Further brilliancy

    Old-time radio is an odd thing to get enthusiastic about. Or ironic maybe. Because you're listening to stuff from so long ago that it's in the public domain. Thus on the one hand you're listening to material from 70 years ago, but on the other hand the best way to acquire shows is via high-speed internet. However, when I got started, I didn't know that and anyway wasn't on high-speed internet. So I bought a big pile of CDs with colossal numbers of old radio shows. But nobody told me that the files could corrupt.
    Fortunately, I copied a lot of the best shows onto my old laptop. Unfortunately, I filled the hard drive so full that after a certain point it wouldn't boot up anymore. This is why I switched to this here laptop. But also fortunately the guy in the other half of the house is by way of being a computer expert. He couldn't boot it up either, but he could get the MP3s off it onto my dad's old computer. He did. Some of my favorites, which had corrupted and thus would quit playing ten or fifteen minutes in, are now back. Yay! If I've already told all of this story except for the happy ending part, I apologize. I'm all excited. Also the other brilliancy to talk about would have been gluten-free chicken noodle soup.
    Also in radioland, I found a CD I made (also a data CD) with a lot of great old-time radio shows on it. It only works on this computer, but is big fun. Further brilliancy still is that I bought a set of speakers a year ago in hopes that it would work with my Casio. It didn't. I plugged it up to the laptop, but had to put up with a constant buzz from them. That was annoying but I could live with it. But today, I tried to listen to the OTR data CD and no sound came out unless I partly unplugged the speakers. And even then, if I turned up the sound, the hum turned up, too. It was a bridge too far. They're dead to me. I'm using the Big Lots speakers I long ago bought for my ancient (2001) PC which I never use anyway. They're not great either, but there's suddenly no hum. (Also as I said, the shows are 70 years old; the sound quality isn't that great in the first place.)

When difficulties aren't

    So lately (I understand that one isn't supposed to start sentences with "So"; So?) I've gotten ever more obsessed with the flavor of pico de gallo, starting with the Puerto Rican restaurant I fell in love with recently and continuing with the pico de gallo gluten free crackers that Aldi has been selling more recently. Stumbling block is that you use key limes rather than regular limes to make pico de gallo, and they're teeny and have seeds. And Genius Boy here was actually seeing this as a problem. And. Then. I. Remembered. About Strainers. I swear, if I could get in, I would go to remedial kindergarten. Anyway, that problem's solved! Now let's put pico de gallo in everything!
    Weird stuff from American Top 40, The '80s: "Invincible" by Pat Benatar was the theme from "The Legend of Billie Jean." I sense that the former was on the charts considerably longer than the latter was in theaters.

My Grandfather's Clock

    Dad was very fond of and often sang an old song called "My Grandfather's Clock," which it turns out is a bluegrass standard and later a record by Johnny Cash from 1959. It starts off that his grandfather's clock was too tall (Dad's version) or wide (Johnny's version) for the shelf so it spent 90 years on the floor. Since the next line is that it was taller by far than the old man himself, Dad's version makes more sense, but I guess the writer or Johnny didn't want to say "tall" in two straight lines.
    (Spoiler alert) The upshot is that it ran 90 years but never again when the old man died. It would be fairly poignant even without having a dad who lived past 90 and died this year and who loved the song and sang it a lot. What brings it up is that his watch has stopped. It did not run 90 years or even nine, but still. Margaret had bought him a fabulously expensive watch that disappeared during dialysis or a hospital stay. Maybe he lost it or maybe it was stolen. I didn't go out of my way to get him a cheap replacement, of course, but obviously when you've lost one expensive one, there may be less stress in your life if your next watch is less expensive. My brief was to find him one with numerals large enough for him to see and I succeeded with an Armitron. It was maybe three or four years old; they usually run longer than that. I could get a new battery, but I prefer a watch with an alarm and stopwatch and such like. Also he didn't have my girly little wrists, so I would need a new battery and a new strap. I'm happy letting it go out with him. Sort of an everyday song cue for a wonderful song.

Big bowl of joy

    OK, maybe that's strong, but I was pleasantly surprised that one of my food fixes worked. Some weeks ago, I bought a bunch of discounted spices from Ollie's Discount Warehouse. According to the labels, which of course can be faked, they were top shelf brands and, unusually for Ollie's, the expiration dates hadn't passed yet. One item I bought we a McCormick's Gourmet Collection Moroccan seasoning blend. I keep putting it in things, but haven't really fallen in love yet. It doesn't remind me as much as I had hoped of lost days in France eating couscous. But it's nice and all. Just a lot like paprika.
    My go-to seasoning for popcorn besides salt is Crystal hot sauce. I like it a lot. But it turns out that I like it even more with a lot of Moroccan seasoning blend added. Who knew? One suspects that McCormick has discontinued this item, but you can always try paprika. See? I do simple recipes sometimes!
    I set a new standard for weird/dull dreams. I was supposed to be in an improv group, except that I just landed there with no idea what I was doing or supposed to do and holding a notebook filled with somebody else's handwriting detailing how improv is supposed to work. And I had to interview somebody, presumably a prospective improvver, whom I mainly was quizzing about what in hell I was supposed to be doing. In real life it could be a funny improv skit.

