Occasion-al Posting

First, a few quick updates.

The car-charging kerfuffle finally resolved itself, and the $25 extortion disappeared when the final amount of $1.38 posted. That’s still $.30 more than it should’ve been, and if they do that on every transaction, that’s still a lot of bread. Also, we finished the film I posted about in connection (heh) with that yesterday, and while it left some open questions about the main character, it provided a very nice dénouement for the story of his driver. That review in the New Yorker, which I have also now finished, mentions that they shot another 20 minutes that got cut from the final theatrical release. There’s a whole second disk of extras, and I’m thinking that may be on there. Alas, I will not be buying and donating the DVD of the Uncle Vanya performance, because it is not available in Region 1 format, but there is a streaming version available we can buy when we’re ready for it.

Which gets us to today, which is a day full of recollections of past and immediate future.

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It's the 80th anniversary of D-Day, losers and suckers! (The "losers and suckers" being the bone-spurred chicken hawk who wouldn't respect those who gave their lives at Normandy so he wouldn't get his hair wet, and his entourage that defends every dumbass thing he does). Our current president is there now, somehow managing in his old-man sneakers to give respect to those who fell and the brave ones who succeeded in their mission against fascism.

Also, today marks 80 years since Met legend Bud Harrelson's birth. The only man in our uniform on the field for both of our world championships, he fell just short of celebrating it; we lost him earlier this year following a long battle against dementia. And even during that miracle 1969 season, Buddy took time off to serve his country in the military reserves.




That's from the Daily News collection of drawings of the '69 Miracle Mets that I acquired for 25 cents and a coupon back then, dragged all over the schoolyard, lost, then reclaimed from the paper in the early 80s when the Mets were cyclically irrelevant. They came pre-autographed, but I met Buddy and several others from that team at the 2012 Hofstra conference and got his real signature on it.

Speaking of Marks, today is the 65th birthday of a longtime school and church friend of mine named Mark Erb. We've lost touch, but I've friended his older sister Gabriela on the socials and sent along my wishes through her. Maybe HE can figure out why I still remember this being his birthday;)  Their parents, Max and Eleanor, were still going as of April through their 68th anniversary.

But most of all, good buddy, it's CONVOY DAY! 

Was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June....

That song was the anthem of the CB radio craze that launched and crashed in about a year in the mid-1970s. Its datecheck of today is also the occasion to blow somebody's mind by revealing that the "CW McCall" of the song credit is actually an advertising guy named Bill Fries, who co-wrote that novelty song with Chip Davis of Mannheim Steamroller. Fries passed away in 2022,hopefully without bugs on his glass or bears on his....  tail.

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Oh, just a coupla other occasions, ma'am. Even though they haven't quite happened yet.
 

Watch on YouTube

For many years, this station brought me my news, and this man was always there. From the earliest in this reel from when we'd sometimes watch over Ithaca cable, through the "Dick and Don" era, but especially just about every weeknight from '85 to '94, 1:30 to 2:30ish on this YouTube, 13 was my NewsSource. The station name, the news package name, the theme music, all changed. Ginny and Wanda and Doug came and went, but the one constant through the change was Don Freakin Alhart, in the Guinness Book for longest continuous run as a local television anchor.

It ends tonight. On 6/6, the anniversary of his first broadcast on what was then WOKR, Don will sign off for the final time. I will not be in Rochester but am promised footage. I toast his tenure and tenacity. Only met him once, briefly, about 20 years ago. Didn't need more: he was in my house every night for a decade.

Cheers, Don. Everybody will always know your name.

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I toyed with setting up a Rochester trip to watch this final broadcast with friends, but then other plans intervened. Among them, the return to Lafayette Square in Buffalo of what began the city's summer music renaissance over 30 years ago and was originally known as Thursday at the Square.

It predates our time here, but past performances have included beloved-to-us performers including 10,000 Maniacs, Mary Black, Squeeze, Blue Rodeo, Guster, Spyro Gyra, Sister Hazel and Suzanne Vega. All free to see, or at least hear if you couldn[t get close enough to the stage. They also provided opening act opportunities for many local bands I knew or have come to know and love. By my blogging time, I got to see Great Big Sea and Carbon Leaf down there.  The original series moved and morphed over the years, but the downtown district "chamber of commerce" has brought music back to the Square, with more of a focus on the local and the regional. Tonight's season premiere is our friend Danielle Johnson's new band opening for another friend Dave Ruch's group: Organ Fairchild and Diyené.

The weather's started getting rough, the concert may be tossed, but depending on how today goes, I hope to have stories and pictures and the new Organ Fairchild CD in hand for the next time I set pixels to screen.