And on the fifth day of this crud, I have the worst of this crud.
The good news being that, soon, I’ll be on the other side of it. The bad news being that I haven’t slept all week. Though I did find a nap today.
And then I spent most of the day complaining about my head: my head cold, my sinuses, my headaches and all. It just goes on and on.
So some music then, because why not? Earth, Wind & Fire covers on this edition of YouTube Cover Theater. This guy personifies the concept, claiming over 175 million YouTube views of his various videos, Igor Presnyakov covers Let’s Groove Tonight:
Tyler Robinson covers September:
This is crazy good, and sometime soon you’ll be telling people you knew Emily Elbert way back when:
High school jazz bands better be covering EWF. Bass player’s got chops, too:
You get a lot of drum solos and recordings of bass solos and backing tracks when you search for Earth, Wind & Fire covers. But you also get the criminally under-viewed Allen W. Davis:
And then I spent 20 minutes listening to Davis’ other stuff. Fascinating.
Couldn’t pick just one Earth, Wind & Fire song to end with, so here’s the Greatest Hits, Volume 1, off a vinyl transfer, as it should be:
Still with the sinuses. Started new pills today, and they’ll be as equally ineffective as the last batch, of which we could charitably say they at least took off a tiny bit of the edge.
Have you been on the sinus and allergy aisle of a drug store lately? The offerings are paltry. Most of the things there are just cardboard inserts. You’ll take those to the pharmacist, who’ll card you, fingerprint you and forward your political affiliations to the IRS.
So you’re left with the cheap stuff, the drug store-branded generics from who knows what country. At least the blister packs work.
Visited Chris’ Hot Dogs in Montgomery today, because it has been there since 1917. They fed FDR, two Bush presidents and every governor for a century. And they’ve served more hot dogs and hamburgers to regular folks than you can count.
Today they served us. Here’s Adam getting his hot dog hamburger combo:
I had the special, which is two nitrate packaged skins in one flour enriched bun, complete with kraut, onions and special sauce. The Yankee had that, minus all the extras. Tasted like a hot dog to me, but the special sauce will clear your sinuses right up, which was enough for one day.
And now for no other reason than they were there, here are the bar stools:
On the wall covered with signed portraits there is a headshot of a judge. A judge signing autographs feels like a problem, but then you see the note: he worked there as a young man in the 1950s. Maybe that early job made all the difference.
I’m coming down with it, whatever the sinus-driven, allergy death mojo of the day is. The Yankee got it last week — she was fine when she got on her bike and then after a short ride she was feeling less than her normal best self. And that continued for several days before her medicine took hold.
Me, I got home from my weekend visit to see grandparents, stood outside for about 10 minutes to rinse the bird souvenirs off of my car and came inside feeling it too. So I’m telling myself these are Tennessee Valley allergens, which means I could flush them out of my system soon now that I’m back on the plain.
Otherwise, I have developed local allergies and that would be no good.
The good news is that this seems mostly confined to the region between the third rib and the nasal cavity. The bad news is that I’d rather have pretty much any other part of me not feeling well.
The upside is that it gave me the opportunity to not only listen to, but live this song:
But, I mowed the lawn today. I trimmed back a tree. I took this picture of Allie:
Did some other things. Felt my head swim. Started taking sinus and allergy pills myself. Life is grand.
Adam came over for dinner, and then we all ventured out to the new Dunkin Donuts. It opened today! And it closed this evening. So they aren’t 24-hours yet, after all.
If they were worn out on the first day, this doesn’t bode well. (I’m sure they’ll be fine.)
Finally, if you ignore the reporter, this is the best story you’ll watch all day:
Journalists: Remember your humanity. Remember that, when someone’s life has absolutely been turned upside down, one piece of normalcy makes a difference.
And put the microphone down and help the lady.This is remarkable in that random way that you find lot of the things that happen during and after a cataclysmic event. What a story. And the reporter is … very poor. “Are you able to comprehend yet what happened here?”
The woman is looking over the wreckage of her life. Yes, she has a good grasp on things. Based on the reporter’s speechlessness and poor questions I’m guessing she was either in shock herself or well out of her depth. Even still.
I do like that you can clearly hear that lady say to the journalist “Help me.” We all need to hear that now and again.
Sometimes we should reconsider what being a part of the story is. (Stations write promos about this sort of thing after all, “Our community” and all that.) I don’t have a problem with the position of remove, but not every circumstance warrants it. The dog seemed to be fine in the longer video, for example.
But what if that was her grandchild’s arm reaching out?
It is a tricky thing.
Saw Star Trek: Into Benedict Cumberbatch’s World today:
He’s way too good for this film, and the film is pretty good.
It was a nice summer blockbuster type movie. I’m not convinced these are really Trek films — but that is OK, too. I don’t think you could really make a successful movie — or traditional Trek TV — these days.
My biggest things might be more about me than the movies, but the Kirk swagger now seems more of an impetuous teenager than the devil-may-care, I’m-out-on-the-frontier-making-this-up-as-I-go mentality of the old days. Maybe it is just that I watched the old stuff as a child and saw the Wild West Roddenberry was going after whereas now you see all these layers of bureaucracy because that’s what the world is. Also, the 21st century modern conceits sneaking in as futuristic things I’d rather forego for the bygone 1960s bravado. “You were in a firefight? You need a checkup!” Can you imagine Deforest Kelly saying that to William Shatner? But that’s also what the world is, and it will become, no doubt, more so over time.
Karl Urban is terrific, though. And Simon Pegg has his moments. Zachary Quinto would take over Spock if they’d leave Leonard Nimoy out of it — falling back to him thing is just annoying. Every now and then it seems like Chris Pine is getting the Kirk thing, but I think that he’s just going to kind of stay as he is. Which is fine, these movies are movies for movie fans, not just Trek fans. That’s great. Why would you want to try to reproduce Shatner, anyway?
You know what is most interesting about the entire thing is that comic book fans will accept relaunch after relaunch after relaunch, but Trek fans find this to be a non-starter, hence the alt-universe thing. But, if you think about, if you read comics you’re probably watching Trek. So why will people accept some reboots and not in other universes? Isn’t that interesting?
I think it is because that has happened in the comics for forever, but these characters on screens are more real and perhaps more beloved, at least in a parasocial interaction sense. So you can’t just flip this and start over. Not in Trek. Perhaps in Trek the least of anything. What a weird and wonderful thing.
Biggest problem in the movie? They still aren’t making the ship a character. That’s what is missing. They almost did, but not quite, not really.
Here is, perhaps, my favorite interpretation of it. The grail of Van Morrison collectibles — back when the physical media and other realities made it difficult to acquire — this is actually an outtake His Band and the Street Choir sessions in 1970. Amazing stuff.
