Thursday, 11/9

It may have been just what I needed.

I had another one of my usual long days yesterday, starting with TV in the morning, a few meetings about an upcoming video project after that, and then radio in the afternoon. These days are becoming more & more common, for some bizarre reason I'm still not used to them, and by the end of the day I might often need a pick-me-up. I got one at 4:45 when I answered the phone after soliciting an Instant Request, and I heard this--

“Hi, can you play ‘Superstition’ by Stevie Wonder”?

My usual reaction when I get that particular phone call is to imitate Homer Simpson when he drools over a box of doughnuts, and I did again this time. I also threw in my usual line about “Superstition” being one of the two greatest songs ever recorded (which, of course, it is) and had the caller agree with me, which is always a bonus. I then got the phone call ready for air, played it, and started the song.

I don’t what it is. I don’t know if it’s the drum beat, the bass line, the horns, or any combination thereof, but the second the song starts something inside me moves. My toe taps a little, my head starts to nod in time to the music, and this feeling washes over me. Even on a day like yesterday, a day when the world was turned all around, when I heard the first few notes of “Superstition” a feeling that’s a combination of happiness, contentment, and pure funk washed over me, cleansing my psyche of whatever ill was infecting it and booting my fatigue to a place from which it couldnt' return.

The power of that song is amazing. It really is.

The funny thing is that I don’t believe any other piece of music has that exact power over me. There are a couple of songs that I like better than “Superstition”; there are also a couple of tunes that I know are probably “better” than “Superstition”, as well. But there is no other song that has the power over my mood and my state of mind that “Superstition” has. I don’t know why; I probably couldn’t even explain it if I did know why. All I know is that a song that is, what, 50 years old this year can take even the worst day and make it seem all right.

I hope everyone has a song like that in their life. I really do!

*****

I have tomorrow off, as it's a corporate holiday, so there won't be a new one of these. I'll be back Monday, but really do feel that I need to leave you with this.

Have a great weekend!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 11/8

I'm from Marquette. I don't think I'll ever be “done for the year”.

Sitting in the hallway at work is my “auxiliary bike”--

I think I've written about this before; it's a 30-year old steel-framed bike that I keep at work in case I need to get somewhere. When it's summer and I want to ride I use my new(ish) Giant mountain bike, but in case I need something at the spur of the moment while I'm at work I have my aux bike.

While I was working yesterday it was snowing out a little. It was mostly flakes in the air; nothing stuck to the ground, and it was more a nuisance than anything. However, after looking out the window, my boss said to me, and I'm quoting here, “looks like your bike's done for the year”. That might be true for some people but, as we all know, I'm not “some people”.

And I'm from Marquette, where you see people riding bikes through even the worst winter snow storms.

Now,. to be fair, most of those people riding during a blizzard are on fat tire bikes, which my aux bike is not. But that doesn't mean there's not some fool out there riding a regular mountain bike all year long. How do I know that? Well, let's say that there's some fool named, oh, “Jim” out there, and maybe—just maybe—that fool named “Jim” has ridden his mountain bike to each and every Harbor Advisory Committee meeting (so far) in 2023.

That's right...the fool named “Jim” took a bike from downtown Marquette to Lakeview Arena and back in January, February, March and April this year, and has plans to do so next week and in December, as well. Why, you ask? Well, I answer, it's quicker than walking, and if the roads are clean (which they usually are) it's just like riding there during the summer, albeit with a lot more clothing needed to stay warm.

Whether or not that “Jim” is a fool...well, I'll leave it up to you.

So no, my auxiliary bike is NOT done for the year. In fact, depending upon how you look at it, it may just be getting started. So if you see a fool named “Jim” on a bike some month soon in the middle of a snowstorm, you now know why.

He is, after all, a “fool”. And this is, after all, Marquette. We don't let a little snow stop us from getting somewhere on a bike.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 11/7

Oh, look. It got weirder.

I've been writing in here a bit recently about how my life has gotten quite...surreal over the past year and a half, everything ranging from my face being plastered on the side of a bus to me becoming the voice of a plumbing & heating business in New Jersey. Each time something new happens I think it can't be topped, and each time I am wrong.

