I got the message from WordPress that my “stats are booming” today. So I went and checked out the information.
I’m not sure what I blog about that is so interesting to China. 2200 views yesterday. 1500 the day before. 1200 the day before that. 1000 the day before that. Prior to that my blog had anywhere from 800-1100 visits a day from China.
I wondered if I was the only one. After searching WordPress, I did find a couple bloggers who also saw an increase in Chinese traffic. What is that all about?
I changed my password, just in case.
Let me know if you are experiencing the same thing….
I realize that it’s been a bit since I gave a life “update.” I feel like I haven’t had two minutes to even think about the past week or so. Here are some highlights…
The weather warmed up a bit last week and the kids were anxious to get outside. My wife bought them something to play with in the bathtub, but they wanted to play with it one morning outside. They were “mad scientists.”
It came with a beaker, droppers, tubes, a funnel, and a bunch of color tablets. Instead of the bathtub we grabbed a bunch of Tupperware bowls and filled them with water. They dissolved the color tablets in the water and then were able to mix colors to make new ones. I’m glad they chose to do it outside – it was quite messy.
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I had to take Friday off to get something done and wound up having a couple of hours with my wife – alone. This never happens! It was nice. We had a nice dinner together at our favorite steak house, we snuggled and watched TV together like we did when we were dating, and we went on a Goose Hunt.
My wife has been wanting one of those “porch gooses” for a while. She doesn’t want to pay for one of those stone ones because they are so expensive. She saw some ceramic ones on the internet that were available at Hobby Lobby. The closest one of those that had one in stock was 30 minutes north of us. So we took a road trip.
After that she said we needed to go to Walmart so she could by a “fall” outfit for the Goose. I was stumped until she told me that we could get a pet costume for the Goose. So now, this is on our porch…
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Soccer for Ella started this weekend. It is very different than the soccer Andrew played in. His was just a bunch of silliness and “Red Light, Green Light” to learn skills. Ella is actually playing a game.
It is a long day for her though. They have an hour practice before the game. Then the game is about an hour. So she is running a lot. Her team is all kindergartners. When the game began, 4 out of the 6 girls were in front of the goal doing jumping jacks. I’m not sure what the rules are about having 4 goalies.
It was a hoot to watch her really going after the ball. Technically, they lost, but no one was really keeping score. At the end of the day, she loved every minute of it.
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You may remember I recently did a stress test. I passed with flying colors. However, I would venture a guess that if I had been hooked up for an EKG on Sunday they would have found some crazy arrhythmias! My second oldest and I were out driving and parallel parking.
Parallel parking still gives me a headache. I had set up spots in a parking lot that represented the front of one car and the back of another. His job was to park in between those spots. I’m glad that it was only cones he ran over, because if there had been real cars there, I’d be filing an insurance claim!
To be fair, he really got the hang of it after I made him do it over and over again. I remember my dad letting me drive his car around the neighborhood when I was 15 or 16. I was so grateful for that. I’m hoping to go out with him again this coming weekend.
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One more class and one more exam and I will have finished Year #2 in my Bible courses. I’m excited to get started on the third year which will feature classes on Ambassadorship and a deep dive into the book of Ephesians. There is so much to learn and I’m loving every minute of it.
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Those are the exciting highlights of the past week or so. Thanks for reading!
Happy 100th birthday to the King of the Blues – BB King! He was born in the Mississippi Delta and was attracted to music and taught himself to play guitar. The beginning his career was in juke joints and on local radio. It was later that he lived and performed in Memphis and Chicago.
One of my favorite BB King stories is how his guitar got its name. It happened in Twist, Arkansas one night during one of his shows. A brawl broke out between two men and caused a fire. He left the building with the rest of the crowd but ran back in to get his guitar. He said he later learned that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. He named the guitar Lucille as a reminder not to fight over women, or run into any more burning buildings.
The song The Thrill is Gone was written and originally recorded by the blues musician Roy Hawkins in 1951. In the 1950s, BB was a Memphis radio DJ who played the Roy Hawkins original on the air. The song is about moving on from a relationship that has gone bad.
King recorded the song several times but didn’t like any of the results. Producer Bill Szymczyk (most famous for producing the Eagles) called King at 4:00 a.m. and suggested the addition of strings (King later said that he’d agree to just about anything at that time of the night). The addition polished up the recording that gave him his first million-selling record.
The song won him a Grammy in 1970 for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. In 1980 he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame while in1987 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006. Those are just a few of his many accolades.
BB King passed away on May 14, 2015 at age 89. He was one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. Allmusic recognized King as “the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century”. I would agree!
