After Christmas, Before The New Year

I just blew the dust off this blog, and it's all over my computer!

I can't believe I haven't written since Thanksgiving, but that's the kind of nuts I got this holiday season.  Between Randoradio shows and family (I am the designated celebrator), I have been hopping.  My organist/choirmaster husband is born in December, just before Christmas.  And in one of my other lives, I sing in his church choir. 

Music has been committed.  Choral music.

And I got Ken a theremin for his birthday.  Clara Rockmore DVD  perfomances and audio recordings have been a part of our life since.  Tom Jones (Rando's Logovore) also received a theremin for Christmas.  It's going to be sounding like Halloween ALL THE TIME at our house in the New Year--that is, when Ken's not practicing hymns on his home pipe organ.  Tom played some Clara on his show this week, and I guess I should, too. 

Christmas Day itself at our house was better than it's been in years.  My family has a talent for having Awful Things happen on Christmas.  Flu mini-epidemics.  My mom had a cardiac incident on Christmas Eve a couple of years ago, before she had her Dick Cheney special defib/pacemaker installed.  My parents are feisty folks in their late eighties and the feist sometimes gets a little into misery territory--at least for me.

 Ken is a Christmas tree fanatic, so on recent Christmases, I've oft found myself looking at a simply glorious tree filled with vintage ornaments and light through a haze of worried or hurt tears.  Not so this year.  Folks remained healthy--my sis has a cold, but for us, that's nada--the prime rib was very good, thanks, and the Yorkshire pudding puffed nicely.  My folks did not talk politics, or shout at each other or us.  I forgot to put out Christmas crackers (we do the Brit traditions in our house), but I was rewarded by not having to sweep up the confetti from the same.  Presents were well-received by "blood" family and my darling godchildren alike.

Ken got me a bunch of jadite bowls.  OK, that sounds Martha Stewart-like, but I swear I was into them before she was.  For years, my friends have been saying, "If it's green, it goes to Christine".  And he got me  other cool stuff, too.  But for me, the biggest gift was the serenity and everyone healthy.

My goddaughter Blue, a Rando DJ herself, took THE WORST PICTURE OF ME ever taken, and promptly posted it on the 'net.  I'm not sayin' where.  I do NOT LOOK LIKE THAT, though.  I love her profoundly.  Listen to her show.  We'll be making more of them soon.

And now, we're almost at the New Year, and I have errands to do and a gym to visit today.  Or at least errands.  

And as I think about taking the tree and all the window candles down on Epiphany, I still have real happiness in my heart.  Randoradio is growing, thanks to you, dear listeners.  And in just a few weeks, my country will have a president that we can be proud of again.  Patriotism: what a thought!

I have no idea what kind of show I will be doing on Friday.  I'll be bringing my Dad up to the station to do a show, soon, though.  He wants to play Spike Jones.  Maybe when we get the New Mixer (our Christmas present to ourselves) in and the studio as it will be...as always, stay tuned.  Cocktails and music will reward you.

A Glad and Joyous New Year To ALL!!

Thanksgiving Day

I've been nuts, Rando folk--

We've got a million people on their way to our house, some from cross country.  My mother has a head cold.  My dad is all worried about her.  My sis is asleep downstairs.  My cats want breakfast. I'm about to wrangle a 25 pound honker of a turkey.  

And as head moderator at the Gazebo (www.alsopreview.com) and a poet--my other life--I've been spinning, too: three acceptances last week for new poems.  And I'm already Christmas shopping like mad because December is insane when your husband is an organist/choir master.  I promise a good radio show tomorrow, and more blogging maybe over the weekend.

Hope all is well with you, and do hold a prayer in your hearts for our friends in India.

Chow down!

A New World

Late on Tuesday night, my husband and I were trying to find something to which we could compare Barack Obama's victory. We couldn't. As I was finally falling asleep, MSNBC still on the TV in the bedroom, I finally figured it out: it was the anti-9/11.

On 9/11, I felt like I'd fallen off the map. I'll spare you the story of where I was when the Towers fell, other than to say it was when I was still teaching high school. I made it through to the end of the school day by staying away from television images of the attacks, and glued myself to the media when I got home. The days--weeks, really--that followed were like trying to walk after you've been out in a boat during some rough weather; the floor felt bumpy. Nothing was firm underfoot.

Tuesday night was the same, except that every ounce of dread and grief I once felt had been replaced by joy and hope. Ken and I found a couple of old firecrackers in the basement and blew them up down by the creek. And then we just ran around the yard and hollered. We're off the map again, but this time, it's not scary. America feels like part of the world once more.

What a night! We tasted a cocktail published by The New York Times called The Obama-rama, a Cosmo-ish concoction with white grape juice replacing the cranberry juice, and a dash of blue curacao turning it the appropriate Democratic color. It was Not Good. A far better choice would have been Rachel Maddow's election night suggestion: a Joe Rickey, which is a good shot of bourbon over some ice in a highball glass, seltzer, and the juice of half a lime. Rachel is my bartending role model.

But cocktails were beside the point. They still seem beside the point.

We took our goddaughter Alyssum to see The Decemberists in NYC the next night. She's RandoRadio's Blue's big sis, by the way. Alyssum is a big Decemberist fan. It was also her first concert in a major club, and she had a blast. So did we, by the way. I love The Decemberists--and I had a lot of fun listening to their opening act, Loch Lomand, another Portland indie band, kinda freak-folkish in sound. But anyway, getting back to Obama, there he was at the show--as a cardboard cutout, that is. The Decemberists played that big rally in Portland for him last summer, remember? And not too surprisingly, the Obama cardboard cutout went crowd surfing. Folks handled it most respectfully--lovingly, even. And they called for the encore by chanting "Yes we can!"

Gee. 

I mean, really, gee.

I can still cry pretty easily, thinking of all this.

Cocktails with Chris this week will be on more or less at 4 Friday; it's already in the can, having been recorded yesterday in a sneak peek live show. We're going to make a new Roots 'n' Ruckus in a few minutes, and I can't be in two places at once.

So you've got some cool post-election listening lined up.

And I've got to go wrangle Ed and Greg.

Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we did.

By the way: after the show, Alyssum told us she touched the Obama cutout in his surfing. She was really happy.

A Perfect Dinner!

Hi, Rando fans--

(as my dear god daughter Blue says on her mic breaks during the shows she's recorded so far).

