Happy birthday BoomR!

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Once in awhile, really great friends come along. Some drift in and out of your life, but the true blue ones are always in your heart.

Such is the case with my wonderful fiend BoomR.

You have to go to his site and listen to his music. I’ve heard and worked with some great saxophone players in my time, but this guy is at the top of the heap. Fortunately for all his audiences, he’s a fantastic singer too! (I’ll let him give out his website if he wants to.)

We go way back. Check out this shot of us in the studio, circa 1986. HA

Good times, good times..

Welp, Jake is helping me type this, and Justin is getting into k bku  vbc b <– that, so I’ll fly for now. HB, BoomR luv!

FO g g gf nm,j,

Rant-urday II

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It’s been awhile. I usually leave consistent ranting to others, but there’s been a buildup lately. And no, I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer or little black cloud here, but honestly. I’ve had about enough.

1. Miley Cyrus’s faux smooch. Please. Spare me the righteous indignation. Think about all the sexual crap we’re bombarded with every day on television, and tell me this little flap is more serious than all of that. If she’d kissed a boy dancer, it wouldn’t have even been mentioned. Get over it.

2. LeBron James’s “I Love Me” Tour. I’m done caring about this boy. He thinks he’s the savior of the entire league, but one who will only offer his services to the highest bidder — even though he’s never won anything except MVP (huh?). I mean, we’re going to lose him anyway one day, either to contract negs or injury or retirement, so let’s just get on with it. I agree with commish David Stern, who said the other day that players like LeBron should spend less time on self-aggrandizing marketing and more time watching the NBA finals, so they can see how championship teams play. I feel bad for the Cavaliers and the city of Cleveland. Ferry just resigned…seems like everyone’s jumping ship.

3. Spray-on tans gone wild. Honestly. I have no problem with a little color (even though I have none…think Bella Swan on her worst day, seriously), but come on, Kelly.

4. Thunderstorms on the day we’re keeping the Most Amazing Toddlers in the World for the weekend. Not fair.

5. Doorways. Remember yesterday, when I said I was going to ask the Thriller to switch out all the furniture? Yeah, well…he would have had to take apart the entire bed, because assembled, it won’t fit through the door. Innat great? (I wouldn’t let him do it, even though he did say he would, sweety that he is. Smoochy.)

And that is all for this day. The good part — Grammie’s boys arrive in 3 hours! Yippy and yay and I can’t wait.

Fink, blessed after all

It’s the first day of summer

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And what am I doing? Working. But it’s good stuff, unless you count the Thriller’s reaction when I tell him I would like the furniture in Justin’s room switched out with Jake’s.

One of the neat-o things about having grown children is the extra bedrooms that can be turned into whatever one wants. We have three such rooms, so the transformation began a couple of days ago to flip two of them into private retreats for the Most Amazing Toddlers in the World. When the metamorphosis has taken place, there will be photographs.

In the meantime, there are beds, dressers, chairs and night stands to be schlepped about, housework to be done, dinner to be made, and movie to be watched.

It’s good to be on the first day of summer.

FO

Paul is fab

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Explaining my love for the Beatles is like trying to spoon up mercury. I can come close to catching it all in a simple, tidy container, but not.

McCartney got the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song last night at the White House. He’s in great company, along with Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon. So why do I think he’s a great songwriter? I can’t really say. John was equally as great, with George coming in a distant third. What is/was it about the band that makes me love them?

  1. None of them were fantastic players, even though Paul claims to be the best bass player he knows. (Apparently he’s never heard of Ray Brown.) George was frightened to death to play solos, and with probable good cause; he just wasn’t very good at it. However, it wasn’t about studio quality playing. And here’s where it gets tough to explain. Their music was just so different; they didn’t claim to change the world with it, but they did. Truthfully — who else in 1966 was writing songs like  “Norwegian Wood,” “Taxman” and “And Your Bird Can Sing”? Nobody. And it wasn’t just the words or the harmonic structure or instrumentation or melodies, either, although they were groundbreaking. It was all of it put together, plus that je ne sais quoi. They weren’t just another group of guys from Merseyside wanting to score a record contract. They were a phenomenon that even today defies accurate description.
  2. Go back and look how their hair, clothing, personal outlook and general cheekiness changed a generation, almost immediately. And they really weren’t exclusively the hard-partying, smarta$$ rockers. Transcripts of their hundreds of press conferences are amazing records of how bright they were at such a young age.
  3. As wonderful as they were, they were also human. They said and did stupid stuff and they wrote doggy songs every once in awhile. There’s a considerable list of songs of theirs that I think are really dumb. I just listen to the dozens and dozens that I love.
  4. Those of us who love the Fabs have to separate the men from the music. Paul was (and probably still is) a self-promoting megalomaniac. George was an intolerant snob, and John could be downright cruel to people who loved him (and often was). Ringo was so insecure and fretful, he rarely ever said what was really on his mind during the difficult studio days.

Hm. I just read those four items, and it still doesn’t really explain why I adore their music, and why it’s part of me on an absolute cellular level. I guess I’m trying to say that it’s not the four men personally that make me love them, although I was married to all four of them at various times during the sixth and seventh grade. Rather, it’s the way their songs spoke — and still speak — to me in a very personal way, both as a musician and a human. Does that make any sense?

Anyway. Time to get ready for my contract day. For you non-teacher types, that means the LAST DAY of the year! YAAAY!

FO

Photo credit: Luke Sharrett, New York Times

J’ever say…

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…”Gee, I wish I’d thought of this first” ?

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There are a ton more of these. Can you think of any? Better yet, can you think of some that haven’t yet been invented, then tell me in my ear? Your secret will be safe with me, I promise.

Finkshhhhhhh