Here we are at the beginning of another week. Today Facebook and social media will be flooded with “I hate Monday” memes.
It was Fats Domino who sang, “Blue Monday, I hate Blue Monday! Gotta work like a slave all day….” It was that song that gave me the idea to occasionally serve up a blues song for Blue Monday.
There is a long list of blues “classics” and plenty of blues artists to choose from. I thought I’d feature a few favorites.
Today, let’s listen to one of Elmore James’s most popular tunes – Shake Your Money Maker.
The song is said to be a mix of a few earlier blues songs dating all the way back to the 1920’s. The songs were “Shake It Break It,” “Shake ‘Em On Down,” and “Roll Your Money Maker.” This very well may be the case, but it may be speculation.
Elmore James recorded the song in the summer of 1961. His backing band was the Broomdusters (a reference to his song Dust My Broom). It features “Big Moose” Walker on piano, Sam Myers on drums, Sammy Lee Bully on bass, and James on slide guitar.
The song was recorded in just two takes. There was a bit of a miscue on the first take, and the second was the one that they used as the master for the single. It would be Elmore ‘s last single before his passing in 1963.
The song is among those on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll” and in 2019, the Blues Foundation inducted it into the Blues Hall of Fame as a “Classic of Blues Recording”.
The Detroit Lions started the season with their first loss. Today, they beat the Bears 52-21. They had a fantastic season last year and fans like me hope to have another one.
I enjoy watching football and I have always been a Lions fan. However, I suppose I would be in the minority in a recent study.
The study from Wetten Online showed that more single Lions fans would give up true love to see their team win the big game than fans of any other team. A whopping 74% of Lions fans said they would prefer the Super Bowl win and 78% of football fans living in Michigan agreed.
I would love to see the Lions win the big game, but give up my true love? I don’t think so. I have to wonder how many significant others were present when this question was asked
Happy 100th birthday to the late, great Mel Torme’!!
Melvin Howard Tormé was an American musician, singer, composer, arranger, drummer, actor, and author. He was a jazz icon. He won two Grammy Awards and was nominated a total of 14 times.
Mel grew up in a largely black neighborhood and was heavily influenced by jazz. He was a child prodigy, who performed professionally at age four with the Coon-Sanders Orchestra. He would sing “You’re Driving Me Crazy” – a song he had learned on the radio, at Chicago’s Blackhawk restaurant. He was invited back and sang every Monday night for six months. It wasn’t a bad first gig. He was paid $15 a night with a free dinner for his family.
From 1942 to 1943, he was a member of a band led by Chico Marx. He was the singer and drummer and also created some arrangements for the band. In 1944, he formed a vocal quintet called Mel Tormé and His Mel-Tones. His group was modeled on Frank Sinatra and The Pied Pipers. The Mel-Tones had several hits while fronting Artie Shaw’s band and on their own. The Mel-Tones were among the first jazz-influenced vocal groups.
In 1947, he started a solo singing career. His appearances at New York’s Copacabana led local disc jockey Fred Robbins to give him the nickname “the Velvet Fog” in honor of his high tenor and smooth vocal style. Mel detested the nickname. He self-deprecatingly referred to it as “this Velvet Frog voice”.
As a solo singer, he recorded several romantic hits for Decca records and with the Artie Shaw Orchestra for Musiccraft (1946–1948). In 1949, he moved to Capital records, where his first record, “Careless Hands”, became his only number-one hit.
Though he spent most of his career singing jazz, Tormé had a deep appreciation of classical music. As for Rock and roll … he considered “three-chord manure”.
In the ’60s and ’70s, Tormé covered pop tunes of the day, never staying long with one label. He had two minor hits: his 1956 recording of “Mountain Greenery”, which did better in the United Kingdom where it reached No. 4; and his 1962 R&B song “Comin’ Home Baby”, which reached No. 13 in the UK. “Comin’ Home Baby” led the jazz and gospel singer Ethel Waters to say that “Tormé is the only white man who sings with the soul of a black man.”
He gained popularity among a younger generation when he made nine guest appearances as himself (and one as a guardian angel) on the 1980s situation comedy Night Court. The main character, Judge Harry Stone, played by Harry Anderson, was depicted as an unabashed Tormé fan, an admiration that Anderson shared in real life. Anderson would deliver the eulogy at Tormé’s funeral.
Mel also appeared in Mountain Dew commercials and in a 1995 episode of the sitcom Seinfeld as himself. This is in one of my favorite episodes – “The Jimmy.”
