Roy Clark – "Yesterday When I Was Young" (1969)

There are so many songs
In me that won’t be sung

When I was in high school, CBS was by far the most popular television network in the country, thanks in large part to rural-themed shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Green Acres.

CBS purged its primetime schedule of those sitcoms at the end of the 1970-71 television season.  It also cancelled Hee-Haw, the cornpone version of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In that had replaced the oh-so-hip Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1969.

Hee-Haw co-hosts Buck Owens and Roy Clark

But Hee-Haw had the last laugh.  After CBS axed the show (despite the fact that it was #16 in the Nielsen ratings), its producers syndicated the show and it aired for 22 more seasons.

*     *     *     *     *

The co-host of Hee-Haw for all those years was Roy Clark, who died at age 85 earlier this week.

Clark was a virtuoso on the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle from an early age.  He won the National Banjo Championship when he was just 14, which earned him an invitation to appear on “The Grand Ole Opry.”

A very young Roy Clark

Clark regularly demonstrated his considerable musical skills on Her Haw.  He also showed off his natural comedic gifts and his very likable personality.

*     *     *     *     *

Clark’s most memorable hit single was “Yesterday When I Was Young,” an English version of a song that was originally written and recorded by French singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour.

Clark performed “Yesterday When I Was Young” at Mickey Mantle’s funeral in 1995.  “Mickey and I were good buddies,” Clark later told an interviewer.  “He always talked about that song. One day we were playing golf, and he came up and said, ‘When I die, I want you to sing that song at my funeral. That’s my life.’ I shrugged it off. I said, ‘Naw, you don’t want that song.’ He said, ‘Yes, I do. Promise me.’ When he found out how sick he was, he called me up and said, ‘Remember: You promised.’”

Mickey Mantle in 1995,
shortly before his death

When I was young and thought I knew all the answers, I cringed whenever I heard “Yesterday When I Was Young.”  It’s a shameless tearjerker, as maudlin as any song ever written.

But it speaks the truth, boys and girls.  Mickey Mantle understood that, and so do I.

Click here to hear “Yesterday When I Was Young.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Dandy Warhols – "We Used to Be Friends" (2003)

A long time ago

We used to be friends

But I haven’t thought of you lately

Yesterday’s 2 or 3 lines was about the Armistice that ended World War I almost exactly one hundred years ago.

I had planned to follow up with another World War I-related post.  But then I noticed today’s date.

*     *     *     *     *

At first glance, the lines from today’s featured song that are quoted above seem straightforward enough.  But upon further review, the meaning isn’t quite so clear.

Let’s begin with the first line.  What exactly do you think “a long time ago” means?   

If you’re a clock, time is an objective phenomenon.  (A second is a second, a minute is a minute, and so on.)  

But a clock can’t tell you what “a long time ago” is – that’s a much more subjective thing.  (If you’re riding a very scary roller coaster, two minutes seems like a long time.  But when you’re on vacation, two weeks seems to fly by.)  

I think most people would say that something that happened five years ago happened a long time ago.  

But I have vivid memories of certain events that happened five years ago.  They don’t feel like they took place a long time ago.

Funny how that works.

*     *     *     *     *

If you “used to be friends” with someone, you presumably are not friends with that person any more.

That means either that the two of you are enemies – or that the two of you are indifferent to one another.  I’m guessing that many more ex-friends are simply not friends than enemies. 

If you used to be in love with someone, it’s likely a different story.  I would bet that few ex-lovers are truly indifferent about one another.  (If you are, maybe you weren’t all that in love in the first place.)  

*     *     *     *     *

What are we to make of the last line quoted above – “I haven’t thought of you lately”?

“Lately” is no more capable of being objectively defined than “a long time ago” is.  So there’s an element of subjectivity here.

But more importantly, the lady – or the gentleman – doth protest too much, methinks.  

I won’t speak for you.  But if you hear me say that I haven’t thought of someone lately, you can bet the farm that I’m thinking of that person all the time!