Just blowing a little dust off the blog and bragging about a perfect dinner we ate tonight. It was loosely Southern European, but basically 'Murican Liberal cuisine. But it was easy to make and since we like to share the doings of the kitchen staff from High Atop The Potter Building, I thought I'd offer a bit of detail.

I made Osama's Lamb (explanation follows), a Greek salad from Ken's description of such things in Greece, and a little pot of pasta pesto using some leftover pesto I'd frozen in August before we went away. We drank some Pinot Noir from Patagonia which was pretty OK, too.

First: Osama's Lamb

Yeah. That Osama. Here's the backstory. The Potter Building is not far from New York City, and we were pretty seriously freaked by 9/11--not that everyone else wasn't too, but I still maintain that NYC metro folks have a slightly different relationship to it than do other Americans. Ken and I fought back by cooking food and making cocktails, not too surprisingly. And one night, I made a marinade (almost more of a spice rub) for broiled or grilled lamb chops that we've always referred to since as Osama's Lamb. Why? Because Osama couldn't have any. Because we hoped the man behind killing a sweet girl who'd sung in a youth choir my husband had directed was in a cold, damp cave, eating dirt. Because good lefties that we are--I mean, Jeez, there are limits, and we were tired of trying to understand. The rule was that you couldn't leave any lamb on the platter because somehow, Osama would get it. I know. That's psycho, a bit. But it was strange times. Behold a recipe conceived in grief that I make all the time now that the sorrow has lifted.

Osama's Lamb

Lamb chops--whatever kind you like (we go for the teeny ones). This is designed for six or eight of those.

A ziplock bag

A huge shake or two of cumin

A smaller shake of coriander

Juice of one lemon

A good splash of balsamic vinegar

Enough olive oil to do a sort-of salad dressing looking thing

A couple of tablespoons of kosher salt

Many grinds of black pepper

Three or four cloves of garlic, pressed

Put everything except the lamb in the ziplock bag, close it, and squish it around with your hands. Add the lamb. Marinate for as much time as you have. An hour is good. Two or three is better. No longer than that. Broil or grill to medium rare.

The Greek Salad that Ken describes is easy, too: just chunk up some decent tomatoes. We've still got them locally in NY, but we're counting the days. Chunk up likewise some green peppers, and some kirby cukes. Crumble over the top the best feta you can find. Toss with good olive oil and vinegar (I'm a balsamic girl, although I think it not trad), and a few grinds of pepper. You may need a pinch of salt, depending on how much cheese you use and how salty it is. Sprinkle with some chopped thyme and oregano (or a little dried that you've rubbed between your hands). Throw in a few black olives if you have them, but this works without. Toss. Ken claims salad in Greece does not contain lettuce. Eat mass quantities.

As for the pesto? Heck--you know how to make that.

Cheers!

Bill Clinton! KD Lang!!

Call me Cinderella.

My sister rang me up on the phone this morn, and said she had a couple of tickets to an Obama benefit at the gorgeous loft home of Steven and Judy Gluckstern 'way downtown in NYC .  Joe Biden was supposed to speak but he couldn't 'cause his wife's mom had just died.

...but rumor had it Bill Clinton was going to fill in.  

Wow, said I.  And that's when my sis gave me the tickets 'cause she couldn't get to the party herself.

Have I mentioned KD Lang yet?  Guess so.  She was scheduled to sing, and sing she did.  And Alice Waters of Chez Panisse did the cocktail snacks.  How about a giant silver tureen of mac and cheese, topped with about a half a foot of lobster meat?  People walked about smiling and eating it out of outsized martini glasses.  Talk about a swanky neighborhood near you!  Never ever could I match the company, the food, or the lovely, just-oaky-enough chardonnay.  

So Ken and I went to the party, as I think you've gathered by now.  And so did Bill Clinton.

I hardly know where to start.  

Maybe I should tell you first about KD Lang.  She sang only three songs, but HOLY COW.  I was just bedazzled.  Her keyboard player sat at the gorgous Victorian grand piano in the loft and she wandered barefoot through the delighted crowd.  As she launched into a stellar cover of  "Hallelujah", she was just a few feet from me.  I was melted into a little square of blonde hair on the floor, but my husband snapped a couple of cell phone shots.  

And BILL!!

OK, they say that it's like being in the room with Elvis, and that's basically right.  And yeah, I'm still pissed at him for not putting the full force of his talent behind Obama sooner, but as I stood listening to him clarify the economic crisis in terms that my cat could understand but that were at the same time well-chosen and really profound, suddenly, I didn't feel like the world was out of control anymore.  I felt like I could have a role in getting things back on track--and that we'd all survive, and that I live in a great country.  I haven't felt like that in a long time...

...as KD sang just a few minutes later, "Hallelujah".

Speaking of cats, as Clinton stood at the base of a very modern and imposing staircase, the lovely Himalayan kitty who was lucky enough to live in that loft came downstairs and sat a few stairs above him, checking out his speech.  Clinton proceeded to make the best case for Obama I have ever heard: that we hire presidents to LEAD and that Obama's got the stuff 'cause of his smarts and judgement.  Sounds basic, but there you have it. And he's right.  The kitty listened as carefully as the assembled crowd.  But when KD Lang took over the mike, Kitty joined her in song.  It was a moment.

I guess there are folks to whom this wouldn't be a big deal.  But we'll be making some phone calls to battleground states from high atop the Potter building...

...and we'll celebrate having convinced some more folks to vote the right way this coming Friday at 4 Eastern.  I promise to play some KD Lang.  

Yes we CAN! 

Pete Seeger, Sarah Palin...and my show tomorrow

It's been a while since I wrote anything here.  Too long, in fact.

Glad I have a couple of minutes late tonight.  We just watched the Vice Presidential debates.  I'm pleased that the first few reactions I saw seemed to be on Biden's side.  Sarah Palin is an ugly addiction; the media can't get enough of her.  First there was the Coulter-esque convention speech, then the trainwreck of Paris Hilton proportions on the interview shows...and now this Adderall-dripping robotic lunacy of a debate with Joe Biden being way too polite for my tastes.   I really wanted the courtroom scene from To Kill A Mockingbird with Mayella Ewell glaring through her overgrown bangs at Atticus: "a chiffarobe?"  But I realize that would have been preaching to the choir.  Plus folks would have thought Biden was being condescending.  

Oh, well.  

In more pleasant news, I got my hands on a copy of Pete Seeger's At 89, and I'm playing some of it tomorrow.  Pete's a longtime hero of mine.  He let me play onstage with him when I was 17, at an appearance he made at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY.  I had written an awful song about ecology called "Garbage" and I sang it.  He handed me his big 12-string guitar to play and backed me up on banjo.  It's still a major high point of my life.  Only college graduations and my wedding to Ken rank higher for me.  

