Halloween, October, tec.

Benjamin paused from practicing "God Bless America", which he's learning in kindergarten, to say: "Dad, it should be 'God Bless America', because there's lots of countries besides America". I love this kid!

The other song he likes is "Frère Jacques". He keeps obsessing over how the standard English lyrics differ from a literal translation of the original French lyrics. I love his musical curiosity.

10 years ago, freedom

Fairfield Fall Fun Fest memories

I was a toddler when the Beatles were in their heyday. My mother acquired two 45 rpm records for her collection, the first being Paul’s rocking “Lady Madonna” backed with George’s India-influenced “The Inner Light”. The second, a year or so later, was John’s Chuck Berry-influenced “Come Together” backed with George’s romantic masterpiece, “Something”. All four sides got continuous play on our console stereo system over the next decade or so.

I was a recent college graduate when the Beatles, a long holdout of the new musical format, finally first released their catalogue on compact disc. We all thought they sounded great at the time. Although as a big fan I dutifully bought all fourteen albums (in their now-official UK versions) plus the two Past Masters collections of non-album tracks, I was always partial to the later ones, starting with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, then The Beatles (White Album), and especially the last album they recorded together, Abbey Road, the cover of which has the iconic photo of the four walking a crosswalk outside their studio on London’s Abbey Road.

I’m sure the Beatles and their music were contributing factors in my later love of all things British, and two guided walks of historic Beatle-related landmarks in London were highlights of my visits there, the last such landmark visited being that Abbey Road studio and crosswalk. I have this on camcorder and need to post it some day.

There is no dispute that the Beatles were the greatest rock band of all time, deservedly the most popular and successful. Anybody who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Many times you catch such people humming or quoting a new song they don’t realize is a cover of a Beatles composition, or who is a big fan of a band directly influenced or inspired by the Beatles. Thousands of musical artists fit this category. It doesn’t take much investigation or analysis to realize that our musical landscape of our lives would be vastly different had the Beatles never existed. Just from my own personal group of favourites, Billy Joel and Sting may not have created music at all had it not been for the Beatles. They said so themselves! And thus so the people those two inspired, and so on and so on…

Very late to the party but smartly building upon anticipation, today the Beatles have finally released deluxe remastered versions of their entire catalogue on CD. I bought them all, but do not recommend them all. They do sound better than the original releases -- but are faithfully remastered, maybe too faithfully, to sound as they were originally intended to sound. When the Beatles started out in the early 1960s, mono (one channel, i.e. one speaker) sound was the norm and default for all new musical releases, and new-fangled stereo recordings were an afterthought, sloppily thrown together for the few buyers who were interested. So the first six or eight Beatles albums’ stereo (two channel, two speaker) versions have the weird sound mix wherein the musical instruments come out of one speaker while the singing comes out of the other.. sounding just plain weird and not very appealing to modern listeners.

By the time of the last few Beatles albums, especially Abbey Road, stereo had become the dominant format, so those albums sound great and hold up very well. Those are the ones I would recommend: Sgt. Pepper, The Beatles (White Album), and Abbey Road. I would also get Revolver and Rubber Soul, just because those are so great that they overcome the weirdly separated sound channels.

Someday, in addition to selling their songs online like most other bands, they will get around to not only remastering their albums, but remixing them as well, integrating music and singing together as we’re used to by now with more modern music. The songs on the Beatles 1 collection from 2000 are remixed, as are the songs on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack released in 1999. Additionally, if one had money to spare (I don’t), one could spring for the limited release box set of remastered mono version of their first several albums, probably the best way to listen to those earlier Beatles songs that first made them popular.

With this season's foreshadowing of the British Invasion and tonight's new episode entitled "My Old Kentucky Home" set during Derby weekend, it's almost as if Mad Men were trying too hard to win me over. Last summer's perfect Season 2 made me ready to declare it my Favorite TV Series of All Time, but the first two episodes of Season 3 have been underwhelming.

I always get more out of each episode upon multiple viewings, but they also need to be entertaining on a surface level, like most of last year's were. At least "My Old Kentucky Home" was more fun than the first two episodes this season, so all is not lost. With only 13 episodes, we're about a fourth way through already, so no more slow ones please!

Should I bother Bobby Taylor?

Upon wrangling a reluctant nephew, today I secured my 99th Facebook "friend". I qualify that word because a handful of the 99 are people I do not actually know, some of are more like friends-of-friends, some are former rivals, some are co-workers who probably hate me, and there are a couple of people on there who are more head-scratchers than anything else.

In any event, next comes Number 100, and for some reason I have it in my head that I want him or her to be someone special. There are a few people I've invited to be friends who have not replied yet, so at any time one of those could be Number 100, but in all likelihood it will be either someone I invite anew or someone who unexpectedly invites me.

My main desire is for it to be somebody I actually know. One person I've been seeking forever is old high school chum Freddy Brown, whose family moved away from Fairfield in 1982. His name is so common that I simply can't find him without any other leads. I would also like to add more Indianapolis folk, college friends, and at least one person from my 7th grade year in Marion, Kentucky. At some point, I'd like to add more ex girlfriends, but I'd have to get my wife onboard with that idea first, ha.

However, above all, I'd like to get back in contact with my very first friend, Bobby Taylor. He was my neighbor 40 years ago in Grayville, IL. Recently, I found out that his family still lives in that same house, and today I just discovered that he apparantly still lives there with his mom and dad.

I have his phone number and street address, but there is no sign of him via e-mail or website on the internets. Should I call or write him, or let it be? After we moved away from Grayville in 1971, Bobby and I exchanged a couple of letters, and I saw him one time a few years later in Evansville, I think. Other than that, basically no communication in over 30 years.

I'm thinking I'll wait, for now. If he were the type of person who'd like to be on Facebook, you'd think I'd be able to find him on the net already in other capacities. He might not be ready for it yet... I have so many Facebook friends who had to take a few months to come around to the idea of taking the plunge.

Maybe someday Bobby will search for himself on the Internet, and the combination of "Bobby" "Taylor" and "Grayville" will lead him to see himself on this page. If so, Bobby, write to me already, will ya?

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