*     *     *     *     *

I don’t think the lines above are meant to be taken literally.  For one thing, I think that the singer and the person he is singing to were more than simply “friends.”

If you ask me, what the singer of today’s featured song really means is that while it wasn’t all that long ago that he and the woman he loved split up, it feels like it was – and that even though their relationship has ended, he still thinks of her all the time.

The lyrics quoted above are an example of what the Greeks called antiphrasis – that is, saying the opposite of what you mean for rhetorical effect.

In other words, the lyrics are ironic.

*     *     *     *     *

Today’s featured song, “We Used to Be Friends,” was released in 2003 on Welcome to the Monkey House, which was the Dandy Warhols’ fourth studio album:

“Welcome to the Monkey House” is also the title of a 1968 short story by Kurt Vonnegut.  Here's how Wikipedia summarizes the plot of that story:

In the not-so-distant future, a criminal mastermind named Billy the Poet is on the loose and on his way to Cape Cod.  His goal is to deflower one of the hostesses at the Ethical Suicide Parlor in Hyannis.  The world government runs the parlors and urges people to commit suicide to help keep the population of 17 billion stable.  It also requires that the hostesses at these establishments be virgins on the basis that this makes the idea of suicide more appealing, especially to middle-aged and older men.  The government also suppresses the population’s sexual desire with a drug that numbs them from the waist down (but does not render them infertile, as that is seen as unethical and in violation of the religious principles of many).  This drug . . . was originally developed by a druggist who had been offended when, on a family outing to the zoo, his group were confronted by the sight of a male monkey masturbating.  

You younger folks out there will find this hard to believe, but people used to take Kurt Vonnegut’s writing very seriously.  (I’m not kidding.)

Click here to listen to “We Used to Be Friends.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Paul Simon – "Armistice Day" (1972)

On Armistice Day

The Philharmonic will play

The Armistice that ended the fighting in World War I was signed by representatives of the Allied and German governments at 5:12 am on November 11, 1918.  But it did not officially take effect until 11:00 am – the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Over 2700 soldiers on both sides were killed in action in the hours between the time the Armistice was signed and the time it went into effect.  

Henry Gunther's headstone

American Henry Gunther, a Baltimore native of German ancestry, was the last of those men to die.  

*     *     *     *     *

Gunther’s squad learned of the Armistice at about 10:30 on the morning of November 11.  Just before 11:00, Gunther suddenly jumped up and charged a German machine-gun nest.  

Gunther had recently been demoted from the rank of sergeant to that of private after writing a letter that was sharply critical of the Army to a friend back home.  

Baltimore Sun reporter James Cain – the same James Cain who later wrote Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice – believed that Gunther’s suicidal act was the result of his demotion:

According to his comrades, Gunther brooded a great deal over his reduction in rank, and became obsessed with a determination to make good before his officers and fellow soldiers.  Particularly he was worried because he thought himself suspected of being a German sympathizer.  The regiment went into action a few days after he was reduced and from the start he displayed the most unusual willingness to expose himself to all sorts of risks.

Gunther still must have been fired by a desire to demonstrate, even at the last minute, that he was courageous and all-American.  When the Germans saw him coming they waved at him and called out, in such broken English as they could, to go back, that the war was over.  He paid no heed to them, however, and kept on firing a shot or two as he went.  After several vain efforts to make him turn back, the Germans turned their machine gun on him.

Gunther died at 10:59 am.

*     *     *     *     *

The Armistice was signed in a railway car that had been parked in a forest clearing about an hour northeast of Paris.  The car was part of the train that had been reserved for the use of French general Ferdinand Foch, the supreme commander of the Allied forces on the Western Front.

Foch statue at the
“Glade of the Armistice” 

Several years after the war ended, the French turned the location where the Armistice had been signed into a memorial park, which they named Clairière de l’Armistice – or “Glade of the Armistice.”  A building was built to house the railway car and some other artifacts relating to the Armistice.

