Tom Petty – "Down South" (2006)

Impress all the women

Pretend I’m Samuel Clemens

Wear seersucker and white linens

Here are a few excerpts from a new biography of a famous and beloved American writer.  Let’s see if you can guess who the subject of that biography is:

Always a hypercritical personality, prone to disappointment, [he] often felt exasperated in everyday life.

He was a waspish man of decided opinions delivering hard and uncomfortable truths. . . . Some mysterious anger, some pervasive melancholy, fired his humor . . . and his chronic dissatisfaction with society produced a steady stream of barbed denunciations.

[He was] a hugely popular but fiercely pessimistic man, the scourge of fools and frauds.  On the surface, his humor can seem merely playful . . . but the sources of that humor are deadly serious, rooted in a profound critique of society and human nature. 

Probably no other American author has led such an eventful life. . . . [H]e courted controversy and relished the limelight. . . . [A] shameless self-promoter, he sought fame and fortune without hesitation.

[He] could be implacable in his hatreds and grudges.  A man who thrived on outrage, he had a tendency to lash out at people, often deservedly, but sometimes gratuitously and excessively.

A master of the vendetta, he would store up potent insults and unload them in full upon those who had disappointed him.  He could never quite let things go or drop a quarrel.  

And finally:

To portray [him] in his entirety, one must capture both the light and shadow of a beloved humorist who could switch temper in a flash, changing from exhilarating joy to deep resentment.  He is a fascinating, maddening puzzle to anyone trying to figure him out; charming, funny, and irresistible one moment, paranoid and deeply vindictive the next.

I’m guessing that most of you are saying to yourselves, “That biography must be about 2 or 3 lines – because those quotes fit him to a T!”

But before you lock in your final answer to my question, here’s one additional quote to consider.  You may change your mind after you read it:

[His] late-life fascination with teenage girls presents yet another disturbing topic for contemporary readers. . . . [He] pursued teenage girls with a strange passion that, while it always remained chaste, is likely to cause extreme discomfort nowadays.  Like many geniuses, [he] had a large assortment of weird sides to his nature, and this [biography] will try to make sense of his sometimes bizarre behavior toward girls and women.  

What’s that you say?  “Now I’m SURE that book is about 2 or 3 lines!”

Hmmmm . . . I see why you’re confused.  But the quotes above were taken from Ron Chernow’s new biography of Mark Twain – who was born Samuel Clemens:

Click here to listen to “Down South,” which was released in 2006 on Tom Petty’s Highway Companion album.

Click here to buy “Down South” from Amazon.

Bob Seger – "Fortunate Son" (1986)

It ain’t me, it ain’t me

I ain’t no millionaire’s son

John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival is the guest host on the Sirius/XM “Classic Vinyl” channel this week.

Today, Fogerty told his audience a story about hearing a live version of “Fortunate Son” while doing his weekly grocery shopping many years ago.  

At the time, he and his record company were in the midst of a long-running feud, and he assumed that the bast*rds had released that recording without bothering to tell him.

But later Fogerty found out that the live “Fortunate Son” he had heard at the grocery store was actually a 1986 recording of the song by Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band.

John Fogerty and Bob Seger in 2013

Fogerty and Seger – who both turned 80 in May – are old friends, and Fogerty liked Seger’s cover of CCR’s greatest song.  However, when Fogerty combined with a number of other artists to record covers of CCR’s biggest hits, he chose to record “Fortunate Son” with the Foo Fighters rather than Seger.  (Fogerty and Seger did join forces to record a new version of “Who’ll Stop the Rain.) 

*     *     *     *     *

I mentioned above that John Fogerty and Fantasy Records – CCR’s record company – feuded for years.

In fact, Fantasy sued Fogerty in 1987, alleging that “The Old Man Down the Road” – a 1984 hit for Fogerty – infringed Fantasy’s copyright on “Run Through the Jungle.”  (Fogerty had written “Run Through the Jungle” – so the lawsuit essentially accused him of plagiarizing himself – but Fantasy owned the copyright on the song.)

The judge in that case ruled in favor of Fogerty, who then sued Fantasy to recover his attorney’s fees.  That case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ordered Fantasy to reimburse Fogerty for the money it cost him to defend Fantasy’s copyright infringement lawsuit.  Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1993).

By the way, Fogerty recently purchased the publishing rights to his CCR songs from the company that acquired Fantasy Records after Fantasy’s founder, Saul Zaentz, died in 2014.  

Later this year, he will release a new album consisting of re-recordings of 20 well-known CCR songs – including “Fortunate Son.”

Click here to read my 2018 post featuring Creedence Clearwater Revival’s original recording of “Fortunate Son,” a member of the original group of inductees into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.

