Month: October 2020

Forever Dancing Together

Shifting Mysteries By David Jacobi

As I do grow older

I see my life

What I was, before

Younger and stronger

As I might grow wiser

I welcome my life

What I am now

Tougher and smarter

Age brings heartache

Old people lost

Age brings joy

New people gained

Loss and gain

Ebb and flow

New and old

Forever dancing together

2020 By David Jacobi

Six Great Music Sites

Music Man By David Jacobi

I recently finished watching a documentary about Frank Sinatra, and it got me to thinking about how popular music can change so much over such little time. The younger generations don’t have much of a connection or interest in listening to the older music, while the older generations think the youngsters are producing unlistenable garbage. Frank Sinatra thought that about Elvis Presley. It has been my experience that people mostly enjoy the music of their youth for the rest of their lives. They stick with music from their high school days up to maybe their early 30’s. Except for new very popular songs, they decline in keeping up with the latest music. When I ask kids I know about different singers or bands from the past, they usually don’t know who I am talking about, unless there has been a biopic filmed about them such as Queen and Elton John. When I hear kids singing along to new popular music it is usually the first time I have heard it. It might be fun for some to learn a little musical history and others to catch up with what is going on today. To that end here are six music sites to check out.

Acclaimed Music – The most recommended recordings based on thousands of critics’ lists.

Contemplations from the Marianas Trench – Popular songs in American history, folk music of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and America, songs of the sea and more.

Insurgent Country – Americana and Alt-Country new releases, news, reviews and hundreds of links to artists web pages.

Last.fm – “Create your own profile, track what you listen to (we call this scrobbling) and get cool stuff like your own music charts, new music recommendations, and a big ol’ community of other music lovers.”

New Album Releases – Lists new album releases by genre, including electronic, folk, indie, jazz, blues, metal, pop, rap, rock and misc.

Super Seventies Rocksite! – A lot of different music came out of the seventies and it seems like this site covers most all of it.

Dogs and Dead Things

Corn Chaff By David Jacobi

A few days ago Shelly was walking the dogs along our gravel road (we never use leashes out here in the county; the dogs respond well to vocal commands when a vehicle is approaching) when they came upon a gruesome sight: someone had dressed out some animals and dumped the bloody remains in the ditch. While it’s disrespectful to those of us who live on the road, and I imagine illegal, dead things don’t last long out here. Rodents, turkey vultures and coyotes (including insects during the warmer months) make short work of most anything lying around outside. Recently I woke up to a note Shelly had left on the kitchen table. It said there might be a dead possum outside. The dogs and I went out to investigate and sure enough there was a possum just off the back porch on our sidewalk, and it was not playing dead. While Marley ran over to investigate, Steve was slinking away in the opposite direction. Marley had not seen it before, while Steve thought he was in trouble. That told me which one had killed it earlier that morning when Shelly had first let them outside. A bag of watermelon rinds sitting on the deck might have been what tempted the poor possum to come so close to the house. A strong rain storm blew through recently on a Sunday night and left the usual mess of branches and limbs from our white willow trees. During the couple of days spent picking them up the corn fields surrounding us were harvested, so we were able to start burning again. We still have brush piles leftover from last winter, so we are looking forward to having as many fall fires as we can before the hard cold sets in.

Obscure America: Smokey Stover

Smokey Stover Comic Book

What does an obscure comic character that was retired in 1972 have to do with the name of a famous rock band that has won 12 Grammy awards? Smokey Stover was a wacky cartoon character who inhabited a bizarre world invented in 1935 by cartoonist Bill Holman. Smokey was a fire fighter and the comic strip followed his screwball adventures while also featuring puns, sight gags and made up phrases. Smokey was a popular strip during World War Two and some American fliers took to painting his image on airplanes and using his catchphrases as slang. While Smokey was a fire fighter he called himself a “foo fighter.” The phrase became slang among the war crews for unidentified flying objects. Fast forward to 1994 when Dave Grohl was looking for a band name. Nirvana had disbanded after the death of Kurt Cobain and Dave had some songs he had written and recorded so he picked the obscure name “Foo Fighters” to release them under. Grohl has said he would have picked a better name if he’d had any idea how long the band would last. That may be true but to be fair maybe Smokey Stover should be listed under the original Foo Fighter lineup.

Garden Update: The End Is Near

Dried hot peppers from our garden

It is October and we have already experienced our first frost. Some of the the tomato plants look like they might want to hang on for awhile longer, while the others have had enough of the cooler temperatures. We have been picking the tomatoes off of the slowly dying plants every few days and pulling up the plants that are done for. The zucchinis are blooming a few hopeful big yellow flowers, while most of their large leaves have shriveled and are melting away. Last spring Shelly accidentally bought a habanero plant with the green pepper plants and I have harvested it twice. I decided to try out a small food dehydrator that was a gift from several years ago and I now have a small glass jar full of dried peppers for some wintertime chili and maybe some hot sauce. We also put up several quarts of shredded zucchini for winter stews and soups. All in all it was a below average production year for the garden because of the drought and concurrent heat wave over the summer. But like all gardeners we are looking forward to a fresh start next spring.