*     *     *     *     *

After the German Army conquered France in 1940, der Führer went to the Clairière de l’Armistice and insisted that the French sign the surrender documents in Foch’s railway car.

Hitler and his officers standing
 in front of the Foch railway car

That car was then transported to Berlin, where it was displayed in a park for several years.  When Allied forces advanced into Germany in 1945, the SS burned it to keep it from falling into the enemy’s hands.

*     *     *     *     *

After World War II ended, the French rebuilt the Clairière de l’Armistice and put on display a railway car identical to the one in which the Armistice had been signed.  

Last July, I visited the small museum that contains the replica Armistice carriage:

There are a number of other World War I artifacts on display at the Clairière de l’Armistice, including this Renault FT light tank:

The most dramatic monument on the grounds of the Clairière de l’Armistice is the Alsace-Lorraine monument, which pays tribute to the French soldiers who fought so bravely in World War I.  

That monument depicts a German eagle that has been impaled by a sword:

*     *     *     *     *

“Armistice Day” was released in 1972 on Paul Simon’s eponymous solo album.  Here’s what he had to say about that song to Rolling Stone’s Jon Landau:

Well, “Armistice Day,” which I consider to be the weakest song on the album, is an old song, written in 1968 – the first part of it was.  That song mainly meant, let’s have a truce.  I chose the title “Armistice Day,” because it’s not even called Armistice Day anymore, it’s called Veterans Day.  Armistice Day is like an old name, and I didn’t really mean it to be specifically about the war.  I just meant that I’m worn out from all this fighting, from all the abuse that people are giving each other and creating for each other.  

As Simon notes, Americans used to celebrate November 11 as Armistice Day.  

Armistice Day – “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace” – was established by an act of Congress in 1938.  

Armistice Day officially became Veterans Day – a federal holiday that honors all veterans of the United States Armed Forces, whether living or dead – in 1954.

Prior to 1954, Americans celebrated November 11 as Armistice Day

Click here to listen to “Armistice Day.”

You can click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Beach Boys – "Pet Sounds" (1966)

A few days ago, Brian Wilson’s “Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary World Tour” stopped at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Wilson and his band – including original Beach Boy Al Jardine, who met Wilson at Hawthorne High School almost 60 years ago – were originally scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center in May, but had to postpone that show and several others when Wilson needed emergency back surgery.

Brian Wilson and Al Jardine

The years have not been kind to the 76-year-old Wilson’s body.  He needed help from his assistant to walk to the white Yamaha grand piano that had been positioned front and center on the Kennedy Center stage.  Once he took a seat at the piano, he didn’t move until the end of the no-intermission, two-hour-long show, when his assistant returned to help him walk offstage.

The years haven’t been kind to Wilson’s voice either.  At times, he struggled to sing on pitch.  

But none of that mattered.  HE'S BRIAN F*CKING WILSON, the genius who created Pet Sounds – which is the greatest album in the history of pop music.  I was thrilled to have the opportunity to see him perform live and in person.

*     *     *     *     *

The concert got off to a great start with “California Girls,” which was followed by other pre-Pet Sounds hit singles (including “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Dance, Dance, Dance,” and “I Get Around”).  

Those songs couldn’t be more dated.  They depict a southern California teenage-boy-centric world that became extinct decades ago – assuming it ever really existed.

Brian Wilson masters “Pet Sounds” in 1966

Did the Beach Boys and their buds really sit around and debate the relative merits of hip east-coast girls, midwestern farmers’ daughters, and northern girls who “keep their boyfriends warm at night,” before deciding that tanned, bikini-clad California girls are the “cutest girls in the world”?   (I’m sorry, but to me there is no higher compliment for a young woman than “cute.”)

And did the hot-rodders who spent their weekends going from town to town in search of street-racing action really eschew going steady because “it wouldn't be right to leave [your] best girl home on Saturday night”?

