the progressive perspective
No one has called me “Pops” to my face yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
A young colleague recently showed me a graphic meant to accompany a client’s social media post. It dealt with clean water in underdeveloped areas. Prominently featured was a blue bus. I shook my head. “Makes me think of Jim Morrison,” I said, assuming the underlying narcotic use suggestion was obvious. “We don’t wanna go there.”
I could have been speaking Swahili. Blank look. “Who?”
Got a shoutout in Bob Lind’s “Neighbors” column in yesterday’s issue of the local paper,The Forum, Fargo. The column references a story I wrote back in 2001 (the Lind column was off by a couple of years) forNDSU Magazine about the night a North Dakota Agricultural College extension agent and his friend from South Dakota State College recorded Duke Ellington and his orchestra at the original Crystal Ballroom in downtown Fargo.
A bunch of bands have written songs that include North Dakota in some way. Flyover country? You decide.
Figures my favorite tune that mentions North Dakota has another state’s name in the title – “Dani California” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers:
“North Dakota man was a gunnin’ for the quota / Down in the badlands she was savin’ the best for last / It only hurts when I laugh / Gone too fast…”
But, hey, what the heck. Like they say, any publicity is good publicity, especially if you’re not the headliner.
From Pink Floyd to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, there have been a lot of colors along the way. And they’ve all be awesome… CLICK THE HEADLINE TO READ MORE.
I found my 11-year-old self standing in the principal’s office at Roosevelt Elementary in Jamestown, N.D., the second from the end in a line of four 6th graders performing “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II.” I thought about how much trouble we were in as we sang, “We don’t need no education / we don’t need no thought control/…”
We were rebelling, of course, with the song that was all over the radio those days.
Continue reading “Feeling Blue? Get Yourself Some P!nk. Or Just About Any Other Color.”
Rock isn’t dead. It’s old and wrinkled, sure, but it’s alive and well and still playing at Moondance Jam. Really. Saw it with my own two eyes.
I saw it myself late last Thursday on a delayed flight from Chicago to Fargo. And to quote a 35-year-old hit, “It was like lightning / Everybody was frightening / And the music was soothing / And they all started grooving…”
“The Rolling Stones,” said my poetry professor. “Hmmmm… I suppose that’s poetry, too, only a little louder. Have a good time.”
In this age of black tennis shoes and Bugle Boy jeans… Oops, excuse me, that was two fads ago. Now it’s boat shoes and the preppie roll on Guess jeans. Or am I still a year behind?
I never was too good with the fad thing. All you have to do is look at the way I dress to know I’m an individual. A slob, perhaps, but an individual.
Continue reading “Rock ‘n’ Roll, Acid Freaks & Blow-Up Dolls”
