It’s sad to lose a bandmate

by | Jul 11, 2013 | Welcome Column

Back in the 1970s I worked for the Oakland Tribune as a copy editor, headline writer and layout person. The Trib in those days had an annual Music in the Home section, which was basically designed to encourage advertisers (piano stores, stereo stores, music stores,...

It’s sad when an old friend dies

by | Aug 9, 2012 | Welcome Column

I mailed in the paperwork yesterday to the California Department of Consumer Affairs to turn in my beloved old 1983 Dodge van to the cash for clunkers program. In one way it’s a brilliant deal: I paid $2,600 for that car back in 1994. Eighteen years later I’ll be...

It’s So Different Live

by | Apr 8, 2018 | Welcome Column

I listen to a lot of music in my spare time but I’m sorry to say that only a very small percentage of the professional music I hear is live music. Of course I can’t very well hire a live band to make music for me in my car during my drive to work. Even if I made it...

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

by | Dec 12, 2018 | Welcome Column

OK, I can’t lie – I am caught up in the holiday season. (Living as Santa Claus all month can do that to you!) I call it the “holiday season” not to be politically correct, but simply because the period from mid-November through the 1st day of the new year is...

Itching

by | Apr 26, 2012 | Welcome Column

Good morning from Whiskey Creek, where it’s a mild seventy degrees, raining like cats and dogs, the actual cats as happy as clams to be inside out of the rain and the actual dogs unable to understand why Lynn is such a downer and won’t let them out, the outside temps...

It’s A Puzzlement

by | Aug 8, 2010 | Welcome Column

A while back, we had a temporary worker come fill in at work. The guy was pushing seventy, but he was pretty sharp and I noticed that whenever he had a spare moment in the morning, he was working on a crossword puzzle. Donald was keeping up with his workload just fine...

Its About Time

by | Jan 27, 2018 | Welcome Column

Why is it our Gregorian calendar sets us up for expectations as we turn the calendar another year forward?  Who made that deal?  The world is full of their own calendars and I honestly have come to believe, that each one of us—our own cosm of sorts—has its...

It’s All About the Rhythm..

by | May 2, 2012 | Welcome Column

When I played rock and roll, I was a primarily a lead guitar player. I had an amp that stacked so high, I could hardly reach the knobs, and I could pull them strings all over the place and make that axe wail. I was fleet fingered, and I had luxuriously long hair. In...

It’s All Jazz

by | May 8, 2020 | Welcome Column

I’ve been watching the HBO series Treme with interest and enjoyment as it follows a group of seemingly doomed characters through the trials and troubles of life in the lower seventh ward in New Orleans six months after hurricane Katrina. Of particular interest to me...