The lifestyle the Beach Boys sang about in those songs was as foreign to a kid growing up in Joplin, Missouri, as life in Paris or Tokyo.  God knows I wanted to experience it, but that wasn’t happening.

*     *     *     *     *

Latter-day Beach Boy Blondie Chaplin then joined Brian and the boys to sing “Feel Flows” and “Sail On, Sailor,” which teed it up nicely for what the audience had been waiting for: a performance of all 13 tracks of Pet Sounds.

That album kicks off with the rollicking, up-tempo, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” which is followed by “You Still Believe in Me” (a slow song).  Next comes another fast-slow pair of songs – “That’s Not Me” and “”Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder).” 

The "Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary
World Tour" band on  stage

After “I’m Waiting for the Day,” which is a real tour de force, the audience had a chance to catch its emotional breath during “Let’s Go Away for Awhile” (an instrumental) and “Sloop John B” (which is the only non-original song on Pet Sounds).

*     *     *     *     *

The audience rose to its feet and burst into applause when it heard the opening notes of “God Only Knows,” the first track on side two of the album.

The woman sitting to my left had warned me before the show started that she would cry when “God Only Knows” was played.  I told her that I might join her because that was the song that my oldest son and his wife had chosen for their first dance together at their wedding reception – hearing me play the album when he was a child had apparently made an impression on him.  (That story was enough to start her tearing up.) 

“God Only Knows” is a tough act to follow, but the next three songs on the album – 

“I Know There’s an Answer,” “Here Today,” and “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Time” (a song that seems to sum up Brian Wilson’s troubled life) – are just as good.

Pregaming in my car on the
drive to the Kennedy Center

Next was the album’s title track – today’s featured song – a catchy, lighthearted instrumental that allowed the audience to gather itself before what was the emotional high point of the evening for me: “Caroline, No,” the closing song on Pet Sounds.

Paul McCartney has said that “God Only Knows” is his favorite song of all time, but I think “Caroline, No” is better.  Who are you going to listen to – Paul McCartney or me?

*     *     *     *     *

There was no way for Wilson and his band to top Pet Sounds, but we sixty-somethings in the audience weren’t ready to go home yet.  So they gave us “Good Vibrations” – which took longer and cost more to record than the entire Pet Sounds album – and several more classic pre-Pet Sounds singles (including “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Barbara Ann,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” and “Fun, Fun, Fun”).

Wilson then closed the show with a solo performance of “Love and Mercy,” the opening track of his eponymous debut solo album (which was released in 1988).  

“Love and Mercy” also provided the title of the 2014 Brian Wilson biopic, which included some amazing scenes depicting the 23-year-old wunderkind (portrayed by Paul Dano) supervising the recording of Pet Sounds.  If you haven’t seen the movie, DROP EVERYTHING AND WATCH IT RIGHT NOW!

While you’re at it, watch the 2017 Showtime documentary, Making Pet Sounds.  Click here to watch the trailer for it.   

*     *     *     *     *

The “Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary World Tour” kicked off in Auckland, New Zealand, on March 26, 2016.  

By the time the tour ends later this month, Wilson and company will have performed over 200 times in over two dozen countries – including Japan, Finland, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Iceland.

Why is Brian Wilson is putting himself through this ordeal?  

My ticket

It’s not because he enjoys airline travel.  (His assistant once asked him what went through his mind as they took off on a flight, and Wilson answered, “Don’t blow up, don’t blow up, don’t blow up!”)

And it’s not because Wilson needs the money – his net worth is estimated at $75 million.

*     *     *     *     *

Wilson has a long history of mental illness – which was probably caused at least in part by his taking LSD and other drugs when he was younger – and suffers from auditory hallucinations.   His recent autobiography, I Am Brian Wilson, suggests that he may continue to tour and perform because it helps him cope with the voices in his head that tell him “terrible and scary things.”

“Songs help me with my pain,” he writes in that book. “Music happens and the voices stop happening.”

