Today’s theme: Jukebox
Colorful Living Tip of the Day …
• Gauge the age of people you meet by asking them if they know who’d answer the phone if you dialed the number 867-5309. With everyone’s number being concealed under a name, Jenny’s is the last number humanity will ever collectively remember.”
Related greats & one-hit wonders…
• Which is the greater cultural irony: Roger Daltry still singing, "Hope I die before I get old," or Madonna still singing, "Like a Virgin.”
• What did the Kansas vulture say when his long lost son came home and asked what’s for dinner? “Carrion, my wayward son!”
• In 1996, Tom Petty and Johnny Cash, two icons worth a combined $190 million, came together to make an album called "Unchained." That they didn't call it "Petty Cash" is to me a bitter disappointment
• I may be wrong, but I have to believe there's at least one impostor '80's tribute band out there performing under the name, "Huey Lewis & The Fake News.”
• A Fab Four tribute band named "The Dung Beatles" is bound to be really crappy.
• I wonder if anyone watched the historic U.S. Beatles TV debut and said, "When I grow up I want to be just like Ed Sullivan!”
Something from the Beach Boys …
• Otherwise great Chincoteague beach vacation marred only by incident initiated when kids asked if they could bury me in sand. Sure. I'm game. But when they had me completely immobilized, the little bastards stole my shoes & wallet. I should've known better. They weren't my kids.
• I wonder if alpha walruses ever get into beach shoving matches shouting, "I am the walrus!" "No, I am the walrus!”
New blog post! “Spa boner etiquette & my big toe operation,”
The podiatrist looked at my left foot with a puzzled expression. “Are you sure you never had an injury, some instigating incident years ago that would cause this deviation?” “Positive,” I lied. But there was an incident, a painful recollection about which I never told another soul. It involved me, soft music, a darkened room and a beautiful woman who was not my wife. And to top it all off, I was completely naked and fully aroused.
Read the whole story right here!
Zeitgust Word of the Week (a word I made up with the goal of getting it into a dictionary) …
WIPE-o-chondriac: Any person who obsessively disinfects the same clean surface over and over is a wipe-o-chondriac.
Throwback video (from ’19) … “Fred Rogers & The Benefits of Being Defiantly Kind”
This was shot on location at St. Vincent College with the neighborly cooperation of our friends at the Fred Rogers Center and in the Fred Rogers Park in downtown Latrobe. Special thanks to producer Jim Kubus.
Today’s featured blog post …
“Now they’ve gone & ruined jukeboxes (from ’11)
I feel sheepish criticizing something I loved longer and spent more quality time with than even my family, but neighborhood bars are starting to suck. I know. That’s like worms criticizing dirt. What’s wrong with neighborhood bars?Jukeboxes. They are one of the man’s few inventions that as they’ve gotten better and better have gotten worse and worse.
(read full story right here)
What’s doin’ this weekend in the Laurel Highlands …
Pennsylvania Maple Festival, Meyerdale: They will be tapping kegs and trees this weekend at the annual “Maple City” festival.
Oddly enough (stories from my story treasure chest) …
“Town called Mars is surprisingly down to Earth”
NASA engineers are right now engaged in painstaking calculations over how much it’ll take to one day send astronauts to Mars. Estimated price tag: $11 billion. Maybe someone should seek directions from the woman the Martians all call “Cookie.” “Yeah, just head north from Pittsburgh up the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the Cranberry exit,” she says. “Then make a right onto 228 east. The turnpike’s a toll road so have some change handy.” Total cost: $2.90. “Anything else?” Yes, will you take me to your leader? “That would be Dick Settlemire. He’s mayor,” says Cookie, the Martian borough secretary who’s also known as Etha Wolfe.
Read full story here ...
Concluding words …
• Bob Dylan wrote “Knockin’ on Heavens Door” in 1973. I worry that one day when he fulfills his mortal absolutes, he’ll knock on heaven’s door and someone’ll say, “It’s only that Dylan kid again. He’s been knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door for nearly 50 years. Ignore him. He’ll eventually go away.”
All Chris’s books can be purchased through www.ChrisRodell.com
A good old-fashioned juke box only takes quarters. I’m not quite so picky. I’ll take whatever you’ve got. Please consider supporting me with some tangible appreciation (PayPal, Venmo, 874 Solomon Temple Rd., Latrobe, Pa, 15650).