The latest example? Well, the little TV show I've hosted for the past eight years began its new season last week, and when I went to into my Spectrum app last night to set up the recording for this upcoming weekend's shows, look what greeted me--

It's not bad enough I'm on the side of a bus, nor is it bad enough that I'm on TV in New Jersey.

Now, my mug is plastered all over a TV app.

I had no idea this was happening; I'm sure that, somewhere, Spectrum decided they needed art work for the show, and either through WNMU-TV or on their own they found THAT artwork. At least it's a picture with which I'm comfortable. There are many of them out there where I look like a dork (okay, even more of a dork than usual), and thankfully they didn't use one of those.

But still. A picture of me? On a TV app? Really?

I'm almost afraid to wonder what's coming next. I'd like to think nothing could top everything that's happened recently, but both you & I know that's a very low bar to clear. I don't even wanna venture a guess as to what it'll be; all I know is that it'll be weirder than my face on the side of a bus. Or my voice on TV in New Jersey.

Or a picture of my ugly mug on a TV app.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 11/6

It would be a hard choice. It really would.

Loraine and I did something just a little out of the ordinary Saturday. We took her car for a little ride and went down to Aldi in Escanaba. The fact that we had to drive 70 miles—to a town with half the population of Marquette—to visit an Aldi is bizarre in and of itself. We went down, bought the things we like to buy when we visit the Aldi near where her parents live (and that town, Caro, only has a third of Marquette's population), and then scooted home.

Oh, and Iron Mountain, a town with also only a third of Marquette's population, is about to have their own Aldi open. Are you sensing that something's amiss here?

8-)

On the way back we got into a discussion regarding Aldi, a store we like to visit when downstate, and Trader Joe's, a store we frequent while in Chicago. And that got us to thinking—if you could only choose one, which would it be?

Hard choice, right?

In a way, the stores are very much the same, in that they have slightly different products than most stores, and some of those products are amazing. Because they're both stocked with their own brands, their prices are different than at “normal” grocery stores, as well. I suppose both of those are things that draw us to them. You could also consider the fact that Aldi's based in Germany and has some cool European products but Trader Joe's has one of the best selection of chocolates anywhere and, well, you can see why it might be a hard choice.

Even Meryl Streep probably couldn't help us choose.

I don't think we ever actually came anywhere close to a decision, other than the conclusion that we're far more likely to get an Aldi than we are a Trader Joe's. Of course, in a normal world we already would have an Aldi, while towns with a third of our population would say “when are we getting ours”? But that's neither here nor there. The road trip prompted a question, a question that—at least for now—has no answer.

But at least the road trip gave us all kinds of goodies to nibble upon for the next few months.  Or, at least, until some sign that Marquette may indeed be getting its own Aldi.  Keep your fingers crossed!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 11/3

It's another one of those busy days, and a TV studio awaits (and yes, it DOES seem like I spend more time in TV than in radio studios these days). So I'll leave you with something from back six years ago.

But it's a piece that, for some reason, has always stuck with me.

Have a great weekend, and don't forget to do the Time Warp thing Saturday night!

(jim@wmqt.com)

*****

(as originally posted 11/28/17)

It took me 24 hours to figure it out, but I really am a lucky person.

Loraine was watching an interview Friday with Noel Gallagher, the brains behind Oasis, and the interviewer was throwing a series of rapid-fire questions at him. He would be given two items, and he had to choose which one he would give up forever if he was forced to pick. Most of them were goofy and musically oriented (“The Stones or The Who”? “Fender or Gibson”?) and gave Gallagher fits having to choose, but there was one he had no problem with—the city or the beach? He rattled off “the city” quickly; as it turns out, he doesn't even like the beach. The question, though, stuck with me. If I was forced to choose between giving up either the city or the beach, the two places I love to be in more than any other, I don't think I could. It's be like Sophie having to choose between her children.

There's just no good outcome to that question, and no one—NO ONE—should ever be forced to have to make that horrid decision.