He talks about dragging out performance of “Good Vibrations” because “any minute playing ‘Good Vibrations’ is a minute I don’t have to feel afraid or tired or haunted.”

Touring seems to be a form of therapy for Brian Wilson.

*     *     *     *     *

The title of this blog refers to the two or three lines from each post’s featured song that are quoted at the beginning of that post.  So you may wonder why I’ve chosen to feature an instrumental today.  After all, “Pet Sounds” has no lyrics for me to quote.   

They tell you to “live in the present moment.”  But I often find that the anticipation of an event is more satisfying than the event itself.  For me, the best part of a vacation is the night before it begins – because once the vacation starts, I find myself counting the days until it ends.

The same is true of music.  Once you hear the opening notes of a song, it’s only a matter of a few minutes before that song is over.  But if the song never begins, it can never end.

“Pet Sounds” immediately precedes “Caroline, No” on the Pet Sounds album.  Every time I listen to it, I’m anticipating hearing the best song on the best pop album of all time.  

That’s why I’m featuring it on 2 or 3 lines today.

Click here to listen to “Pet Sounds.”

And click on the link below to purchase the song from Amazon:

Lucy Dacus – "Troublemaker Doppelgänger" (2016)

I wanna live in a world 

Where I can keep my doors wide open

But who knows what’d get in

And what’d get out

The Showtime series Billions has all the eye candy you could ask for.

We’re talking beaucoup Maseratis, private jets, drop-dead-gorgeous Manhattan penthouse apartments, and drop-dead-gorgeous people.

The cast is strong – Damian Lewis (as a self-made Wall Street billionaire) and Giamatti  (as an ambitious U.S. Attorney who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth) are the big names, but the delightfully devilish David Costabile and the totally toothsome Maggie Siff steal most of the scenes they appear in.

And the writing is very smart.  (There are some well-educated writers working on Billions.)

*     *     *     *     *

Billions is as entertaining as all get out.  But if you’re looking for realism, you’re watching the wrong show.  

Billions is about as plausible as a Dickens novel – by which I mean it’s totally implausible.  

The plot of a typical Dickens novel is chock full of outrageously contrived twists and turns, and the same is true of Billions.  Another Dickens-like thing about Billions is that it is populated with plenty of distinctive and colorful characters, most of whom have only a very faint resemblance to real people.

*     *     *     *     *

Unlike a Dickens novel, Billions has no ill-fated young heroes or heroines whose struggles tug at your heartstrings – no one like David Copperfield, or Oliver Twist, or Pip (Great Expectations) or the Jarndyce wards (Bleak House).

Billions star Maggie Siff

With few exceptions, the characters in Billions are assh*les.  They mostly fall into one of two groups – hedge-fund types who would do anything for a quick buck, and government types who would do anything to achieve higher political office.

Considerations of morality or ethics never enter their minds.  If you asked them if the ends justify the means, they wouldn’t even have to think before answering “HELL YES!”  

*     *     *     *     *

I always watch Billions with my smartphone close at hand so I can Google the references in the script that go over my head.  (I also use my phone’s Soundhound app to identify the obscure but interesting musical cues used in Billions – that’s how I figured out the identity of today’s featured song.)

For example, I watched the first episode of season three recently.  The script quoted Greed and Top Gun, alluded to some New York Islanders and professional wrestlers from the 1970s and 1980s, and dropped in some obscure Basque and Arabic honorifics.

Perhaps most impressively, it not only contained a reference to the “Ship of Theseus” (a metaphysical paradox that has been argued over by philosophers since Plato’s time) but also used that term perfectly aptly.

*     *     *     *     *

As you no doubt know, Theseus was a mythical king of Athens.  The ship he sailed back to Athens in after killing the Minotaur – only one of his many heroic feats – was kept in the Athens harbor for several centuries as a memorial to him.

Ship of Theseus

Eventually, of course, the wooden planks used to construct the ship began to rot.  As each plank decayed, it was replaced with a new one.

