Tree Removal Pt. 1

Our next door neighbor Pat told us a few months ago that she sold her black walnut tree in her driveway to some Amish woodworkers. They arranged with a tree removal service to take down the tree sometime in the late fall. Well, that time is today.

This particular tree is one of the largest black walnut trees in the neighborhood and has the advantage of being in an accessible location via the driveway. The tree company can get in there with equipment which is not always the case in our neighborhood. We have six black walnut trees in our yard but they are inaccessible from the street and would cost a fortune to take down.

This tree has been a problem for both Pat and us. For Pat the roots have torn up her driveway which she has had repaired many times. For us the tree overhangs our house and drops walnuts on our roof. The tree removal company wanted to wait until the nuts had dropped and the leaves had fallen. Today is a beautiful sunny December day.

Lots of prep in the morning starting around 8 am. First cut was 8:40. The chipper was horribly loud and the vibrations shook our house. The guys from Great Lakes Tree Service were very professional and considerate throughout the day. They had plenty of equipment including a large tall crane like machine that could grab and hold a tree while cutting off branches. It was amazing to watch from our windows.

The original plan was to remove the entire tree in one day. They were also taking down another black walnut tree a couple of blocks away that was going to the same Amish woodworkers. The tree removal people were going back and forth between the two. When the trees were down they would load both of the trunks on to their truck for the Amish.

It turns out they had a problem with the other property and ended up not being able to finish both projects the same day.  They ended the work on our tree in the early afternoon, left the equipment and took away the two truckloads of chips and branches. They left several large logs in the backyard along with the main trunk of the tree. The foreman told me that they would be back to finish the project on Thursday and everything would sit there on Wednesday. 

Crazy - Covers FV

Some crazy covers

Crazy - Covers FV

1. Crazy – Alice Russell (Gnarls Barkley)
2. Not Dark Yet – Ruby Amanfu (Bob Dylan)
3. I Will Survive – Cake (Gloria Gaynor)
4. Down By The River – Jill Sobule & John Doe (Neil Young)
5. Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again – Cat Power (Bob Dylan)
6. Come and Get It – The Wood Brothers (Badfinger)
7. Ticket To Ride – Vanilla Fudge (The Beatles)
8. Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – Earth (Jimi Hendrix)
9. Tales of Brave Uysses – Rotary Connection (Cream)
10. Let It Be – Joe Cocker (The Beatles)
11. Suzanne – Judy Collins (Leonard Cohen)
12. Jolene – The Little Willies (Dolly Parton)
13. I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston (Dolly Parton)
14. Make You Feel My Love – Luka Bloom (Bob Dylan)
15. Chandelier – The Wind and The Wave (Sia)
16. Kangaroo – This Mortal Coil (Big Star)
17. Wall of Death – Nanci Griffith (Richard Thompson)
18. Couldn’t I Just Tell You – Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs (Todd Rundgren)
19. Starman – 10,000 Maniacs (David Bowie)
20. Heart of Gold – Tori Amos (Neil Young)
21. Love Hurts – Joan Jett and The Blackhearts (The Everly Brothers)

A Tough Decision Pt. 2

Earlier this week we made a tough decision concerning our driving to Sean and Ashely's house to visit our newest grandchild who was born just before Thanksgiving. Our original plans became a problem because of the weather not cooperating on our travel days and my vision problems. So we moved the travel times from Thursday thru Sunday to the following week Wednesday thru Friday. We had planned to stay in a motel in Scotia.

So now our tough decision was to change the travel date again. This time we are back on a weekend and we plan to drive over to Albany on Friday morning, spend the rest of Friday, all day Saturday and then drive back after breakfast on Sunday Morning. We would be staying at their house too. This works better for Sean and Ashley and our maximum time to be with the kids. We really want to spend some time with Andrew too and this new schedule will be better for that too with less of his time at school/daycare. Also Sean would not be working so much of the time.

The weather looks good for this coming weekend. If it turns out to go bad and we need to change our plans again then this time we would wait until after the holidays but hopefully that will not happen. 

The Heart of Saturday Night - Tom Waits in Concert

It's a Saturday night and Tom Waits' birthday was this week so... this album, this concert. Once again I was with my friend John who insisted we go and see Tom Waits again and this time in a small club. We had previously seen him a year earlier open up for Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention at the Civic Center in Philly. Waits only played a few songs and the Zappa crowd was very hostile to him. A disappointing show. 

So in May 1975 we went to see him at the Bijou Cafe which sat about 220 people including the bar stools. We had a table very close to the stage. He put on a long fabulous show and performed the songs from The Heart of Saturday Night and his first album Closing Time.

He was very much into his hipster jazzbo persona so much so that we could smell his body odor emanating from the stage. Slurred speech too. We laughed about that for years. Later that year he released his Nighthawks at the Diner album which really captured his stage show minus the odorama. 

The show was opened by John Stewart a former member of The Kingston Trio.

Christmas Shopping on Elmwood Ave 2023

Becky and I had a very nice time doing some Christmas shopping on Elmwood Avenue yesterday. It was a beautiful day for December and we enjoyed walking up and down the street. It was late morning and we were looking forward to stopping somewhere for lunch. In the meantime it was nice to buy local. 