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Click here to hear Seger’s cover of “Fortunate Son,” which was released on the Like a Rock album in 1986.

Click here to order that recording from Amazon. 

Steve Miller Band – "Take the Money and Run" (1976)

Go on

Take the money and run

Something rather remarkable happened to me last Saturday: the universe presented me with a gift at the precise moment that I needed that gift.

Or maybe not.  Maybe the universe was testing my character instead of giving me a gift.

I’ll tell you what happened, and you tell me what you think.  

*     *     *     *     *

Every Saturday morning, I walk to a nearby farmers market.

One of the vendors that’s been selling at that market for years is Coulter Farms, a family-owned producer of milk, cheese, and other dairy products.

Not true!  (Keep reading!)

Coulter Farms makes wonderful chocolate milk.  I have a couple of grandchildren who are addicted to it, so I usually buy a quart for each of them.

These days, I pay for just about everything with plastic.  But Coulter Farms charges a 50-cent fee to customers who use credit cards.  So I pay cash money for my weekly chocolate milk purchases.

*     *     *     *     *

Unfortunately, I found myself with only $2 in cash when it was time to head to the farmers market last Saturday.  So it looked like I was going to have to cough up the extra 50 cents and use a credit card.

By the way, trying to save 50 cents by using cash instead of a credit card does not mean that I am cheap!  I am NOT cheap – but I hate to waste money for no reason.  

(If you still think I’m cheap, let me point out that a quart of Coulter Farms chocolate milk costs $6 – significantly more than the grocery-store stuff.  But I think it’s worth every penny, and I happily pay the premium price.)

*     *     *     *     *

I grabbed a baseball cap from my car before walking to the market, which meant using the elevator that services the parking garage at the 2 or 3 lines world headquarters building. 

Imagine my surprise when I saw two $20 bills lying on the floor in front of that elevator’s doors!

At first, I was hesitant to pick them up.  It seemed too good to be true – the modern-day equivalent of the manna that God provided the Israelites while they wandered in the desert after escaping from their bondage in Egypt.

I looked around carefully before bending down to pick up the cash, but there was no one in sight.

I stuck the two twenties into my pocket and hit the elevator’s “down” button.  But then I took one of the bills and dropped it on the floor where I had found it.

After all, $20 was more than enough to cover my chocolate milk purchases that day.  No sense in being greedy and inviting bad karma – right?

*     *     *     *     *

What would you have done?  

Would you have picked up the twenties and gone on your merry way without a second thought?

(Maybe you agree.)

Would you have left the cash on the ground in hopes that the person who lost it realized what happened and was able to recover it before some other rando snatched it up?

Or would you have pocketed one of the bills and left the other one where it was – which is what I did?

*     *     *     *     *

Steve Miller’s early records were much better than his later ones, but the later ones were much more popular.  Go figure.

Click here to listen to “Take the Money and Run,” which was released on the Steve Miller Band’s 1976 album, Fly Like an Eagle. 

Click here to buy “Take the Money and Run” from Amazon.

Cheap Trick – "Daddy Should Have Stayed in High School" (1977)

I like you and you like me, yes?

Sorry but I had to gag you

Unlike the ephebophilic title character of today’s featured record, I did stay in high school – where I not only got all A’s in my high school mathematics classes, but also co-captained the school math team.

Those mad math skills come in very handy when it’s time for me to fill up my car with gas.

You might think choosing where to buy gasoline for your car isn’t that complicated.  But you would be wrong!  

*     *     *     *     *

Let’s begin at the beginning.

My car takes 89 octane gasoline – often called “plus” or “mid-grade” to distinguish it from regular (87 octane) and premium (93) octane.

Did you know that if you mix gasolines with different octane levels, the overall octane number in your tank will be an average of the fuels you've mixed?  For example, mixing equal amounts of 87 and 93 octane will result in a blend with an octane rating of 90.  (That’s because 87 plus 93 equals 180, and 180 divided by two equals 90.)

So one way for me to get the 89 octane gas recommended for my car is to fill my tank with two parts 87 octane regular and one part 93 octane premium – 87 plus 87 plus 93 equals 267, and 267 divided by three equals 89.

Why would I want to go to the trouble of doing two transactions at the gas pump – filling my tank two-thirds full with 87 octane gas first, and then pumping enough 93 octane gas to end up with a full tank of 89 octane – when I could simply fill my tank with 89 octane fuel?

Check the prices for all three grades of gasoline the next time you stop by your local gas station.  I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that you’ll find that the price that the price for 89 octane is much closer to the price for 93 octane than it is to 87 octane.

