Wow, Dan, those AI-generated voices reading my words, bizarre, and yet they lend a certain unwarranted gravitas to my thoughts... but I'll take it! And the second voice you created, the British one, damn, I sounded positively Etonian, almost channeling Tom Hiddleston after time spent matriculating at those posh Oxbridge institutions! Is there a chip you can install in my head?
But on to other things! Last night, and for just last night, the Garland Jeffreys documentary, The King of In Between, had its Boston-area debut. I was actually surprised that 50 or so, clearly Medicare-entitled souls, were in attendance. Garland's wife, Claire, crowdfunded it, and fully put her heart into it. Sadly, Garland, and Claire, have been struggling with his Alzheimer's for a number of years, so he's unaware of the film. Here's the trailer and Amazon is supposed to have it in August.
https://www.kingofinbetween.com
If you don't know his catalog, I highly, highly recommend lending an ear to: Wild In The Streets, 33 MM Dreams, NY Skyline, Rough and Ready, Cool Down Boy, R.O.C.K, Matador, Christine, Welcome To The World, Hail Hail Rock and Roll, Don't Call Me Buckwheat, 96 Tears, Modern Lovers...you get the idea. This is the music that lifts you up, gets you through the day, makes you think, and move. Raise a toast to Garland, and his devoted wife, Claire!
My wife and I were in Chicago a week or so ago and our uber driver, Romeo, was incredibly talkative. I'm a curious guy and was interested in his story so in the course of a 30 minute drive to O'Hare he shared a lot. As is often the case with these drivers, Romeo had an accent. I inquired where he was from and initially, I thought he said "Syria". I responded that I once had a dentist from Damascus. Romeo quickly corrected me, noting that he is Assyrian, and he has nothing but contempt for Syrians and Muslims more broadly. He proceeded to recount the long history of Muslim violence towards his people with an almost encyclopedic knowledge. The antipathy was embedded in his DNA and he absolutely held nothing back. I left his car not altogether surprised but still, it was a sobering reminder that for some, and probably tens or hundreds of millions of people, they wear and share their ancestral history, the heroics and the horrors, like a badge of honor.
Last thing, and please excuse the disparate comments but of late, I've become a bit obsessed with a song Frank Turner recorded back in 2009, Poetry of the Deed. Its lyrics, and the recording, just bowl me over and I wanted to share with you good folks.
https://www.streetdirectory.com/lyricadvisor/song/cjjjou/poetry_of_the_deed/
Grab life by the throat and live it to pieces!
Peter T.