During the 1980s and 1990s he performed often with piano great George Shearing. They recorded six albums together for Concord Records. It was about this period Shearing wrote:
It is impossible to imagine a more compatible musical partner… I humbly put forth that Mel and I had the best musical marriage in many a year. We literally breathed together during our countless performances. As Mel put it, we were two bodies of one musical mind.
Mel Tormé wrote more than 250 songs, several of which became standards. He often wrote the arrangements for the songs he sang. He collaborated with Bob Wells on his most popular composition, “The Christmas Song”(1946). They wrote the song on a swelteringly hot and sunny day in California, sitting down and coming up with all the most ‘mid-wintery’ things they could think of, in an attempt to cool themselves down; it was recorded first by Nat King Cole. Tormé said that he wrote the music in 45 minutes and that it was not one of his favorites, calling it “my annuity”
I had the chance to see him when he toured with Doc Severinsen. He was fantastic! He owned that stage and had the audience in the palm of his hand. That concert remains one of the best concerts I have ever been to. He blew me away when he joined Doc for Sing, Sing, Sing and played the drums. It was amazing.
On August 8, 1996, a stroke ended Tormé’s 65-year singing career. In February 1999, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He died from another stroke on June 5, 1999, at the age of 73
In his eulogistic essay, John Andrews wrote:
Tormé’s style shared much with that of his idol, Ella Fitzgerald. Both were firmly rooted in the foundation of the swing era, but both seemed able to incorporate bebop innovations to keep their performances sounding fresh and contemporary. Like Sinatra, they sang with perfect diction and brought out the emotional content of the lyrics through subtle alterations of phrasing and harmony. Ballads were characterized by paraphrasing of the original melody which always seemed tasteful, appropriate and respectful to the vision of the songwriter. Unlike Sinatra, both Fitzgerald and Tormé were likely to cut loose during a swinging up-tempo number with several scat choruses, using their voices without words to improvise a solo like a brass or reed instrument.
They were two of the best scat singers. Watch this magical improv moment with Ella and Mel:
I think it was a few weeks ago when I posted a picture of me with the Michigan Warriors’ mascot Skully. They were the local hockey team that was made up primarily of college guys. That team lasted a couple seasons.
Afterwards, they were replaced by the Flint Firebirds. This year they celebrate their 10th year as a team. They’ve done quite well in the OHL.
It’s been a few years since I’ve been to a game, and I plan on making at least one this season. Their mascot is Hot Wing.
A few years ago, one of our local TV stations held a huge free family fun day. It was held at the arena where the Firebirds play. I DJ’d at every one of these events. They’d have me in the middle of the arena in front of a dance floor.
There would be booths and vendors lined up on both sides of me. I would play music, make announcements, and do giveaways. I always had a blast doing that gig.
I found this crazy picture of me with Hot Wing at one of the last (if not THE last) one of those family festivals.
The station decided to stop doing this one big event and focus on many small events, which made planning a lot easier for them. I really miss doing this gig.
This is another book that I read because of the title. I admit that at first I assumed Lenny was a male character. I’m not sure why, but it sounded to me like a crime novel. It wasn’t.
I suppose if I had looked at the cover, I might have figured out that Lenny was female. Anyway, with that being said, Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder was actually a good read.
Before I give my thoughts, here is the Goodreads Synopsis:
She bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit (currently arranged by height). The closest thing she has to a friendship is playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Gellar while watching Friends reruns.
And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother and stepfather disappeared when she was still a child. The day a voice in the back of her mind started whispering, You did this.
Until a letter from the parole board arrives in the mail—and when her desperate attempts to ignore it fail, Lenny starts to unravel. As long-buried memories come to the surface, Lenny’s careful routines fall apart. For the first time, she finds herself forced to connect with the community around her, and unexpected new relationships begin to bloom. Lenny Marks may finally get a life—but what if her past catches up to her first?
Equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming, Kerryn Mayne’s stunning debut is an irresistible novel about truth, secrets, vengeance, and family lost and found, with a heroine who’s simply unforgettable.
For a debut novel, it was really good. I won’t give away too much, but with a title like “Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder,” I assumed the “murder” would happen towards the beginning of the book. It didn’t.
Because I was waiting for it, at times I wondered when it was going to happen. This distracted me a bit, but once I was able to put the expectation of a murder out of my mind, things fell into place nicely.
If I had to describe the book, I would say that it is like The Maid Meets Desperate Housewives. Let me clarify:
I say The Maid because Molly, the main character is a bit odd. She has autism and is very particular about her schedule and routines. Lenny isn’t autistic per say, but she has those tendencies. She is innocent and quiet and likes her routine.