For example, the Shell station nearest 2 or 3 lines world headquarters currently charges $3.01 for regular, $3.81 for mid-grade, and $4.01 for premium.

If the mid-grade at that station was priced in proportion to its octane content, it would be priced at $3.34 instead of $3.81.  This means that you can save money by mixing your own mid-grade at the pump.

Say you need 12 gallons of gas.  If you fill up with mid-grade at that station, you’d pay $46.72.  But if you bought eight gallons of regular and four gallons of premium, you’d pay only $40.12.

By mixing regular and premium in a 2:1 ratio rather than simply filling up from the mid-grade pump, you’d end up with the same amount of 89 octane fuel but you’d spend 14% less!

*     *     *     *     *

How many of you shop at grocery stores that offer discounts on gasoline based on how much you spend on groceries?

In my area, one of the large grocery chains has a deal with Shell.  For every $100 you spend at one of that chain’s stores, you save 10¢ a gallon when you buy gas at a local Shell station.

Let’s say you spend $500 on groceries in a month.  That means you can save 50¢ a gallon on your next fillup.

But you can only use that discount once.  If you buy five gallons, you save $2.50 – but if you wait until you have room in your tank for 15 gallons, you save $7.50.  So it’s best to wait to use your discount until your tank is almost empty.

I have on occasion made people who are riding in my car very nervous because I will drive until I have only a few miles’ worth of gas left before I fill it up in order to save as much money as possible.

*     *     *     *     *

I had a little less than a gallon left in my tank when I decided to fill up the other day.

I was sitting on an 80¢-per-gallon discount for Shell gas.  The easiest thing for me to have done would have been to go to the nearest Shell station and fill my tank with 89 octane mid-grade, which would have cost me $3.01 a gallon with my grocery-store discount – or $45.01 for the 15 gallons I needed.

Would I have saved money by mixing 87 and 93 octane?

Ordinarily, that would have been the way to go.  But if I bought ten gallons of regular and five gallons of premium, my grocery-store discount would have applied only to my purchase of regular.

Let’s do the math.  Ten gallons of regular at $2.21 a gallon ($3.01 minus the 80¢ discount) plus five gallons of premium at $4.01 a gallon adds up to $42.15.  

That’s a 6.4% savings.  Not bad, but could I do even better?

*     *     *     *     * 

I usually fill up my car at the neighborhood Marathon station, which consistently sells gas for significantly less than the Shell station.  (Both Shell and Marathon offer gasoline that meets the “Top Tier” standard established by leading automobile manufacturers, so I’m happy to buy either brand.)

But I can’t use my grocery-store discount at Marathon stations – it’s good only at Shell stations.

Gas at the Marathon station currently costs $2.83, $3.23, and $3.49 respectively for regular, mid-grade, and premium.  

So filling up with 15 gallons of Marathon mid-grade would have cost me $48.45 – quite a bit more than I would have paid for Shell gas if I had applied my grocery-store discount.

If I mixed my own 89 octane at the Marathon pump by buying ten gallons of regular and five gallons of premium, I would have paid only $45.75 – still almost 8% more than what I would have to pay at the Shell station.

So did I go to the Shell station and fill up my car with a mixture of regular and premium? 

No way, José!

What I did instead was to go to the Shell station and buy ten gallons of premium, which cost $2.21 a gallon with my grocery store discount.

Then I drove a few blocks to the Marathon station and bought five gallons of premium at $3.49 a gallon.

The total cost?  $22.10 plus $17.45 for a total of $39.55 – that’s an additional savings of  6.1%.

*     *     *     *     *

Some of you may think all this is waaaaay too much trouble.  You’ll prefer to just fill up your tank with 89 octane mid-grade rather than mixing your own by purchasing regular and premium separately at the same station – much less going to two different stations.

Either you’re made of money, or your parents didn’t grow up during the Depression – neither of which is true for me.

There’s one other thing.  I’m as big a fan of free-market capitalism as you’ll ever meet, but I get a nice warm feeling inside when I figure out a way to stick it to a big business – even when only a few dollars are involved.

So screw you, Shell Oil (which had $284 billion in total revenues in 2024)!  

And up yours, Marathon Petroleum (which brought in $138 billion in that year)!  

2 or 3 lines (with total revenues of under $100 last year) is bending you over in the prison shower and having its way with both of you – and I’m telling all my loyal readers how to do the same!

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Click here to listen to Cheap Trick’s somewhat creepy “Daddy Should Have Stayed in High School,” which was released in 1977 on the band’s eponymous debut album.  (Somehow that album failed to crack the Billboard 200 album chart.)

Click here to buy “Daddy Should Have Stayed in High School” from Amazon.