Which is weirder?

    I will admit to sometimes having difficulty telling dreams from reality, at least for a little while. But this week, the problem has a different dimension, as it is only hard to tell dream and reality apart insofar as they've been so very odd. On the dream front, last night I dreamed that the University of South Carolina had hired Bernie Sanders as their new head football coach. And I kept saying, "Wouldn't it be weird if they made him the football coach instead of the university president-- oh wait."
    At another point I was trying to make a sandwich out of a hunk of burger the size of a tabletop and two slices of bread the size of two slices of bread. I was having difficulty and my brown kitten (if you don't know, you can probably guess that I've never had a brown kitten) was trying to get some of the hamburger. I kicked at him and was horrified when he jumped up on the furniture and my sightline and started crying. Heck I still feel guilty.
    Reality may not measure up. I got my new car title, on which my make and model are listed as "Actual Mileage." I know I should have it corrected, but I think I'll photocopy it and frame it first, it's so surreal. Also I now have a purple shag carpet steering wheel cover. The Toyota Campy has been born. Also Aldi sells tilapia loins; I wasn't the only one to be surprised that tilapia have them. Also one member of West Columbia City Council is named BJ Unthank, which I swear I am not making up. Oh, and the other day, I received two calls from a woman trying to reach a guy named Shady. The second time, she hid her phone number, like I wouldn't recognize her voice. Ma'am, I don't think that was the real Slim Shady you were talking to.

Too many funerals

    My friend from high school Paul Lacoste died a week ago and the funeral was today. Apparently he had skipped a year somewhere along the line and was more than a year younger than the rest of us, something I never knew. We had never been extremely close, but we got along. He dated my high school girlfriend after she broke up with me, but it was all perfectly amicable. I never held it against either of them. (I was going to college 600 miles away at the time.)
    In more recent days, he had trouble. His marriage broke up and he was living in a men's shelter, then a Motel 6. One infers that drinking was involved. Because we're of the same political orientation, he expressed an interest in Drinking Liberally and made sporadic efforts to come to a meeting, but only made it to one, about a month ago. He seemed unmoored, adrift, in disarray. He also seemed that way on Facebook, often responding in ways that didn't strictly speaking make sense. He did not, however, seem on the verge of doing anything drastic.
    I don't know what happened; I may never know. He may have drunk himself to death or committed suicide more directly. The only thing clear from the pastor's homily is that it wasn't natural causes. He said that Paul had never recovered from his mother's death in 2000 nor from his father's hospitalization and incapacitation in 2010. ("Boy I heard that!" I couldn't help thinking.) About the only difference between me and him is that I have a sense of humor, not in the "Boy is he funny!" sense but in the sense of finding all aspects of life both absurd and humorous. Long may it wave.
    Being in a Roman Catholic church was no weirder nor less weird than it was when I was in one regularly. I wish they would have gone easier with the incense, though. It was neat to see altar girls, which I doubt we had back in the day. And it was cool to learn that "How Great Thou Art" is a little older than I thought, and the hillbillies in question were from a different set of hills. Insert your favorite Swedish Chef joke here.

His brother John

    When I was a little fellow, I was very taken with Bob Dylan's "Watching the River Flow" and especially the piano work. I asked my brother (not sure now which brother) who was playing it, and he said that it was Bob Dylan's brother John. Now this was a pretty shrewd answer. I'm not sure that all little kids worship all with their own first name nor that all little kids believe everything they are told, but I did and I did and in I think that in my heart of hearts I believed this until maybe a week ago.
    What brought it to mind was hearing a cover which my song identification app said was by Ben Waters on a tribute CD to Ian Stewart. Naturally I took this to mean that the piano part had been played by Ian Stewart and that the mystery was solved. Nothing like that simple! Turns out that the song was on the tribute record because Stewart had been quoted as saying that the song was the only decent thing that Dylan had ever done. And the part was actually played by Leon Russell. As he was already famous as the leader of Mad Dogs and Englishmen and a major contributor to the Concerts for Bangladesh, both of which I knew about (I wasn't THAT damn little) and would be famouser a year later for "Tightrope," I think I could have handled the actual personnel information. But then, we didn't have Wikipedia back then, did we? Excuse me, I have to go looking for John Zimmerman piano records...