We started around Bidwell and checked out some of the gift shops like Neo Gifts and bought the kids some books at Talking Leaves. Then we went further down the avenue and wandered through a few other stores like Ten Thousand Villages, Ro Home, Everything Elmwood, Lumpy Buttons and some others. Then we had lunch at SPoT before heading over to Penzeys Spices for our last stop before getting to the car and going home. We accomplished a lot and had a wonderful time.

Glass of Beer - Change of Heart Experimental IPA

A very tasty West Coast IPA from Bells Brewing and part of their Experimental IPA series. I found it very good with a fresh taste but maintaining the IPA bitterness. This was part of a variety 12 pack that Becky got for me recently. All four beers were terrific and included a couple of their classics and two new brews.

Lunch @ SPoT

After spending a beautiful December afternoon walking up and down Elmwood Avenue doing some Christmas shopping we decided to have some lunch at SPoT Coffee. It was a little after 1 pm and the place was crowded. There were no tables for two left so we had to get one of the last tables, a four seat, left in the restaurant after we had put our food order in at the counter.

I ordered a chicken feta wrap and Becky got a cajun turkey wrap. We had to wait quite a while for our sandwiches as the kitchen was obviously backed up with the crowd. While we were waiting there were lots of people coming in looking for tables. There was a group of four young people, probably foreign students, looking for a table. I went over to the counter to check on our order and saw a table for two empty. I got Becky and we moved over to it and I offered our table for four to the group of students who were very happy. Later one of them came over to our table to thank us for moving to a smaller table and letting them all sit together. It felt nice.

In the meantime we enjoyed our lunch. The wraps were wonderful and worth the wait. We had some leftovers which made for a nice dinner this evening.

Waiting For The Sun - The Doors in Concert

Today is Jim Morrison's birthday so... here's another album, another concert, another artist. I was fortunate to see The Doors perform twice during their short career with Jim Morrison. In 1968 I saw them play The Arena at 46th and Market Street in West Philly. It was a great concert and The Doors were spectacular musicians. Especially Jim Morrison who was amazing although he did do some weird lizard king poetry rants. Then I saw them again at the same venue a year later in 1969. They were awful or I should say that Jim Morrison was drunk and incoherent on the stage. He was rude and crude and almost frightening. Was he pretentious? Yep. 

I was happy to have seen the good Jim Morrison but I also got to experience the bad Jim Morrison but that 1969 show was probably the worse concert I ever experienced.

I got the Waiting For The Sun album in the summer of 1968 and already had their first two albums. The Doors were certainly a big part of my later teenage years. How many times did we listen to Light My Fire.

Jim Morrison would be 80 years old today had he lived. He died in 1971 at the age of 27.  He supposedly died of a heroin overdose in Paris but there was no autopsy done to confirm the manner of death which of course led to conspiracy theories about how he died. 

No More Understanding - Late Night FV

A mix in the Late Night series. Music from the late 1980's and early 1990's. A lot of favorites from that time. Most of these songs I've used before on earlier mixes over the years and especially in my Decade 4 mixes. Now they are here in my Final Version series of Late Night mixes.

No More Understanding - Late Night FV

1. No More Understanding – Soup Dragons, 1992
2. What You Do To Me – Teenage Fanclub, 1991
3. Never – The House of Love, 1990
4. She Bangs The Drums – The Stone Roses, 1989
5. Looking At The Sun – Matthew Sweet, 1991
6. Come A Long Way – Michelle Shocked, 1992
7. Tried To Be True – Indigo Girls, 1989
8. You Are Everything – R.E.M., 1988
9. Someone To Love – Roger McGuinn, 1990
10. Here Comes Your Man – Pixies, 1989
11. Be My Angel – Mazzy Star, 1990
12. Levi Stubbs’ Tears – Billy Bragg, 1986
13. Bigmouth Strikes Again – The Smiths, 1986
14. Walking Through A Wasted Land – Richard Thompson, 1985
15. Riverside – The Beat Farmers, 1986
16. I Found Love – Lone Justice, 1986
17. Only Love – BoDeans, 1987
18. Kiss Me You Fool – The Northern Pikes, 1990
19. Secret Heart – Fire Town, 1987
20. I Want You Bad – The Long Ryders, 1987
21. Run-Around – Blues Traveler, 1994
22. A Good Idea – Sugar, 1992
23. Barney (… and Me) – The Boo Radleys, 1993
24. Little Bones – The Tragically Hip, 1991

Saturate Before Using - Jackson Browne in Concert

So back in 1973 his first album had often been referred to as Saturate Before Using because of the words on the cover but officially it has always just been Jackson Browne as the title. It was released in 1972 and his second album For Everyman was released around the time I would him see him perform.

In early October 1973 I had just returned from a long deployment in the Caribbean and South America and was visiting family in Philadelphia when a friend suggested we go see some music. John was very excited about seeing this new singer songwriter named Jackson Browne whom I'd never heard of before as I had been overseas for most of the last three years. He was playing at Villanova College and John played his first album in the car for me as we drove out to the campus. I actually had heard a couple of songs before... Rock Me On The Water and Doctor My Eyes but I didn't know anything about the artist. In the show he played the songs from his first album and introduced the music of his new second album which was just released at that time too. It was a great concert and I loved his music. I would buy both of his albums.

There was an opening act by someone I also had not heard of before that night... Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band. Jackson Browne put on a wonderful show but there was no way he could follow Springsteen back in 1973. Probably not many groups could.

John and I would go on and see Bruce Springsteen five more times in 1974 and 1975 but that's another story.