Attribution: Robbiework, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joined the keeper and Phyllis in watching the parade of old country music stars celebrate Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday on Sunday night TV, and proclaimed the time well spent considering the age group involved and alternative entertainment options. As a symbol of …
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Category:Music
Blue Christmas
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted December 2020) As we were trimming the tree last weekend, my wife asked me to bring in the laptop so we could listen to Christmas music. I complied—as any trained husband will—and set up the sound system in our dining room. And so we trimmed the …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to Spinning Classic Christmas Vinyl
Photo by The Retro Store on Unsplash By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December 2019) While the Couch Potato will always be slavishly devoted to his TV home entertainment center, this week he will be putting down the universal remote in order to turn his focus solely on another entertainment form—music. Part of the reason for this departure …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Film Review of “Neil Young: Heart of Gold”
Attribution: Fernando de Sousa from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Golden Years: Film Review of Neil Young: Heart of Gold By Geoff Carter The Ryman Auditorium: Nashville, Tennessee Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons The concert film is a genre that is as idiosyncratic as the artists it documents. From the frenetic …
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Goodbye, Robbie, and Thank You…
Robbie Robertson: 1943-2023 Capitol Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robbie_Robertson_(1971).png “The Weight” from The Last Waltz https://youtu.be/Z2eTW8qZBtk
Kickass and Old Music
Attribution: Film screenshot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the day started for the keeper and Phyllis with sipping and listening to a jazz trio at “The Cider Farm” Sunday afternoon; and it morphed into an evening at home with Phyllis searching out the old stuff of …
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Kickass and the Brain Worm
Photo by Mike Castro Demaria on Unsplash Kickass, the doorstop dog, sympathizes with the keeper as he grapples with a brain-worm that has turned into a brain-snake in the form of the 1948 hit song “On a Slow Boat to China.” Brain-worms are more of a problem in the keeper’s ancient age group as old brains tend to …
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Kickass and Unusual Music
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis, having recently been shown the way to the Overture Center, returned last night to hear the big concert-hall organ do its thing with a trombone and a set of drums. While that might seem like an odd musical line …
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Kickass and the Symphony
Photo by Samuel Sianipar on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis heard the Madison symphony and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor Sunday in the big room of the Overture Center through the courtesy of good friend Tom Humphry. They are not regular concert goers, at least not under the stylized symphony circumstances, …
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Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter The boomer generation has hung onto the remnants of their youth like a terrier shaking a rat. They just won’t let go, unlike members of the Greatest Generation who accepted aging with dignity and aplomb. They didn’t mind sporting beer bellies or fret if their hair was thinning. …
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A Road Less Traveled
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter On Friday nights, my wife and I will typically open a bottle of wine and settle in to watch some streaming TV, usually a movie or a limited series, but this last weekend, after supper, I went into the family room and started sorting out some of our …
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Blue Christmas
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted December 2020) As we were trimming the tree last weekend, my wife asked me to bring in the laptop so we could listen to Christmas music. I complied—as any trained husband will—and set up the sound system in our dining room. And so we trimmed the …
Read