Here is one of my favorite songs from the greatest band that never was, “Rockpile” and the song is “Heart”. I love this one. It’s from the very early eighties I believe. I loved their strong rockabilly influences and this was just before MTV. A rock group could still just be great musicians. God I hate what MTV did to rocknroll.
The band consisted of Dave Edmunds (vocals, guitar), Nick Lowe (vocals, bass guitar), Billy Bremner (vocals, guitar) and Terry Williams (drums). Enjoy.
Filed under Favorite YouTube Videos
My wife and I went to the Midwest a while ago to attend the wedding of a friend. What I thought was peculiar were the grocery stores. I tagged along while my wife and her friend picked up little things for the wedding reception and while they did their thing, I did mine. I walked up and down the isles comparing what we have in California and what they had in Illinois.
The most bizarre isle I found almost completely contained “Helper” products. It had Hamburger Helpers, Tuna Helpers, Chicken Helpers, Non-Meat Helpers in every sort of variety you could imagine.
When I was a kid caseroles were the in thing to make for family meals but I had completely forgotten about these products. I know we have them in our stores in California and I probably just programmed myself to ignore them. But this store had an overwhelming amount. My mother used to make them for my family when I was a kid. Mostly the Tuna Helper products. I didn’t even know they still made them! They used to make my brother and I gag!
Every Wednesday my brother would walk in the house and smell it cooking from the kitchen and let out an audible “Oh Jesus! Mom’s making PLOP.”
We called it “Plop” because when you served it, you had to flick the spoon to get it to un-stick from it and land on your plate. It looked like food from an old World War II movie served to GIs at the front.
I thought they were a by product of America in the 70s and had long vanished. What was worse was that the rest of the isle was full of other brands of the Helper variety competing for the same customers. As if one stinking brand wasn’t enough!
What self respecting mother or father would pump all that MSG ladened processed shit into the digestive tracks of their unsuspecting children and other family members!? Mine did, but that was in the 70s when people still trusted America’s most famous brands to do right by us.
We were soooo naive back then.
Filed under Life
I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve committed the Cardinal Sin of bloggers. I stopped blogging for a period of time. I got overwhelmed by life and business. I had a writer’s block, didn’t feel witty or anything and just stopped. I watched as my numbers went down. It’s a death spiral.
“I should write something! Anything!”, I thought. “But what? The kids aren’t funny anymore. (Damn kids) The world is going nuts. ”
Being a news junky I got sucked into everything negative that the media was spewing out. And in the last three months there has been plenty to spew. I’ll start back up again with a joke. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
So, here it goes…
A mother shark was teaching her kids how to get food.
“First”, she said, “You find someone swimming. Then you circle around them a couple of times and then you give them a good bump. Then you circle around again and eat them.”
One of her kids raised his fin and asked, “Why do we circle around and bump them? Why don’t we just eat them right away?”
The mother replied, “They taste better once you get the shit out of em.”
There, no more writer’s block. Until next time.
Filed under Life
It never ceases to amaze me how totally a child can believe in magic and the “wonders” in everyday life. Things as simple as clouds and lightning bugs can send their minds into hours of imaginary play and adventure.
Recently my triplets turned six and had a birthday party. Their grandparents have a custom of bringing a huge bunch of helium balloons to the party and we let them go inside the house to make a jungle of multicolored strings and balloons for the kids to play in. When they leave they all get to take one home.
There are always lots of leftovers for our kids.
The following day the triplets were in school and Matthew, the three year old, was home with me. It wasn’t one of his preschool days. He was in the room with the balloons, having fun, and I got an idea.
“Matthew,” I said. “Let’s play a game.”
“OK!,” he enthusiastically replied.
I told him we were going to play the “Up!” game.
If you haven’t seen the film “Up!” from Pixar/Disney, I would strongly suggest you do. It’s really a great film. The central idea of the film is that an old man, who doesn’t want to go to an old folks home, ties tens of thousands of balloons to his house and floats away on a great adventure.
So, I gathered up all of the balloons from the living room ceiling and bunched them up in a big bouquet, holding them close to where the string tied on to the balloon.