Eventually, every piece of wood on the Ship of Theseus was replaced.  This question then arose: was the ship still the Ship of Theseus? 

*     *     *     *     *

The answer is obvious, isn’t it?  

What if the Greeks had saved all the old rotting planks and some genius scientist figured out a way to reverse the rot and make the planks as good as new.  If you reassembled those planks into a ship, that ship would clearly be the Ship of Theseus – right?

The other ship – the one that consisted entirely of replacement parts – couldn’t be the Ship of Theseus, because then you would have two Ships of Theseus when everyone knows Theseus only sailed on one ship.

Believe it or not, some philosophers have argued that the original ship and the replica ship are both the Ship of Theseus because they have the same form and function, and existed at different times.  This seems to be what Aristotle believed.

Aristotle: not as bright as
you’ve been led to believe

I’ve been brainwashed since high school into thinking Aristotle was a major brainiac, but it turns out he’s not.  The solution to the Ship of Theseus paradox is as plain as the nose on your face, yet Aristotle got it wrong.

*     *     *     *     *

Heraclitus, another fancy-pants Greek philosopher, approached the Ship of Theseus paradox by asking whether someone who walks into a river on Monday and then again on Tuesday has really walked into the same river.  After all, the water that he waded into on Monday wasn’t the same water that he waded into on Tuesday.

According to Heraclitus, “It is impossible to go into the same river twice” because the water in that river is constantly changing.  

Heraclitus is just as big a dummy as Aristotle.  We’re not talking whether the water is the same on Monday as it is on Tuesday – we’re talking about whether it’s the same river.  OF COURSE IT IS!

Let’s be practical, boys and girls.  If the Mississippi River was a different river on Tuesday than it was on Monday, it only stands to reason that you’d have to give it a different name – not only on Tuesday, but also on Wednesday, and Thursday, and so on.  

And we’re not just talking about the Mississippi River needing a new name every day – we’re talking about every other river, too.  It would be more than a little bit confusing if every damn river in the whole damn world had a different damn name every damn day!

*     *     *     *     *

“Troublemaker Doppelgänger” was released in 2016 on Lucy Dacus’s debut album, No Burden:

Dacus – who’s a native of Richmond, Virginia – was 20 when she recorded that album.  How many of you released an album consisting entirely of original songs before you turned 21?

Click here to listen to a live performance of “Troublemaker Doppelgänger.” 

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Blondie – "Fade Away and Radiate" (1978)

Beams become my dream

My dream is on the screen

One of the ways I while away my leisure hours is by watching cable TV series – Game of Thrones, Homeland, Orange Is the New Black, Silicon Valley, etc.

(By the way, did you know that “series” is both a singular and a plural noun?  Other examples of nouns that are both singular and plural include “sheep,” “deer,” and “aircraft.”)

Now that I’m retired, I like to watch one episode of a series while I eat lunch, and a second episode in the evening just before I go to bed.  I don’t watch two episodes every day, of course – sometimes I have other plans that keep me from doing so.  

Since a single season of a series usually consists of 10 or 12 episodes, that means I go through a season every week or so. 

*     *     *     *     * 

I should note that I watch TV series only on library DVDs.  Why?

Because I want to be in control of when I view.  I’m not the type to drop everything and plant myself in front of my TV every Monday at 900p (or every Saturday at 800p) to watch a show when a network broadcasts it.  

And what if I want to stop in the middle of an episode, or watch two episodes back to back?  If you’re watching on DVDs, that’s easy to do.

(Yes, I know about DVRs.  But if I’m not going to remember to watch an episode of a series when it is broadcast live, what makes you think I will remember to set my DVR to record it?)

I could control the timing of my viewing by buying the DVDs, or by subscribing to Netflix or some other streaming service.  But library DVDs are free, and I find it almost impossible to bring myself to pay for something – even if the cost is relatively low – when I can conveniently get that something for free.

