davidcedillo.com

We don’t get all shook up around hot surfaces, our Elvis oven mitt still keeps us from becoming a hunka hunka burning love.  I don’t how we acquired this memento of the first pop icon postage stamp, but I do remember that we were living in Virginia when everyone started “itching like a man on a fuzzy tree” for the Elvis stamp.  Roman Mars and the good folks at 99 Percent Invisible brought me back to that time with this story.  Also thanks to my mother for my earliest Elvis memories, and for taking me and my sister to see him in concert.  Happy birthday Mom!

There are names that my grandparents knew that were forgotten by the time I was born, and someday all the pop culture references I know will fade into obscurity.  I’m not sure how many of my co-workers were familiar with the name I chose for my Chipotle order– but that’s ok.  I did it for myself.  As I took it from the group I started to sing “I knew a man Bojangles and he ate my lunch…”

His eyes wouldn’t stay open, but he couldn’t keep them closed either. He looked like a sleepwalking senior zombie without the drool. His brothers were gone, his friends were on hospice, it was late at night, and Groucho Marx couldn’t sleep again. The last time he had insomnia, he called Alice Cooper, who lived a few blocks away. Most nights when Groucho would go walking after dark around the neighborhood he saw Alice’s lights on. Alice didn’t go to bed until sunrise.  Groucho got his number from a friend and called him when he got back home.  Alice grabbed a six-pack of beer on his way over to Groucho’s house.  They watched a couple of Robert Mitchum movies and made short work of the beer.  Halfway through ‘Night of the Hunter’ Alice realized that Groucho had fallen asleep.  He threw away the empty beer cans and tip-toed out the back door.  Two nights later when Groucho couldn’t sleep, he called Alice again. 

-this is what went through my imagination when I read that Groucho Marx and Alice Cooper used to hang out together after midnight.

While tuned to a folk station at a low volume, I heard something that reminded me of this tune by Old Crow Medicine Show… oh yeah! “tell me what you need in the whole wide world!”

W.W.A.J.T. — What would Abe jam to?  An old friend who works in the health system sent me a message that asked “what are you listening to?”  He was listening to Tenacious D, I was listening to an online folk station.  I like to accompany my messages with images and found this one with Abraham Lincoln.  If there was a tune that would make Abe bob his head and arch his eyebrows I wonder what it would be.

Yep, that’s all we need, another excuse to keep all of those expired sauce packets.  I just read that Heinz is making 50 collectible sauce packets– one for each state in the country!  There’s also a chance to win serious prize money if you collect EVERY ONE OF THEM!  So the next time you see one of those cars packed tight with hoarded papers, the person driving it could be rich one day… or they could be covered in sauce if they hit a pothole too fast.

Seeing this pic right before going to bed last night was like finding a gift after Christmas, seeing a cotton candy sunset, and getting a quarter from the tooth fairy all at the same time.  That’s my Uncle Gabe, my Aunt Thelma, and my dad.

BAM! A few hours ago I found out that WOXY’s Modern Rock 500 Countdown is coming back one more time! All of my favorite DJ’s who went down with the ship when the station went off the air 20 years ago will be there too! I’ll get to hear Mike Taylor, Barb Abney, Shivvy, Sledge, Joe Long, Bryan Jay Miller, and MANY others. Honestly I get happy anytime I hear the word “BAM!” because it reminds me of WOXY and all the great music and voices I heard there.

Are you ready for the time shift?  This weekend most of us will travel into the future exactly one hour.  Hawaii and Arizona will stay in the past while the rest of the United States saves the living daylights for the next 8 months.  I wonder if residents living near time zones that separate Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern time zones ever get used to it.  I imagine that they travel through time faster than a clock ticks off the minutes.  In my home state someone driving west from Brewster to Goodland can go back in time in the span of 20 miles.  It would be cool if there was vertical map of cities that straddle the time zones, and tourist attractions with a time travel theme could thrive to bolster those rural communities.  Until then standard time will resume November 5.