As I've written in here many times before, I am an urban creature. I need concrete and I need people and I need the feeling of being a part of something. If you were to force me to live in the woods or in someplace without a sidewalk I probably couldn't handle it. And as I've written in here before, my dream job is being a (highly paid) beach bum. So the thought of having to choose between the two just wouldn't work.

As I was running the next morning I came to a realization. I realized that, living where I live, I would never have to make that choice. I would never have to choose between being in a city or going to a beach. I can have my concrete and sidewalks and people, and I can have my beach. I can have them at the same time. In fact, I've had them at the same times many times, as I leave work or my apartment, and hop on a bike or take a short walk down to McCarty's Cove or South Beach. I actually live in a place where I can be in a city AND a beach at the same time.

I live in a place that has BOTH of my versions of heaven. How many people get to say that?

I mean; seriously—how many people get to say that? How many people get to be in an urban core of a city and yet have a beach a few seconds away? Very few. And of those few, how many actually take time out of their day to appreciate it? I mean, even I think I've been a little guilty of taking the fact that Marquette has great beaches for granted; after all, they're just part of what makes this city so wonderful. Maybe it took that question to point out just how amazingly lucky we are here. Maybe when you're pondering having to choose between two incredible things, your eyes are opened just a little bit more as to how lucky you really are.

I hope I never, ever have to answer that question posed to Noel Gallagher. But in a way, I'm glad he was asked.

Thursday, 11/2

It's a good thing I REALLY like Jennifer Aniston.

I'm not on social media much these day, what with the ever-increasing workload we've discussed the past few weeks. But when I do hop on Facebook for a few minutes, just to see what I'm missing, I discover that, apparently, the only thing I'm missing is 11,000 pictures of Jennifer Aniston.

One after the other.

I'm not sure it's because Facebook's algorithm is broke or if it's just mad at me for not spending a lot of my time on the site, but I no longer seem to get many items posted by friends. Instead, I get a LOT of “suggested for you” pages, the vast majority of which are pages that post pictures from throughout the years of the “Friends” star. I don't know why; I follow nothing that has to do with her, so I don't know what would have triggered it.

But apparently, Facebook thinks she's the only thing in which I'm interested.

Now don't get me wrong; I have nothing against Jennifer Aniston. I think she's a great performer, and between Loraine and me there's a standing joke that I'd be allowed to dump my dear wife should Ms. Aniston come a-calling. But as to why Facebook seems to think that I'd be happy looking at a feed consisting of nothing but screenshots and paparazzi pictures of her?

Eh, not so much.

Like I said, I'm hoping it's just a bug in Facebook's programming. If not, if they think that I have that one interest and that one interest only, then I'll be spending less time on the site that I even do now.

No matter how much they think I might like Jennifer Aniston.

******

Before I go, I have to wish my favorite brother in the world a happy birthday! I mean, I'm contractually obligated to call him my “favorite”; after all, he's my only brother. But Marc, I DO hope you have a great day, and that the kids have something extra special planned!!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 11/1

I only have a few minutes, as I have to go shoot another episode of “High School Bowl” in a bit, but like ever other person of my generation I feel the need to share my favorite Matthew Perry TV moment.

Although mine ISN'T from “Friends”.

I've written in here a lot recently about one of the weird aspects of working in TV, how once you're done with something you have to start on the next thing because it's a monster with an insatiable appetite. Well, my favorite Matthew Perry TV moment illustrates that point perfect.

On his short-lived series “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” he played the writer of a “Saturday Night Live”-type show. The only writer, in fact, which is something that would never happen in real life. In one of the first episodes the cast celebrates a great show, but he doesn't join in. Instead, he goes to his office, turns on a countdown clock, sees how much time he has left until the next episode airs, stares off into space for a second, and then sits down to start writing.

THAT'S my favorite Matthew Perry TV. For as much as I love “Friends”--and I do love “Friends”--there's something in that moment that shows he really was a pretty good dramatic actor. And, as I've discovered recently, it's almost a moment to which I can relate just a little too readily.

Okay. I need to run and feed that TV monster in a minute or two. But tomorrow, maybe I'll share the story about how another cast member from “Friends” has been invading my life the past few days.

Even though I didn't ask for it.

(jim@wmqt.com)