Don't know if I can play the mortality songs (sunny as any Seeger tunes, and just heart-rending) without totally melting into a puddle and being unable to work the mixing board, but I promise you'll hear a bunch of the record.  What's the most remarkable about it, I think, is that it's just a Pete Seeger album.   I remember buying a copy of Dangerous Songs back in the 60's.  The mix of serious and light was the same.  Seeger's voice is a bit shaky, but his guitar and banjo work are everything you'd expect them to be and more.  

Did I mention that the album was released on my birthday, the 30th of September?  It was.  Call me selfish, but I like that.  I got some nice presents this year, but this unexpected one might have been the best.

Don't know what the drink tomorrow will be, but I'm considering the Astoria, a martini-strength concoction with an interesting history.  Tune in!!

The Storm Passes...

Just a few words tonight.  We're newly home.  I miss Canada more than I'd have thought.  It is POURING RAIN, but the wind seems to be less than the howling gale the weatherfolk had predicted.  In short, Hanna had her soggy way with us, but the creek is not in our house, praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Radar imagery shows the bit of wet stuff just to the south of us and roaring to the north.  My sympathies to my new friends 0n PEI.  Let's hope this nasty gal of a storm has gotten some therapy and decided not to trash all her relationships quite so much by the time it reaches you.

I did a great show on Friday, and I hope y'all will keep listening.  I'm going to sack out early tonight--gotta help Dr. Doolittle make some church music tomorrow.

Back in the USS, Back in the USSR!

Today, we drove over the border from New Brunswick into Maine, and the CBC faded into static.

Fortunately, we'd managed to hear this week's "The Irrelevant Show," and some more interesting (to my 'Murican ears) Canadian indie rock played by a DJ named Sean who seemed to think a lot of himself, but was pretty amusing anyway.  And we had the best fried clams I have had in about a million years at a place called Ossie's, not too far from the border crossing.  

All of the sudden, there weren't a million different places to put your recycling.  There were just garbage cans.  And there were a lot more cop cars.  And a lot more stores of every sort.  We were in New England.  Darn, I thought.  I'm just now beginning to understand this calling-for-a-new-election thing.  I'm not ready for McCain's out-there VP choice that's supposedly going to rend the Democratic party asunder by peeling off the PUMA's. I'm not ready for American idiocy and fish that's less than fresh and butter that doesn't taste like butter and and and plastic bags blowing around everywhere.

When we got out of the car in Bar Harbor, Maine, the air was warm and just a little bit humid.  I could imagine Hudson River Valley air.  It wasn't the oddball sideways mist of the Maritimes.  I switched  my jeans for a summer dress, and Ken and I plunged into the throngs wandering through eighty-five different venues where you can buy sweatshirts that say Bar Harbor and stuffed mooses and candles that smell aggressively of the piney forests.

Did I tell you that I finally read Anne of Green Gables, and I liked it?  Turns out that the Canadian Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a proto-feminist tract, and better written than I would have expected.  

I'm busy downloading music for my first show back home.  I can't wait to hug my kitties, and to greet Treavor Hastings of Sonic Streams down in Round Pond on Monday.  He's on a short Maine vacation, and we have some catching up to do.  I'll be home on Wednesday night, and I'll be making fresh Cocktails with Chris on Friday at the usual time: four to six Eastern.  By the way, that's five to seven, Atlantic.  See you there. 

Doctor Dolittle Strikes Again

If you listen to my radio show, you know that my husband, Ken, talks to the animals.  You know that at home, the mallards who live in our creek follow him around making little quacky muttering noises (full disclosure: he gives them cracked corn to eat).  I once caught him on the other side of the creek, having a conversation with a deer, who was so transfixed by Ken's presence that you'd think I was  married to a headlight.  You know--deer?  Headlight?  Oh, never mind.

Ken has names for the groundhogs.  Ken tells the golden finches that they are beautiful.  They seem to listen.

So we're still on vacation, still on Prince Edward Island, and Ken has a whole raftload full of new animal pals.  Yesterday, we visited the Anne of Green Gables house.  Neither one of us had read the book before we came up here, me because I was a bitter and cynical youth & Anne was just too sweet for my tastes at the time.  And Ken probably didn't read it because he wasn't a girl.  

Ken's reading it.  He loves it.  He reads the purpler, more sentimental passages out loud to me. And he was the one who insisted upon the pilgrimage yesterday.  I'm here to tell you the place that inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery is a lovely site, prettily restored in the appropriate late-Victorian fashion you'd expect, and surrounded by an exuberantly blooming English-style flower garden.  There are nature trails, too, marked by the charming names Montgomery gave them in her book and filled with little critters for Ken to talk to.  He made friends with a little brown squirrel yesterday in The Haunted Woods.  

It talked back to him, making this odd little chirping sound that American grey squirrels don't make.  Perhaps it was telling Ken that it was good that he was visiting Canada, and that maybe when we go back to the States, we'll remember our Canadian vacation & continue to compost our garbage.  I don't know.  But Ken was crouched down for quite a while, saying things like "You're a fine little fellow, aren't you?" to the squirrel while other Green Gable fans cut a wide swath around him.  

Let me say that again: other Green Gable fans. Ken's love of the little brown squirrel was a little too sweet for other fans of Anne.

Yikes.

I was proud of him, though, really, as I always am, and even though I threatened to buy him the straw hat with the red pigtails on it in the gift shop afterwards, I was even prouder of him later that evening.

So.  Act Two.  We returned to our picturesque vacation rental, a barn/cottage sort of place outside Charlottetown.  I started to cook dinner.  Ken made me a delicious cocktail.  And a rattle rattle bang bang bang came from the (happily un-lit) woodstove in the living room.   

"What the Hell was that?" said I.

And it clattered again.  Ken had been busily watching birds outside our window.  A very dark thought struck him.

"I hope it's not a bird!!  It could die in there!" said Ken.  "I'm calling the landlord!"

The lucky couple who gets to rent to us lives right next door.  I'm sure they were starting dinner preparations also.  Robert came right over, bearing a tote bag.  He and Ken took apart the woodstove, spilling plenty of soot around in the process.  I went into a downstairs bedroom, to take a cell phone call from my sister.   Somewhat later, Robert was gone and Ken was happy.

"It was a sweet little bat!" he said.  "Look!"

Indeed, there was a little brown bat, outside our back door, looking a bit put out at being awakened before twilight.  I sipped my cocktail and got back to cutting up the yummy tomatoes I'd just bought from a farm market nearby. My sister called back, to continue our conversation. 

 "It was a bat," I told her.  

My sister is terrified of bats.  She hates them.

"Ugh," she said.

"But you'd really like it here," I told her.

She didn't seem enthused.

"Um--there are no bear on Prince Edward Island," I said.  "Or moose."

"Perhaps there will be some tomorrow," she said, "In your wood stove."

And a little while later, as if to prove her point, the stove clattered again.

Louder.

Ken got back on the phone.  For the next twenty minutes or so, he and Robert spilled more soot, hauled the stove around, and tried to figure out what the heck was still in there.  Robert finally left, but nothing else emerged.  Five minutes after he was gone, the noise happened again.  Ken got down to business.  Soon a starling came flying out of the stove, crashed into the front windows, and allowed itself to be collected from the floor by Ken.  The bird was a bit dazed, but uninjured.  Ken gently put his hand around it, absolutely delighted.  

"Wait till I show ROB!!" he shouted to me, and ran happily out the door into a cloud of vicious Prince Edward Island mosquitoes.   The bird roused from its stupor a bit and began to scream.  Rob's wife and family, seeing Ken's manic run toward their house, also spilled outside, holding back two dogs and a cat who would surely have thwarted Ken's Operation Starling Rescue in an ugly manner.  

Rob came back to our place with Ken a little while later.

"Saint Francis of Assisi," he said, slightly under his breath.  He said he'd put the wood stove back together sometime today.  I felt for him--but I wouldn't be making this post if I weren't also really proud of the loon I married.  Last night was his favorite night of the whole vacation.

And now it's time for both of us to go enjoy today's sunshine.

OK--Now I Get It...

We've been on the road two weeks.  Rando's still got some fresh Cocktails with Chris prerecorded for the show this Friday, fear not.  And we'll start production of Roots 'n' Ruckus again as soon as I get back home after Labor Day.  But it feels like we've been gone a long time. Canada is, although geographically nearby to those of us in the Northern US, a genuine Foreign Land.  We're really a long way away.  And it took me a while to get that.

Canada is what America could be, and what we aren't because we are too full of ourselves, perhaps a bit too unwilling to change, and probably too greedy.  So I was stumbling over my old ALM high school French in Quebec, and finding their accent (which is indeed as thick as the French French complain it is) a bit impossible.  Big deal.  I should have prepared more.  

Imagine respecting folks enough in the US to accept the fact that they might want to speak a language other than English.  Imagine letting go of the jingoism surrounding--say--the way we regard immigrants from Spanish-speaking lands.  In Canada, there is a province where you speak French.  It's the official language there, the language of road signs, the language in which you will be greeted if you make a phone call for a dinner reservation.  Most of the English speakers up here also speak French, the way Europeans speak more than one language. Remember the Separatist movement in the 1970's?  This is part of how it got settled.  Can you imagine something like that in the States?  It boggles, it really does.  And it is a good sort of boggle.

Here, recycling is the law.  And you have to compost, even in city apartments.  You can get a ticket for idling your car.  There's a hefty sales tax...and people can afford their health care.  It's front page news when nursing homes aren't absolutely up to snuff.  And something gets done about it.

We're on Prince Edward Island right now, for two weeks.  It's what Cape Cod would be if folks hadn't been so anxious to make a buck there--which is to say that most of it is totally gorgeous and unspoiled.   

We've been watching the CBC coverage of the Olympics since we got here, and it's way less shiny-new than the NBC coverage, and a lot more honest.  An anchor actually looked up an athlete's blog on his Dell the other night, and the camera man closed in the laptop screen--glare and crappy picture quality and all.  

Broadcasters don't tiptoe around the uncomfortable issues that arise from having the Games in--let's face it--a country whose policies are pretty dern close to being fascist.  The pro-Tibetan protesters from here who got kicked out were big news.   On CBC radio news, there's no sense of slip-sliding around a government that would LOVE to muzzle them--the way NPR sometimes sounds to me, lately.  Yeah, NPR still does some wonderful news coverage...but it's easy to pick out the story that's been included as "balance."

OK, I'm here in the summer.  It's almost eighty degrees outside and sunny and the light is dancing on the lindens outside our cottage.  But this country's looking pretty good to me right now.  I get it.  It's about being honest, sensible--and decent.

La Festival Internationale du Shut UP!

I'm not sure I spelled "Festival Internationale" right.  Although for years I have privately amused myself by translating things into French (especially when forced into boring conversations with folks I'd rather not be talking to), it takes a visit to a French-speaking area to realize how feeble one's second language really is.  Makes it worse that I am essentially a product of 1960's ALM foreign language studies in which we sat in a thing called a language lab, listening over earphones to what were supposed to be French high school students (just like us, only continental and sophisticated) having conversations.

"Dis donc, out est la biblioteque?" we chorused into our microphones.  This was supposed to teach us to speak rather than to just read.  It didn't.  And since my generation of college undergrads was allowed to major in anything that helped them actualize themselves--and that without a language requirement--I haven't advanced much further in La Francais.  I know where the library is, but I'm useless with (say) road signs in Quebec.  Did that one say something about the cow and the railroad track? I wonder.  And off we hurtle into the mountains where the road crew at work is about to fait les explosions, our speedometer set to those thrilling kilometers (Wow, it says 105!!). 

We have been considerably north of Quebec for several days.  The only thing in English is The Discovery Channel, one Montreal newspaper that our hotel puts out for losers like us at breakfast, and the Olympic coverage on the CBC.  So I find myself rooting for the Canadian women gymnasts. I caught my husband, who hates buying clothes like kids on Our Gang comedies used to hate taking cod liver oil, eyeing a cocktail dress on  What Not To Wear.

Did I mention that it's been raining? 

And that the food is--well--not great, although everything has French names and sounds like it should be.  There's a lot of odd fast food: poulet BBQ, and a ton of Tim Hortons chain restaurants.  For some reason or other, Subway is really big up here.  The sky is huge, the mountains look like the Pacific Northwest a bit, and it's quite obvious that the electricity in this part of the world is enthusiastically, unabashedly hydroelectric.  There are so many lines and towers that it looks like a toy train set.  And there are festivals.  Lord, are there festivals!

