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Last Sunday Sara (one of my nieces) sent me an instagram message. She was at Frenchy’s in Clearwater, FL. Being a nosy uncle, I looked up the website for Frenchy’s and found a live beach cam! When I responded and told Sara there was a live camera on the beach pointed at a volleyball net– she got her mom and sisters out there so we could see them! We talked on the phone while they danced on the beach.

I learned how to play this little keyboard part on my Casio VL-Tone today! Of course it helped when the video showed which keys The Edge was playing.

A couple of days ago I broke into the martini bunker and wrote a blog post about Johnny Aloha. It was inspired by a song I heard on the Retro Cocktail Hour that’s broadcast out of Lawrence, KS. I saw this cool recording console image while I was rummaging around their website– and now I’m using it to promote the second episode of THE EPILOGUE CABIN!
you can also click here to listen if the player above doesn’t work on your device. Big thanks to Missy for being on the show! The next episode goes up a week from today (Jan. 7)!

I’m nowhere near an ocean, but I swear there was salt in the air and a grass skirt was rustling when I heard Johnny Aloha singing on the Retro Cocktail Hour. Richard Cheese created this hawaiian shirt style persona 9 years ago when he put out an amazing CD of covers that will make you swivel your hips & wonder why someone didn’t do it sooner. I heard his version of Cruel Summer on the Retro Cocktail Hour, and it went downhill (like lava) from there. You can check out that track and others on his bandcamp page. Also, if you like the cool retro art above, it was on the original CD cover– which is out of print BUT there’s more to see on shag.com.

“This is not a Christmas gift, it’s just something I want you to have.” That’s what Marijo’s neighbor Joe said when he gave me a tiny acoustic guitar. Even though the frets and strings are real, it’s too small to play. He used to make them as wall ornaments for friends and relatives 40 years ago. I told him I wasn’t just going to just hang his gift on the wall– I was going to pretend to play it in pictures. He thought that was funny. Hang on… those ARE real steel strings… I’m pretty sure I can hook it up to a makey makey and actually play it!

Someone is keeping Rodney Dangerfield alive. The cartoon above and the caption below make it feel like he’s still here:

Mom got me this cool LIVE ON AIR sign for Christmas… so now it’s official: the southwest corner of my living room is now a bona fide studio!! I’m opening the creaky door to THE EPILOGUE CABIN and posting the first of 3 shows which can be played here… …or by going to this soundcloud link and clicking on the play button. I tried to load the mp3 on my site but the file was too big.

Yesterday I drove to Olathe to pay my property taxes. I was used to seeing the old Franklin Savings Bank on the NW corner of Sante Fe and Ridgeview. I was startled when I saw a fully formed QuikTrip there instead. Even though the bank closed down a long time ago, the vacant building stayed there for years. Franklin Savings was the first bank where I used an ATM after hours. I still remember being annoyed at the fact that I couldn’t withdraw less than $10. I only needed 4 or 5 that night… why were they forcing me to take out ten?This is what the bank looked like after it closed. It stayed that way for years. When I searched for old photos this morning I found out that I went to college with the photographer!

I can’t find my keys. In reality they are probably in my house between the back door and the bedroom, but in my mind they have gone down a black hole. Every house has one. It’s the place where you set something down and suddenly it becomes invisible to the naked eye. Fortunately I have a spare key to my truck and an extra house key. Now I just need to be patient and wait for the original set to surface like a diver that’s about to run out of oxygen.

This is what we ate Saturday night when we got together with Josh & Christy’s family to watch A Christmas Story. We’ve been watching that movie with them since Christy was in high school. Now she’s a mother of two, and I gave her 5-year-old son a Red Ryder BB gun to commemorate the occasion this year. Afterward we all waited for the scene where Ralphie utters the now famous obscenity. When he accidentally spilled a hubcap full of lug nuts and said “Oh… fudge,” we all took a bite.