s album include at least two of his songs. Some of the other Monkeys complained that Michael Nesmith was off doing his own thing, not hanging with the gang. But they admitted later that he knew what he was doing – by writing songs he continues to receive residual payments every time one of his songs is played on the radio, either recorded by himself or by somebody else. Even before joining the Monkeys he had a written “Different Drummer” which he stumbled through in a fake “audition performance” on the TV show. That song was picked up by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys and became her first big hit (her arraingment being considerably better than Nesmith’s original arraingment.) But Nesmith gained some credit as one of the early pioneers of country-rock music.
Michael Nesmith songs
Linda Ronstadt – Different Drummer” (Can’t you just get lost in those eyes?)
Micky Dolenz had also become immersed in the music culture of the era, and if you rent the movie about the Monteray Pop Festival you can see him in the front or second row, jumping up and clapping with pure joy at the conclusion of one performance. All of the Monkeys were, by now, in their early to mid-twenties, and by 1967-68 they were embarrased by their teeny-bopper image and wanted to get involved in the social and political movements of the day. They also wanted to become a real rock band, and Neil Kirchner pushed back.
It came to a head when the producer played them a demo tape of “Sugar, Sugar”, saying it was their next big hit, except that it would be performed by studio musicians, and lip-synched by the actors. They refused, and at one point Nesmith put his fist through the wall of Kirchner’s office. Kirchner ended up having it recorded anyway under the name of a band in a comic book, “the Archies”, and it was a hit in terms of money made. (For those to young to remember, the music and lyrics were sickenly simple and sweet, living up to the name of the song). The Monkeys show was canceled after two seasons, mostly because the actors and Kirchner wouldn’t speak to one another.
A couple of hours ago my wife reported it was snowing rather heavily in Lynnwood. No news since then, though.
# 7: I don’t blame them, either. Their choices are:
(a) a multi-millionaire who ties dogs to the roof of his car for twelve-hour trips, made his money looting business and killing jobs, and thinks that “corporations are people too, my friend”;
(b) an old-school Catholic who thinks that protestant churches are controlled by Satan, and thinks the country should abolish public higher education and birth control;
(c) a serial adulter who preaches that it’s his God-given role to save western culture and who couldn’t tell the truth if his life depended upon it;
(d) a libertarian who wants to abolish the federal reserve, social security, medicare, and return to the days of the robber barrons and wild west.
Gee, some choice.
The Monkees, like the Carpenters, are the dirty little secret in every aging metalhead’s record collection.
RIP, Davy. Now you can “hide ‘neath the wing” for eternity.
11 – Then what’s there to talk about at that pit of despair? It can only be reduced to:
“I hate Obama. I’ll vote for whoever Rush tells me.”
@1 You’re welcome, bob. Ultimately, we’re doing this for you. We’re trying to save you from yourself.
Keystone Krockery Dep’t
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Keystone XL, I’m for it. I’m for going around, instead of over, Sandhills and Ogallala Aquifer, that’s all — which is what TransCanada will do. The pipeline will be built, will be completed on schedule, will create 20 permanent jobs, and will make gasoline more expensive in the Midwest. That’s as things should be; I don’t see why you humans should be able to buy gas from my oil company for less than $4/gallon.
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.co.....ont-add-up
Israel announced today it won’t give the U.S. advance warning of an attack on Iran. Now it’s just a question of when and I’m betting on sooner not later.
Which makes more sense?
Thanks Hillary!
Yay! Google is saving the world!
Buses.
I have no real complaints about riding our buses. Even without the taxpayer subsidies I enjoy it is worth it for me.
However, when it is cold and am the first person to step on the bus for the day in the morning, those vinyl seats impede a comfortable 15 minute nap.
@20 The solution, obviously, is heated bus seats.