We barely made it out of the Quebec 400th (swarms of tourists wearing odd little pewter necklaces that get you into the festival events, many in 17th century garb)!  And an oompah band that played the songs my old high school French teacher made us sing in class (French oompah--what a concept)--this last thing in a tent full of giant puppets featuring the heroes of French Canadian history! As well-educated Americans, we had only the dimmest recollection of who the puppets were supposed to be, but many of them appeared to be members of the clergy or royalty, all wearing manic smiles. One seemed to be a Canadian separatist songwriter of the 1970's--18 feet high.   

And did I mention it has been POURING? It was even raining on the Olympics when we tuned in last night. 

When we arrived in this charming little town, there was another festival  by the local fjord, featuring a scary clown and a foot-pumped  merry-go-round loaded with oddly quiet local children, spinning at about 78 rpm.  The rain had let up a bit by then; it was just spitting.  Last night, that festival seemed to have decamped to the main street of town and grown booths where you could get mojitos, and everyone within ninety miles had arrived to drink them and wear glow-in-the-dark devil horns on their heads.  

Which was probably why it took us two hours to get a plate of mussels to eat in a local restaurant...We kept telling each other that American too-fast service with the courses piling up on the table before you can even finish eating them is uncivilized, but I'll be frank with you.  I'm looking forward to Halifax.  They speak English there.

Gad, I've said it.  Forgive me.  Don't tell Obama.  Don't revoke my citizenship of the world.  

It's morning now, and time to grab some dejeuner (NOT petit dejeuner in this part of the French-speaking world, but that's a trifle I'm not trifling with right now).  We get to ride a ferry today.  See you on the flip side.

Cocktails with Chris--On the Road

No, I'm not being thrown from various moving vehicles--that would be Chuck the DJ (and would you look at him bounce!).  I am on the move--but here's the good news for you, dear listener: Cocktails with Chris is still minty-fresh.  All during July, I worked hard at creating new radio shows for August, so that no Cocktails fan would be left with a watery drink.

I say turn off that silly soundtrack for the Olympics on Friday the 8th and try watching TV with the radio on!  There's a delightful Cocktails with Chris waiting to stream that night.  And my special show with Juliet Quaglia, my link to what those crazy kids are listening to (for real--she's in 9th grade) is on the 15th.  Yet another new new new show awaits you the week after.  So Friday afternoon, 4 to 6, is still cocktail time!

I write these words from just outside Quebec City, having duly embarrassed myself with my high school French.  Folks tend to answer me in English. And I thought I sounded just like Julia Child saying "Bonjour!"  Merde. 

Last night, Ken and I stayed at The Mountain View Resort up at the tip of New Hampster--a venerable sprawl of a  place with sweeping views of the White Mountains and an elevator that needs an operator to run it.  For real--the thing's from the thirties, and its door has a grate and everything.  We had cocktails on the gorgeous front porch, watching the clouds gather over hills and hills and hills, all blue and green and amazing.  Even our bathroom had a view.  It was most swanky.  We played Scrabble in the game room after dinner.   Ken destroyed me.  I think there were a couple of tiles missing, tho'....and he got all the darned vowels. When we returned to our room, we discoved that had it been winter, we could have booked a dogsled ride. A dogsled ride turns out to be very expensive--but a king sized room at The Mountain Resort costs about what the Holiday Inn does.  The food's OK, not fab.  But the place is simply cool.  Recommended, if only for the Shining-esque long, long carpeted halls.  

Have  a listen to my show on Friday--I will :)!  And check this space for further adventures of a Rando DJ on the loose!

A Few Words About Robyn In Piermont

I got to see Robyn Hitchcock at Piermont, New York's The Turning Point last night.  Showtime was 7:30 PM; it was still light outside, and Robyn joked about pretending that it was a lunchtime show at the opening of the gig.  Although I have seen Robyn Hitchcock perform in the bright sunshine at a couple of West Coast outdoor concerts back in the 90's, this time it seemed odd to be witnessing his show before twilight. Robyn performed acoustically and solo, delivering an intense set punctuated with his usual surreal between-the-songs patter. My favorite of those was a tale of prisoners who were nightly returned to their jails by blimps to which they were tethered at their ankles.  He steamed on through to the end of the show, taking no breaks. 

The Turning Point is a great room in which to see someone like Robyn.  It's in the basement of an early 19th-century house: a little dark, heavily air conditioned, and oddly cozy.  It's also so small that the effect of seeing a show there is like being entertained at the private party of someone very fortunate.  The sound and the sightlines are excellent.   

The local Robyn Hitchcock faithful were out in force, singing along and keeping set lists.  I make a point of NOT keeping a set list at shows by musicians I really love.  I don't sneak in digital recorders or take pics on my cell phone, either.  I like to just listen, and let the evening wash over me.  And indeed, my choice to do so was rewarded last night.  Still, it was nice being in the presence of other folks who express their pleasure at being present in other ways, though--a homecoming of sorts. 

Robyn played two of my favorite songs: "Mr. Kennedy" and "Only The Stones Remain"  "Ole Tarantula" worked fine unplugged.   His intro to "Victorian Squid" was another example of the man's ability to prop open the door to his subconscious pretty much at will--and it's a great song, too.

I liked hearing "Adventure Rocketship," a bunch also.  OK, I'll admit it: I was one of the folks who ponyed up to Yep Roc and put it as the ringtone on my cell.  (And here I am bragging about being too cool to make set lists!)  Honestly, though, the only reason I downloaded it was because I never figured out how to get the clip I grabbed of the opening guitar work from  Element of Light's "Airscape"onto my phone instead.  But let me be clear: I really like "Adventure Rocketship."  I read somewhere that "The Yip Yip Song" is the theme to a childrens' TV show in the UK.  "Adventure Rocketship" is the show I'd have really wanted to see as a little girl.

The crucifixion of Jesus seemed to be much on Robyn's mind last night.  He mentioned it several times in  his song intros, finally comparing it to the little toy penguin he had stood on the miniature green road cone beside him onstage.  I don't know anyone else who could a) get away with that or b) get a laugh from doing so.   

Hitchcock also mentioned Storefront Hitchcock , the Jonathan Demme concert flick of about ten years back, and got a round of applause for it.  Demme was sitting at the table next to me, with his family; one of Demme's younger kids got the final benediction of the show from Robyn:"have a great time at camp." I liked that.  Who gets a send-off from Robyn Hitchcock for summer camp??  Wonderful--kind of like getting to hear Robyn in a tiny room with the sun going down unnoticed on the Hudson River across the street.  

After the show, I gave Robyn a RandoRadio T-shirt and suggested he put off doing his laundry for another day.  Told him we play plenty of his music.  I was too flummoxed to do my usual handshake and "Chris Potter from RandoRadio" routine; I'll admit it.  I mean heck--it was Robyn Hitchcock I was talking to!!  He said he could use a shirt as he'd lost a bag on the tour.   I'd be honored if our own Adventure Rocketship T helped fill in the gap.

He's playing again tonight, Wednesday  the 16th of July.   OK, so I'm a true believer.  But if you can, GO.

 

Juliet, My Fairy Goddaughter

My pal Nancy calls me the Fairy Godmother of her two daughters Juliet and Alyssum.  Alyssum's off in Italy this summer, almost all grown-up (junior year in high school come September!) but Jules is just going into 9th grade.  Which means I get to have her around for a while longer, and that's a good thing.

The daughter of two artists (a painter and a glass artist), Jules has also always loved music with a passion.  That and Japanese graphic arts of all descriptions.  Did I tell you she also gets more in the way of royalties for a poem she wrote back in grade school than I have ever gotten for a single poem in my whole life?  She does.  It got picked up as a reading comp question in one of those dreaded standardized tests; it originally ran in Stone Soup.  The kid's got talent.

And so she's taping a show with me today which will run in August in place of a Cocktails with Chris.  There have been noises made about Japanese rap.  I intend to play some of my usual tunes if I can get away with it.  Will Jules be into playing some of Lou's amazing Warner Brothers loss leaders?  The Shadow knows.

So stay tuned.

I'll be live on the air at my usual time this week: Friday 5 to 7, right after My Mid-life Crisis with Glenn.   I'm going to see Robyn Hitchcock at The Turning Point tonight, so I'll have my thoughts on that concert.  

See you real soon.  Why?  Because we LIKE you.

My Husband and the Hawk

There is no Nora without Nick.  That's just a fact.  And so, before I go to the studio tomorrow to record a couple of new Roots 'n' Ruckus shows with Ed & Greg, I will let you in on a little true story from high atop the Potter building (in a swanky neighborhood near you)...

...Our swimming pool works again.  It was out of commission during various renovations last year, but it's lovely and clear and inviting this summer, and Tom Jones had just finished his show on Randoradio about an hour before all this happened.  Tom and Ken and I were bobbing in the warm water, chatting about Tom's latest Logovore project (the one about the private family words for stuff).  Overhead, the sky was heading for sunset.  The creek that runs by our house was burbling in the background and a member of the duck community that lives here was scarfing up the cracked corn we leave out for them under our apple tree.  

Suddenly, the biggest red-tailed hawk I have ever seen swooped down and attempted to make a meal of the poor duck.  Frantic quacking ensued.  It was a female duck--not the mama that had marched her ducklings through our place this spring, but one we'd seen before.  The hawk was trying to get its talons into her and she was not doing well at fighting the raptor off.  

It was an ugly situation.  No hawk can take a duck.  Hawks eat their prey in the trees.  The hawk could have horribly hurt or killed the duck, but couldn't have flown away with it.  

Ken sprang out of the pool and ran at the hawk with his hands stretched high over his head.

"BLEEEAHHHH!  BLAAAAAAA!  BLEAAAH!" he bellowed.

The hawk cast a baleful eye at him.  The duck stopped screaming.

"BLEEEAH!!!!  BLAAAAAAAAA!" shouted Ken.

The hawk dropped the duck and flew across the creek.  The duck began to quack again and flew into the creek.  She swam upstream, seemingly uninjured.  

Another crisis averted.  Ken slid back into the pool to our applause.  

I have no idea what music I will play or what drink I will mix on my Friday show to honor Ken's rescue of the innocent duck.  I'll think of something.  But I wanted to make note of my dear mate, who is not afraid of looking utterly ridiculous in order to save a critter who would have died needlessly.  

Any suggestions for an appropriate set?  

The Glorious Fourth

I've been trying to figure out why someone with my cranky old-Lefty politics loves the big American holidays as much as I do.  I mean, don't get me wrong; Christmas is great, but I'm a big Independence Day fan.  Thanksgiving usually rocks, too.

July 4th, the better part of twenty years ago, I was ending one period of my life and beginning another, speeding down the road in my car with three vintage sundresses and my Robyn Hitchcock LP's, the only things I initially rescued from a relationship that had just died that evening.  It was the only time in my life I'd ever traveled that light, but what I'd grabbed pretty much summed me up.  I've long since forgiven my poor ex, and I hope he has me--but that Independence Day was the beginning of who I am now, and everything I've done with my life since.   So I'm planning on lighting a sparkler for my country as well as myself this Friday. 

And I'm going to be on the air at Rando, from 4 to 6 Eastern, streaming live.  I'm thinking I'll read a little Twain, perhaps, and play a lot of American music of course.  It'll be good.

You know, when I started writing this blog entry, I mentioned Thanksgiving and July 4th in the same breath.  And now that I consider it, there's a reason for that.  There's something to be thankful for on July 4th for all of us in this battered, confused, and suddenly hopeful nation.  July 4th is really a holiday of gratitude, and I am grateful.  

Let's make some potato salad together on Friday, dear listener--you and me.  And some white sangria, I think.  I'll give you my recipe on the air.  It's great at a picnic, with fireworks.

  

A Perfect Dinner

Why does it always come down to food and drink with me?

Well, it does.  I 'spect it does with a lot of us.  So I'll give you a preview of my tomorrow's show, and tell you about the ultimate comforting dinner.

Did you see the thing in the NY Times about blender cocktails being OK again?  I was beginning to think they might be, as we make a couple of them that aren't spring break swill, and here on top of the Potter Building, we are very very cool.  So I made the Cherry Flip out of that article. Twice. It's dern good: fresh cherries, bourbon, bitters, lemon juice, and just a little sugar.  Blend with ice, garnish with mint.  We did it for Tom Jones (check out HIS show on Rando--a true delight!!!) last night, but tonight, we realized what the author of that Good Grey article had neglected: a splash of maraschino.  Cut back on the sugar if you do that, and maybe amp up the lemon juice just an eensy bit.  You've heard me go on and on and on about maraschino on the air...it's not the juice in the cherry jar, etc. etc.  'Tis a clear, not overly-sweet liqueur found in a well-stocked booze store, or on the net if your place of residence allows you to buy alcohol that way. 

I'm here to tell you that Cherry Flips rock.  I'll have more to say on my show.

