My Favorite Song: Matthew 25:21

Here we are again. Another favorite song. And this is a special one. Today is my mom’s 80th birthday. It’s also the 17th anniversary of my dad’s death. So, big day. To head off any concern, my mom’s health is fine. She’ll probably outlive all of us. My dad’s health, well, it had been on […]

My Favorite Song: Man Didn’t Walk on the Moon

Back with another favorite song. I honestly do not know how or where I heard this song. It might have been served up by random on a streaming service or in a movie or show and I Shazam’d it. Zero clue. The most likely explanation is that I was doing a sampling of female pop […]

My Favorite Song: The King Must Die

Do you ever get that question, “What’s your favorite ____?” I hate that question. Not because I don’t have favorites. The problem is I am an enthusiastic fan of so much stuff. I have too many favorites. And the frustrating thing is, many of these things I love border on the overlooked. So I’m going […]

A Musical Interlude: Shirley Horn

I’d like to preface this post by saying I get that jazz music is kind of niche these days. It’s either seen as impenetrable or dusty by too many people, and outside of a few big names (Miles Davis, John Coletrane, Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, etc), it’s all a mystery. And I can […]

Tales From The Trunk: Another Exit, Another Waffle House

In the spring of 2005, I took a trip to the deep south for a wedding. We flew into Pensacola where the bride-to-be met us and drove us to Fairhope, Alabama where the wedding was to take place. It was my first trip to the SOUTH south. I mean, I’d been to the Miami and […]

Leaving Greenwood

I’ve written about Greenwood before, a bit over 7 years ago. I’ve lived either on the fringes or in the heart of this northern Seattle neighborhood since 2006. It’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere by choice. Greenwood has been my home. I’ll be leaving it, quite possibly forever, in a week. Greenwood has never really […]

Complicity in Copaganda

When I was a kid, a lot of my favorite mystery procedurals featured privite detectives–Magnum, Simon & Simon, Jessica Fletcher, Jim Rockford. There were some good police cops/investigators on TV who worked within the system like Kojak, Columbo, Starsky & Hutch, and Quincy M.D., but for the most part, it was outsiders who solved crimes […]

Fear and Loathing in R’lyeh

I figure a few notes of background might be relevant here. We updated our house chore board today, and I declared Sunday dedicated to “Making Weird Shit.” Because in our heart of hearts, that’s what my cohort and I love to do. Curiously enough, I ran across an old story of mine that I wrote […]

Dispatches from Quarantine: Revisiting 3 Foundational Jazz Albums

Being stuck inside for all these weeks gives me lots of time to think about things. Like the music I grew up with. I know a lot of my generation grew up listening to their parent’s classic rock collection, thus getting introduced to the Stones, the Beatles, Hendrix and such at an early age. My […]

Dispatches from Quarantine: Revisiting 5 Favorite Fringe Albums

Spending all this time shut away inside has given me lots of time to listen to music. And while I’m constantly on the lookout for new sounds, there is something comforting about rolling around in the familiar filth of older, lesser known stuff. I was raised the oldest child, and my parents didn’t listen to […]