(If I was in therapy, this would be an interesting topic to discuss with my therapist.  But I’m not in therapy, so I don’t have a therapist to discuss it with – meaning that the cause or causes of this behavior will remain buried beneath the surface for the time being.  Just like the causes of all the issues I have – which are numerous.)

*     *     *     *     *

The only disadvantage of relying on library DVDs is that they’re not always available to check out when you visit your local library branch.

My library allows me to go online and reserve DVDs of TV series.  I get an e-mail when the desired DVD is available, and can then pick it up at my leisure. 

If I request a DVD that’s not in high demand – maybe the show was broadcast several years ago, or it wasn’t that popular in the first place – it often will be delivered to my local branch within a couple of days.

Brand-new DVDs of popular shows – like brand-new bestselling books – may have been requested by a number of people, so you may have to wait weeks (if not months) before a copy becomes available.

I hate to find myself without a DVD to watch, so I try to always have a couple in reserve.  Since my library allows me to check out DVDs of TV series for three weeks and renew that initial checkout period twice – meaning that I can hold on to a DVD for a nine weeks if no one else has requested it – there’s no reason not to err on the side of having too many rather than too few DVDs.

*     *     *     *     *

About a week ago, I was running very short of DVDs to watch.  

So I sat down at my computer and did some research, looking for well-reviewed shows from the past several years that I hadn’t yet viewed.  A good number of the recommended shows had not been acquired by my library, so I couldn’t request them.  But plenty of shows that appealed to me had been acquired and were available to be reserved.

It just so happened that all of the DVDs I reserved became available almost immediately.  Within a few days, I found myself with DVDs for the third season of Showtime’s Billions (which I’ll write about in the next 2 or 3 lines), the first two seasons of the Netflix series Narcos, the first three seasons of USA Netowrk’s Mr. Robot, the first four seasons of the BBC’s Sherlock, and a couple of mini-series (HBO’s Olive Kitteredge and the BBC’s Bleak House).

My current stash of library DVDs

That adds up to roughly 78 hours of viewing pleasure – not counting the miscellaneous bonus features that are included with most TV series DVDs.

I spend about 10 hours a week watching my DVDs, so that means I’m taken care for the next eight weeks or so.

I can’t tell you how relaxed and contented I feel knowing that I don’t have to worry about running out of DVDs to watch for the next eight weeks.

*     *     *      *     *

Over 40 years ago, I started entering the titles and authors of every book I read in a notebook.

A couple of weeks ago, it hit me that I should do the same when I completed watching a season of a TV series. 

Instead of writing the name of each series down in the same notebook where I enter the books I read, I decided to create a document instead.  (It’s much easier to search a computer document than it is to flip through dozens of pages of handwritten notebook entries.)

I’ve been able to recall about 50 series that I’ve watched – I’m guessing I’ll remember a few others that I’ve forgotten.  (It’s much easier for me to remember whether I’ve already watched a TV series than it is for me to remember whether I’ve read a book – especially a book that’s part of a series featuring the same character.)

Some of the series I’ve watched (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos) have come to the end of their run, while others (Veep, Westworld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) are still cranking out episodes.

(Why am I keeping these lists?  That’s another question for my therapist if I ever go into therapy – which I never will.)

*     *     *     *     *

“Fade Away and Radiate” is a poetic tribute to the experience of watching television in a dark room late at night – which is something that nearly all of us have done.

When Blondie recorded that song in 1978, all televisions were cathode ray tube (“CRT”) televisions. 

Today, CRT TVs seem as ancient as rotary-dial telephones and airplanes with smoking sections.  But sales of LCD televisions did not surpass the sales of CRT units until 2007.

By the way, I still have a 27-inch Sony Trinitron CRT TV sitting in a closet in my basement.  You’re welcome to it, but you’ll have to drag it up the stairs without any help from me.  (The damn thing weighs about a hundred pounds, which is why it is still sitting in my basement.)

Click here to listen to “Fade Away and Radiate,” which was released in 1978 on the Parallel Lines album.

Click on the link below if you’d like to buy the song from Amazon: