I started writing an hour and a half ago. I said I was going “old school and blogging before breakfast and coffee.” As soon as I wrote that I craved breakfast and coffee. Food and coffee win most arguments with me. I had sausageeggandcheese on naan and donuts for dessert. When I have it on naan the eggs are over easy so it’s quite different from having them on a sandwich where I have to cook them till solid or make a mess. The one thing I have not learned is how to cook them until they are a gel. That would be perfect for sandwiches. Have you noticed how easily I’m distracted by food? A blogger writes from his stomach. At least this blogger.
I don’t know what distracted me, but something did. It’s now late afternoon. On the bright side I made another pot of coffee so now I’m awake. I always make two mugs at a time. The second cup is always the cheap stuff, it’s just for the caffeine. It’s taken me 35 minutes to write this paragraph. This time the internet distracted me. I had such much coffee that I should be as focused as a Jewish Space Laser. In my cast it’s a Jewish Atheist Space Laser. That’s how I identify. Nobody is going to notice this, but this is my first entry using smart quotes instead of straight quotes. I had Word setup for straight quotes because I used to manually insert the html, now I let Word and WordPress do it for me. I’m much happier with the aesthetic of smart quotes. Straight quotes didn’t exist until typewriters. Nobody else my care about this but I do, though not on the Oxford comma level of caring. That’s the hill I die on. If congress voted to ban the Oxford comma I’d be storming the Capitol, except I wouldn’t; even in jest I can’t be that evil.
I can’t remember the last time I left my house; I’ve been trying to be extra good about avoiding COVID-19, or more honestly lazy. That doesn’t mean I have nothing to write about, yesterday was the second Tuesday of the month and that means John Platt’s On Your Radar. John’s guests were Alisa Amador, Kristen Grainger & True North, and Phil Henry. I love Phil (get the Greek/English pun?), we’ve been friends for something like 16 years. Alisa I discovered at the last NERFA in 2019. She was one of my top discoveries. True North was new to me. That’s a nice mix, I always want to discover someone new. Despite knowing him for all this time in a sense Phil is new to me, at least his music. It’s departure from what he’s done before. Though he’s often had a band they play a more integral part in the new album, Chasing Echoes. I love the addition of the fiddle. The fiddler, who name is escaping me, played with him last night. His name is Jimmy Kalb! No, I didn’t just remember. I looked it up. Here’s a tip for musicians, when you send people digital copies of your album include the liner notes. As a DJ and blogger, I greatly appreciate it. As a listener I appreciate it. I don’t miss vinyl, but I do miss putting on a new record and reading the liner notes as I listened. It’s just not the same with CD booklets. PDFs on the computer work great. Most solo musicians use a band because they think that bigger is better. It usually doesn’t work with lyric based folk music. Some hear the music arranged with a band in their head. Phil does that.
True North is a string band that plays singer/songwriter music. I wish I could remember who John compared them to; it was apt. Was it Gillian Welch? Maybe. It works for me. The bass players instrument was malnourished, I never saw one so thin. I wanted to be a Jewish mother, “Eat you look so skinny!” That can also be an Italian mother. What other ethnic groups have that stereotype mother?
Alisa Amador still blows me away. She said during her set that she wasn’t 100%. My response was, “If this is Alisa at less than 100%, I’m not sure I could survive full strength. I might get raptured while I listened.” I have to remember to include that when I do a Gord’s Gold about her. I was surprised that I haven’t done one already. Then when I started to prepare one I realized why, she has only one four song EP and I don’t have it. I don’t know why I didn’t pick it up at NERFA. Should I have said enraptured instead of raptured? I don’t think so, I wanted to evoke the image of me being lifted up into heaven. There is something in the way that she sings that goes straight to my soul. It’s not the beauty of the voice, nor the musical precision, Billie Holiday had it and Ella Fitzgerald didn’t. What is it? Answering that is above my pay grade.
I was good yesterday, even though the show ended up nine I didn’t use that as excuse to make a quicky dinner. I made roasted chicken leg and plantain. This was the first time I’ve made plantain in the oven since I got the air fryer I no longer have. As I put the chicken on a cooking cooling sheet when I cook it, I put the plantain on it too. What a difference. It was the best plantain I’ve made, not too dry or too tough. This is how I make it from now on. It’s even better than fried. I have one more plantain in the house.
I have what might be an idiot story but is definitely a “my therapist will give me a pat on my head” story. I posted my first class on Outschool, Computational Tricks for Fun and Profit. The class was to meet today. I was disappointed that nobody signed up. When I investigated today I saw that it was never officially posted. I have no idea why, but now I see it on the listings for next week. If you know a child 10-14 that would be interested, let them know about it. I have done all my therapy homework. Dealing with the disappointment of it not getting listed, then getting it listed for next week counts as extra credit. Part of the benefit of therapy is that hate disappointing my therapist, and I love making her proud. It’s accountability. I can do it with other people, but other people I can lie to or avoid talking about it.
I wrote a lot today. Will I have anything to say tomorrow?
Wise Madness 