“Now hold onto them real tight,” I told my wide eyed son. “I’ll hold you so that you don’t float away.”
I put my hands around his waist and slowly, but gently, lifted him off the floor, playing around with him to try and mimic the sensation that the balloons were doing it.
As he got higher and closer to our ten foot ceiling he abruptly started screaming, “DON’T LET GO! DON’T LET GO! GET ME DOWN!”
“Matthew! Let go of the balloons! Quick! I’ll catch you!”, I said.
He did and I dropped him a bit and caught him. He clutched me hard as we watched the balloons float to the ceiling and spread out across the room.
As I put him down on the floor he looked up at me and said,” Woh…that was close. Good thing we weren’t outside.”
Filed under My Kids
I recently drove home with the family in our minivan and the following conversation took place.
Son Joseph in the back, “Rose farted!”
Son Michael sitting toward the front, “I smell French Fries”.
Daughter Rose sitting in the back next to Joseph, “Hey dad! Mom and I went to lunch today after shopping, guess what I had?”
“Oh, ummmmmm …..French Fries?!, ” I asked.
“HEY!…How did you know?”
“Oh…Just a guess.” As my wife and I rolled down our windows.
Filed under My Kids
Wow, it’s been one whole month since I last posted. That’s a record. It’s real easy to let life get in the way and upset your routine. Anyway, a lot has happened and I’m not just referring to the holidays. I’ll start with the most recent .
Last Tuesday I was sitting at my computer, working, my three year old son Matthew was playing games on his computer, when I got a phone call. It was the triplet’s school nurse and they told me that Rose was in the office complaining that her shoulder hurt.
“What happened?”, I asked.
They said that she fell off of one of the playground equipment setups they have. She landed on her shoulder.
“Was she OK?”
She couldn’t see anything, not even a bruise. The playground is covered with that really squishy kind of rubber so that must’ve absorbed a lot of the impact. They checked for a concussion, she seemed to be OK.
“Send her back to class,” I said.
I didn’t think anything of it. Their days are only till noon so I’d pick her up in an hour anyway. Fifteen minutes later I got another call.
“Rose was lethargic and still complaining about her shoulder,” said the voice on the phone.
“I’ll be right there.”
So, I packed up Matthew and drove to the school. I met Rose’s teacher on the way in and she told me that she insisted on calling me back because she saw Rose take the fall. Rose fell head first and, at the last minute, tucked her head so that her shoulder took the full force of her fall.
“How far did she fall?”, I asked. Up until that point I thought it had been off of something close to the ground. I was wrong. She fell off of one of the high climbing setups that they have. It wasn’t a slide down a ladder or, trip and fall, type of deal. It was a full blown swan dive onto the playground floor!
I found Rose sitting in the office, with her brothers, waiting for me. I signed the form for early release and we all immediately went to Urgent Care. Rose couldn’t even hold her shoulder up level. It was very obvious something was wrong.
But she wasn’t complaining about any severe pain. She just said it ached.
We got in to see a pediatrician, he did a couple of tests on her and then sent us off to Radiology. Rose didn’t even whimper or anything. She just followed orders , droopy left shoulder and all. The clinic has a really hi-tech setup. All the X-Ray equipment is digital and the results are instant, no film anymore.
So the radiologist invited us in to the control room to see the pictures of Rose’s bones, we all huddled around the screen, up came the picture and there it was; a shot of a beautifully clean break in my daughter’s Clavicle.
“Oh my God,” I say without thinking. “She did break it!”
What an idiot I was. As soon as she heard the word break, her face contorted into an expression of shock, fear and pain and she started balling her head off! She was inconsolable! I couldn’t turn off the tap!
By the time we got her home, arm in a sling, she was still blubbering.
What really shocked me was that the Doctor only put her arm in a sling. He said that they don’t do casts for that kind of break anymore. All they do is try and keep it immobilized and the bones would mend very fast.
“For every 6 weeks it takes an adult to heal, a child only needs about two”, he said.
What a miracle the human body is.
Anyway, Rose settled into her role as an “injured Sparrow” very quickly and started receiving cards and gifts from friends and relatives almost immediately.
Filed under My Kids