I say Desperate Housewives not because of the drama on the show, but in the way that the story will bring up something or someone that you forgot about. There were times where I was like, “Oh yeah, that guy…”
The book focuses mainly on present day Lenny, but at times there are flashbacks that shed light on what is going on in the story. I would agree with the synopsis in that there are some scenarios that are heartbreaking and as a whole, heartwarming.
Does the title of the book give away the ending? You should read it and find out.
When I think about barber shops, I picture something like the photo above. It had the huge barber pole outside and the barbers wore those white coats/smocks. Inside there were the jars with funky blue liquid in them where combs and other tools of the trade might be. There are still a few of them around.
We took Andrew to get his haircut yesterday. My wife really liked the way this one place did it before, so we went back. I’d never heard of the place – Hair Mechanix.
“Man Maintenance!” I was wowed by the place when I walked in. It could be a man cave. On the walls were pictures of sportscars, motorcycles, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and other “guy stuff.” It was really nice.
The stylists are, of course, female, and they were all saying how cute Andrew was. As they cut his hair, I was offered something to drink. They had water, pop, and beer! Yeah, beer! Not wanting to spend any money on one I declined. Come to find out, they are complimentary. Go figure. Have a brew and get a trim.
I was looking at the big board with all their services and prices. They do pretty much everything. They will wax your eyebrows, your ears or your nose (ouch!). They will trim your beard and mustache and they will shave your head. I asked if they waxed heads, because a bald friend of mine swears by it. I was told they didn’t.
I walked back over to where Andrew was getting his cut and my wife asked what I was talking to the girl at the counter about. I told her about them not waxing heads and she said “Yeah, but they shave them. You should do that while we are here.” I told her I was ok, and didn’t want to spend the money, but she insisted. “I get my hair done every month or so. I also get a pedicure every so often. You don’t do anything for YOU. Do it.”
I asked the gal if she was expecting an appointment or if she had time to shave my head. She said yes and showed me to her chair. Can I tell you, as silly as I felt, I really felt “pampered.” She first put the cape on me and then put some (what I assumed was) shaving cream on my head. She came back with a hot towel and put it on my head. I’ve always heard about hot towels and such, but this was the first time having one on. It felt pretty good, actually.
Not me!
After a bit, she took the towel off and all of the shaving cream that was on my head was gone, apparently soaked up by the towel – or my head. She then grabbed some sort of oil, applied that and then there was another how towel. By this time I was pretty relaxed. I never would have thought this would be so relaxing. She lifted part of the towel and folded it toward the back of my head.
Again she applied some shaving cream and began to shave my head. (I guess they will shave your face, too.) What surprised me was that she used a straight razor to shave me. I have never been able to shave with one of those. I always seem to cut myself up. My stylist, however, did a fantastic job. My head was overdue to be shaved, so there was a lot for her to shave. The razor did its thing and my wife said it looked great.
One thing I can never seem to get is the back of my neck at home. Sam always laughs at what I miss. Every once in a while it gets so long that she shaves the back of my neck for me. My stylist cleaned up my neck and trimmed my caterpillar eye brows as a bonus. After she was done she put on some nice smelling cream or oil and I was on my way.
I’m not going to lie, I felt really good afterward. How silly is that? It was simply 15-20 minutes of hair (bald) care and I loved it. My wife told me that I really need to take time to do this every month or so. You know what? I think I will!
Michael is often referred to as a crooner. This is because he helped to renew public interest and appreciation for the Great American Songbook and those traditional pop standards.
He readily admits that he is a “great cover artist.” His albums feature him covering the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and Mel Torme’. But he is also a great songwriter and the songs he has written have done well on the charts, too.
Bublé has sold over 75 million records worldwide, and won five Grammy Awards. He has also won fifteen Juno Awards.
His first album was released in 2003. It did well in Canada and the UK. In 2005, his album It’s Time brought him more world wide attention. In total, he’s recorded nine albums. He’s about due for a new one since his last one was released in 2022.
Right around the time of his first album, he made the rounds at radio stations. My buddies Tim and Jeff had them on their show in Arkansas. They said he was a blast.
They said he was very funny and down to earth. They hung out with him that evening, I think they all went to a hockey game together. They said he was one of the coolest artists they’d ever met.
He seems like a pretty cool guy. He has no problem poking fun at himself and always seems to be having fun. I would love to meet him one day.
I have featured his music a few times on this blog. Feelin’ Good, The Theme From Spiderman, and Cry Me a River are some of my favorites. Today I picked another one that I like – Call Me Irresponsible.
I was hooked as soon as I heard the opening bass line. When the drums and band join in, it’s just “smooth.” He has a Dean Martin vibe here – relaxed and effortless.
Let’s swing together and wish Michael a Happy 50th!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 