And here's (believe it or not) what I made for dinner:

From scratch Tuna-Noodle Casserole (mostly organic ingredients and shut up 'till I explain), and...

Salad from our garden with homemade pseudo-Thousand Island dressing.  Pseudo-Thousand Island is mayo, a little buttermilk to thin it, ketchup, horseradish to taste, and a shake of dill weed.

From Scratch Tuna-Noodle:

1/2 pound decent pasta in a penne, rotini, or macaroni shape (can use Dreamfield's if you're low carbing it)

A big handful of chopped mushrooms--can be exotic or plain old

A smaller handful of finely chopped celery

5 tablespoons sweet  butter

4 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk warmed in the nuker

a pouch of mass market tuna (better than the cans)

about four ounces of grated cheddar cheese

a small handful of decent grated parmesan cheese

a few shakes of hot sauce

salt and pepper to taste

worcestershire sauce to taste

a shake of sweet or hot paprika

In a good-sized saucepan over low heat, sweat the onions and mushrooms in the butter, which you will have melted.  Add the flour when the veg are soft, and stir with a rubbermaid spatula until evenly distributed.  Cook a minute or two, still on a gentle flame.  Add the warm milk, turn up the heat to medium, and stir until thickened.  Add parmesan, tuna, & salt & pepper. Season with worcestershire sauce and hot sauce.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta.  Drain when just short of being cooked.

Mix the pasta and the white sauce mixture  in the pot in which you cooked the white sauce. Turn into buttered casserole dish, sprinkle with grated cheddar, add a shake of paprika and maybe another grind of black pepper. Bake in a 350 oven, covered (with lid or tin foil), for about twenty minutes.  Serve hot with salad.

OK, sneer.  It's middle 'murican food.  But the trick here is no fake ingredients--no cream of mushroom soup.  We fake that by making what the soup was in the recipe to fake in the first place: a white sauce.  It's easily enough made.  But it's so tasty I defy you to not eat thirds.

And a Cherry Flip is just the thing before it--sorta like a Squishee from the Quickie Mart, only really really good.  

I'm not heavily into irony unless you can eat it.

See you on the internet version of the airwaves tomorrow.

We Have Lifted Off

So, denizens of the Randosphere--

We have achieved lift-off.

RandoRadio is officially LAUNCHED.  The stream is running 24/7, we're readying new shows to upload, and all sorts of delightful treats are in store!

Want to know what it was like at the GaGa Arts Festival this weekend, sending our rocketship of a freeform internet radio station up?  It was hot.  I mean really hot--and not in the rock 'n' roll, sexy garments sense.  I mean good old-fashioned Hudson River Valley heat & humidity.  Lethal ozone levels.  The kind of hellish blast that one associates with...um...well, how about Hell?  As in "it was hotter than the hinges of Hell."  It was.

True RandoRadio fact: our beloved station lives in a very groovy (very basic in terms of luxuries like AC and such) arts center north of NYC, on the west bank of the Hudson.  We're in loftspace at GaGa, an old factory complex.  Think Soho before it gentrified, or Mass MOCA before they restored it.  It's cheap 'n' cheerful, and the company is great.  Our control room is thoroughly air conditioned.  But we needed to keep our office doors open to attract visitors during our launch party.  The result?  Lordy Lord.

How hot was it?

It was so hot that Ed Croft & Greg Schettino were actually slowed down, just a weeny, tiny bit.   Which meant that normal human beings could almost comprehend their energy levels.  Ed & Greg are, of course, the 17-year-old stars of Roots 'n' Ruckus, the one-hour live performance/oddball scratchy 78 rpm/rare C&W record show on Rando.  Think of that--two young guys, not even old enough to vote, who channel Hank Williams.  We've got 'em at Rando, and we're glad, even though it takes three of us oldsters to wrangle them when they come up for a show.  File under: herding cats.   Really talented cats, that is.  

Ed, Greg, and their electric band, The Moonshiners, opened the GaGa Arts Festival with a set of early Dylan, Hank Williams, and some rootsy/reggae-inflected original music.  They played outside under the music tent noontime this past Saturday.  They were astonishingly, dazzlingly good.  We have recorded evidence that they peeled the red paint off the old Haverstraw brick buildings surrounding them.   Stay tuned for it on RandoRadio!

Throughout the weekend, we streamed all our shows live, with video at Ustream. Saturday was Glenn Carella with My Midlife Crisis,  Kenny Pearson with The Black Coffee Hour (plus a bonus hour of Kenny performing his original songs and some great covers, too), Gus Mason's Lament, and The Father Of Us All, Lou Cannizzaro, with Random Madness.   Sunday opened up with Giacomo Servetti's G Train, and steamed down the tracks pulling along Cocktails with Chris (starring moi), Treavor Hastings' Sonic Streamz, and the long-awaited debut of Tom Jones, better known back in the FM heyday as WRNW's Duke of Darkness.  Treavor's fixing up the recordings of that rich stew right now.  It'll be rerun on our stream very soon.

Visitors dripping sweat drifted through, waving at the DJ's behind the glass window. Temperatures in our offices hovered around about 90 degrees.  It was meat-locker-ish in the control room though, and blessedly so, keeping radio hosts and computers from melting down.  Glenn inaugurated the weekend with a fanfare that summed up the whole affair perfectly: The Portsmith Symphonia's utter demoliton of  "Also Sprach Zarathustra".    

The rest of us, eagerly awaiting our turn at the frosty & refreshing mic, alternately laid our heads on the desks and whimpered, drinking oceans of sugar-free ginger ale (courtesy of Lou), and bothering one another by singing the refrain to "B Double E  Double Are You In?  Beer Run!  Beer Run!" Gus Mason completed the dreaded ear worm effect by playing the cursed thing on his show.  He was locked in the control room so we didn't kill him.

But we also managed to meet lots of folks who love the idea of free form radio that includes what we include: Edith Piaf, Robyn Hitchcock, Psychedelic bands no one has ever heard of,  Sun Ra, Kenny Young and the Eggplants...the list goes on...If one of those visitors was you, dear reader, welcome, welcome!

I spun all thirteen minutes of The Incredible String Band's "White Bird" on my show, along with my fave track from the Sex, Food, Death & Tarantulas (do I have the order right there?) Robyn Hitchcock CD.  My old pal Sheila from Summit School stuck her head in--and then my god kid, Juliet.  I'd cut down my RandoRadio T-shirt to a sleeveless Flash-dance sorta thing by then, which might not be quite the look for me, but at least I was cool enough to focus.

