9. One thing I won't remember fondly from childhood is how my Mom made us scrub our elbows. I have never noticed whether or not anyone's elbows were clean in my lifetime.
8. Overheard this while I was shelving books: A women's group--some of us refer to it as "Stitch & Bitch"--was sewing and discussing a variety of topics. One of them mentioned a friend who plugs crockpots--more than one, sometimes--into their car power source. How does that work?
7. Dumbest comment I heard on the radio over the holidays, just before Christmas: An announcer on the local oldies station played John & Yoko's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and claimed that not many Christmas songs have an anti-war message. Certainly, there could be more meaningful pop songs along the lines of "Happy Xmas," Stevie Wonder's "Someday at Christmas" or Lou Rawls' incredible "Christmas Will Really Be Christmas." I had to email this misinformed DJ and remind him of countless holiday songs that use the phrase, "Peace on Earth." "That phrase doesn't mean, 'three day ceasefire'," I spouted. It means, 'frickin' Peace on Earth'."
6. As I grow wiser, I've discovered that I don't care for the obvious, like when someone makes a cool innuendo joke and throws in, "if you know what I mean." That just blows it right there.
5. One of my co-workers decided to slash their employment from 30 to 20 hours in order to have more time for other interests. Hey, people can't get 40 hour jobs anymore, so why not? When the reduction in hours was announced at a recent staff meeting, another one of my co-workers made everyone laugh when they added, "Congratulations on your demotion!"
4. Got to do my George Harrison impression on my February 20th KAOS show, where I did a birth anniversary segment. He's the only one of the Fab Four I can get close to as far as his speaking voice. As I noted on the air, just say "Haddison" instead of Harrison and pretend you have a cold--"I'm George Haddison!" Or one could also say, "I don't cuh" (rhymes with "duh").
3. One of my many pals named John saw something unique while driving in Seattle: a custom car license plate reading SEAHAWKS. "Think about that," he says, mentioning that he believes he's seen the very first instance of someone putting the name of the Emerald City's NFL team on a personalized plate, because every Hawks fan who's done it since must use some sort of abbreviation or variation due to licensing regulations.
2. I would have enjoyed Chrissie Hynde's autobiography Reckless: My Life as a Pretender (Doubleday, 2015) if she weren't so careless about chronicling her life. While Hynde makes some terrific observations about growing up in the Midwest in the '60s and '70s--noting how mid-America lost its spirit of community as families became more isolated from their neighbors--the book is poorly written, relying on snotty catch phrases throughout. Once the Pretenders exploded in 1980, her commentary reveals show after show of drunkenness or worse, as if performing that brilliant, early material meant nothing to her. On the plus side, Hynde communicates how special Cleveland rock radio was, and concludes by commenting on how she repeatedly reinvented the band after the drug-related losses of wizard guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Farndon. While the author offers, in a rare example, some insight into that transformation, it's merely a mild kind of surprise ending without any buildup or emotional layering. It won't wipe out the thrill I still get from spinning the Pretenders' first and third albums--or even 2008's Break Up the Concrete--but the detachment of Reckless is a quite a disappointment.
1. Much better is Elvis Costello's Unfaithful Music and Invisible Ink (Blue Rider Press, 2015), where passion, regret, disappointment, self-destructiveness, thrills and love all come together. Costello's observations about collaborating with Burt Bacharach, Allen Toussaint and Paul McCartney are beautifully stated, and his deep understanding of American music is obvious from start to finish--he also was a keen witness to the British pop and rock'n'roll scene. Just as in his songs, he can get too wordy (and perhaps over-analytical), yet I'll take Costello's reliance on nuance and blustery detail over Chrissie Hynde's haphazard memoir any day. He talks about meeting Bruce Springsteen for the first time; when Bruce asked how he got that sound on My Aim Is True, Elvis explained, "We didn't have any money." Unfaithful Music and Invisible Ink is quite funny--Elvis recalls one of his early music partners emotionally lunging for a rabbit's foot when the song called for a Costello guitar solo--and is especially strong when detailing his musician father's life (Ross MacManus' group was on the bill in November 1963 when the Beatles played the famous Royal Variety Show, with the Queen in attendance). Costello isn't afraid to admonish his dad for being a womanizer and how his father embarrassed the Hispanic wife of a family friend. I'm paraphrasing here...Woman: "Where did you learn to speak the Spanish language so beautifully?" Ross: "In bed." While Elvis and his father had plenty of clashes (does that hit home with me), there were decades of love between them as well, and one can't help but be moved by the author's account of his father's final days. The book is another example of the great care Elvis Costello has put into his work.