The video stream revealed me getting my hair caught in the headphones, getting the gauzy Grateful-Dead-concert-skirt I'd worn caught in the rolling chair, and exposing the side of my midriff to the world at large.  I'll tell you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that's entertainment!!  The audio stream was pretty darned good, though, if I do say so.  And what a cool thing it was to actually be a little nervous on the air because LOTS OF FOLKS WERE WATCHING AND LISTENING.

God, I love this station.

You should have been there.

Most of the Rando DJ's ended up back at my house later that night, drinking the Mojitos we'd been so cruelly deprived of in our effort to be coherent for station visitors that weekend.  

Friends, there is great joy in the Randosphere today.  Keep listening!  Keep listening!

  

Retro Lasagna

Unreconstructed, 1960's variety Lasagna!!

There are a number of dinner recipes that work very well with listening to Cocktails With Chris, and in fact that just plain work well with cocktails & friends over for dinner.

I made lasagna for the first time in maybe twenty years tonight, and it rocked.  Lasagna is something I used to make for my friends Back In the Day.  What I'd forgotten about it is that you can get it all tucked into the oven to bake and have plenty of time for a drink with your pals who have shown up for dinner or your mate before sitting down to something that (let's face it) everyone really, really likes.  

Here's what you need to make what I made tonight:

A box of good dried lasagna--Italian imported is best, but if you're counting carbs, Dreamfield's is pretty darned good, too.

2 big cans of decent crushed tomatoes.  I like Muir Glen fire-roasted, organic.

2 medium sized onions, diced

7 cloves fresh garlic, chopped or run through a press

a few tablespoons of olive oil

a shake of crushed red pepper

a shake of fennel seeds

2/3-3/4 pound bulk sweet Italian sausage (or links)

about a cup of fresh sliced mushrooms (any variety)

One fifteen ounce container of ricotta

One egg

A pinch or about ten gratings of fresh nutmeg

One one pound ball of fresh mozzarella

either dried or fresh basil, to taste

a good handful of fresh parsley, chopped

a splash of leftover dry red wine

Sautee the onions in enough olive oil to keep them from sticking (2 tablespoons or a little more).  When they begin to soften, throw in the sausage and the mushrooms.  Add the garlic.  If you're using bulk sausage, break it up with the spatula and saute.   If you had to buy links, add them sliced, and cook them that way.   Add crushed red pepper and fennel seeds. When the sausage and 'shrooms are mostly cooked, deglaze the pan with the red wine, dump in the tomatoes and cook for about ten minutes on medium/medium low heat.  Taste and correct the seasoning.  You may need a pinch of sugar (no more) if the sauce tastes acidy.  Throw in the handful of parsley.  Season with basil to taste.

Meanwhile, cook 12-14 pieces of dried lasagna in boiling water, using the largest pot you own.  When it just begins to soften, drain and rinse with cool water.   Grate or cut the mozarella cheese into tiny pieces.  Beat the ricotta in a bowl with one egg and a few gratings of fresh nutmeg, or a pinch of the pre-grated.  

Start to make the lasagna by ladling a bit of the sauce into the bottom of a long, shallow casserole dish.  Top with three lasagne noodles and begin to layer sauce, ricotta mixture, and mozarella with the noodles until you use up the lasagna noodles.  Top with a layer of sauce and a healthy scattering of mozarella and basil.  Bake at 350 for about a half an hour.

*****************

The glory of this dish is that you can get it done before anyone shows up for dinner, and enjoy having a drink or just some good conversation with your company while it bakes.  If you're an organized person, you can even have all the pots and knives and such that you used to prepare this meal cleaned before you put the lasagna in the oven.

This meal is good with a green salad and some good Italian bread, after just about any cocktail except the Tiki silliness ones (which have their other uses).

The Lovely Sound Of Shaken Ice Cubes

I'm thinking about the Nick and Nora movie where Nora summons Nick home from blocks away by shaking a cocktail.  Sitting on a park bench, Nick suddenly lifts his head--message received.

Now, this is Not Healthy according to contemporary thought.  I mean, have you ever counted how many drinks those two went through in a movie?  Yikes.  These days, she'd just pull out her iPhone, anyway.   Of course, a Nick and Nora era cocktail was about a quarter of the size of contemporary martini glasses.  But really, says the Voice of Reason, isn't it better to be additive-free?    

There's nothing wrong with additive-free.   And virtual cocktails can be just as effective as the liquid kind, anyway.  A free-form radio show is kind of a cocktail in and of itself.  By the way, there's also nothing wrong with free range, or the 100 mile diet, or...well, I won't go so far as endorsing low-fat because I think it MAKES  you fat.  Hmmm. I seem to have wandered off the topic.  I do that.

But this blog is going to be on many topics, so it's all OK.  Besides: it's MY BLOG.  And it's MY BLOG about my radio show on RandoRadio.com, Cocktails with Chris.  And also about the other Rando show of which I am proud to be a part, Roots 'n' Ruckus.  On that show, I'm the perky older  gal announcer being overrun by the incredible 17-year-old Hank Williams-esque energy of Ed Croft and his pal Greg  Schettino.  You have to listen to that show, my dear. I'll say more about it in another posting...

Meanwhile, I'm basking in the joy of having a copy of Steam Powered Aereoplain by John Hartford once again.  I've played it on a couple of my shows lately.  Speaking of blasts from the past, I was super-happy to download a copy of Nils Lofgren's "authorized bootleg" Back It Up!  I--um--sorta knew someone from the late, lamented WRNW (as in he's my ex-husband) and we had a vinyl copy of that one.  So cool that something that was first released only to radio stations is now available to us all!  And you've probably also figured out that I really, really, really like the latest Steve Earle record.  And Robyn Hitchcock's take on "Copper Kettle" on the Sex, Food, Death...and Tarantulas EP download is just wonderful.  And also, I have to find out more about Prem Joshua.  

Pausing for a breath...

I guess I should also 'fess up to being a poet with an internet forum at which I'm the head moderator, The Gazebo.  It's at alsopreview.com .  I also have a slender collection of verse called Zero Degrees At First Light which is published by David Robert Books (davidrobertbooks.com).  I think it's pretty darned good, but that's me.  I tend to keep the DJ end of my life and the poetry end of my life separate.   

So we know each other, now.

And RandoRadio is FINALLY streaming!!  Do join me--and us--on this cool adventure.  I promise there will be plenty of refreshments along the way.