Tracy Bonham – "Mother, Mother" (1996)

 

I'm losin’ my mind

EVERYTHING’S FINE!

2 or 3 lines is going to be moving to new digs soon, so things are kinda crazy around the office these days.

We haven’t finalized the location of the new 2 or 3 lines world headquarters yet.  I had hoped to be out of our old space by now – whether in temporary quarters, or in our new permanent location – but the best-laid schemes of my wildly successful little blog have gang aft a-gley.

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Our current state of limbo is the result of landlord issues.  I knew our current landlord wouldn’t be happy when I gave notice of our intention to move to a new address, but I didn’t anticipate getting this much resistance.

The landlord is making what we lawyers call a “detrimental reliance” argument – she is claiming that my moving out would be inconsistent with certain statements I made in the past, and that she relied on those statements to her detriment.  

I feel a little guilty because I know that my landlord sincerely expected that 2 or 3 lines would remain in our current space indefinitely.  My announcement to the contrary took her by surprise.  

But I haven’t been happy with conditions here for quite a while.  I’ve made that clear on numerous occasions, but to no avail – my complaints have never been addressed.

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To be fair, 2 or 3 lines hasn’t been a perfect tenant – far from it.  But our landlord has unrealistic expectations – she wants us to make some very fundamental changes in the way we do business, and I’m simply not willing to make those changes.  

The landlord knew what she was getting into with 2 or 3 lines when she agreed to give us our space.  If she expected us to do things differently, she should have made that clear at the beginning. 

I should have found a new location years ago – God knows there are plenty of attractive spaces out there that I think would welcome us with open arms – but I’m a bit of a procrastinator.  

In any event, I’ve made up my mind and plan to move forward with the relocation as soon as possible.  The current kerfuffle may delay that move until after the first of the year, but I’m willing to delay things until after the holidays as an accommodation to my landlord.  

*     *     *     *     *

In the meantime, the atmosphere around here is a little chilly.  The landlord isn’t exactly making it easy on us.

Nonetheless, I’m determined to keep things civil until the move is a fait accompli.  As King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 15:18, “A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.”  (To put it another way, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”)  

In the end, I believe it will be worth all the mishegoss to get the hell out of here and start anew.  Check back in a few months, and I’ll let you know how things are going. 

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Tracy Bonham’s first single – “Mother Mother,” which was released in 1996 – went all the way to number one on the Billboard “Hot Modern Rock Tracks” chart.  It also earned her two Grammy nominations.

Tracy’s follow-up efforts were not commercial successes, but she continues to perform and record.  

Tracy Bonham

Carl Wiser of Songfacts interviewed her earlier this year.  Click here to read that interview.

Click here to see the “Mother Mother” music video, which features Bonham’s real-life mother.

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.

Royal Blood – "Figure It Out" (2014)

Nothing here to see

Just a kid like me

Tryin’ to figure it out

There’s an old joke about a preacher who was in danger of drowning after a storm caused a river to flood.

As the waters rose, the preacher knelt in prayer on his church’s front steps. By and by, one of his flock approached the church in the canoe.

“Better get in, Preacher. The waters are rising fast!”

No,” says the preacher. “I have faith in the Lord. He will save me.”

The rising waters forced the preacher to climb up on the church’s roof.  He was wringing his hands in supplication when another member of his congregation came up in a motorboat.

“Come on, Preacher. We need to get you out of here. The levee's gonna break any minute!”

Once again, the preacher was unmoved. “I shall remain. The Lord will see me through.”

After a while the levee broke, and the flood waters rose until only the steeple remained above water. The preacher climbed up there, clinging to the cross, when a rescue helicopter appeared and dropped a rope ladder.  The pilot called down to him through a bullhorn.

“Grab the ladder, Preacher. This is your last chance!”

Once again, the preacher insisted the Lord would deliver him.  So he drowned.

When he arrived in heaven, the preacher tracked down God. “Lord, I had unwavering faith in you,” the preacher said. “Why didn't you deliver me from that flood?”

God just shook his head. “What the hell did you want from me?  I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”

*     *     *     *     *

Last week, I drove to Pittsburgh to watch the NCAA Division III women’s volleyball championships.  (My sister-in-law is a veteran college volleyball coach with over a thousand victories under her belt, and her team had advanced all the way to the finals.)

Pittsburgh is a four-hour-plus drive from where I live, which gave me lots of time to listen to the Sirius/XM in my car.  I rarely listen to Howard Stern any more, but I had heard he was interviewing Quentin Tarantino, so I listened to that on my way to Pittsburgh.

When I got in the car the next day for the drive back, the Stern channel was replaying a 2015 interview with a British rock duo called Royal Blood.  I had never heard of Royal Blood, so I changed stations almost immediately.

When I arrived home that night, it was time for Drew Carey’s “Friday Night Freakout” show on the “Underground Garage” channel – which I think is hands down the most interesting show on Sirius/XM.

Drew Carey, DJ extraordinaire!

About an hour into the show, Carey played a  record I had never heard before.  I clicked on the microphone icon on my Google search bar (which is my go-to method for identifying unfamiliar music) and learned that the record Carey was playing was “Figure It Out” by none other than Royal Blood – the same Royal Blood whose visit with Howard Stern I had stumbled across earlier in the day.

Coincidence?  I think not.

Like the preacher, I ignored the guy in the canoe.  But I paid attention when the guy in the motorboat arrived.  There was no need to send a helicopter for me.

*     *     *     *     *

Click here to watch the official music video for “Figure It Out,” which was released in 2014 on Royal Blood’s eponymous debut album.

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.

Moody Blues – "Nights in White Satin" (1967)

Letters I’ve written

Never meaning to send

What am I missing?  Why would you write a letter that you had no intention of sending?

According to Julia McCutcheon – who describes herself as an “intuitively inspired transformational coach” – writing a letter to a specific person with no intention of actually sending it “enables you to express your thoughts and feelings without holding yourself back and in a way that may not have been possible with the person concerned.”

“Unsent letters are powerful because they’re for your eyes only so you’re genuinely able to express all that lies unexpressed in your heart,” McCutcheon goes on to say.  “As a result, they tend to inspire helpful insights into patterns and relationships, and trigger an immediate and extremely welcome sense of relief.”

*     *     *     *     *

I don’t recall ever writing a letter that I never meant to send.

I’ve failed to write and send letters that I should have written and sent.

But my more common error has been to write and send letters – including e-mails – that I should never have sent.

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I first wrote about “Nights in White Satin” in 2010.  That post focused on “Late Lament” – the poem that is read (not sung) at the end of that track:

Breath deep the gathering gloom

Watch lights fade from every room

Bedsitter people look back and lament

Another day's useless penny is spent

Impassioned lovers wrestle as one 

Lonely man cries for love and has none

New mother picks up and suckles her son

Senior citizens wish they were young

Coldhearted orb that rules the night

Removes the colors from our sight

Red is gray and yellow, white

But we decide which is right 

And which is an illusion

*     *     *     *     *

I was in a crappy mood the day I wrote that post, and I took it out on “Late Lament” – which is an extremely deserving target:

These lines are nonsense.  They are an embarrassment.  Every single one of you who took these lines seriously – and please note I'm saying "you" and not "us" because I swear to you this crap never fooled me – should hang your head in shame.

My sophomore-year roommate had this record, and whenever this part came on, he would stand up and mouth the words dramatically, like he was Sir Laurence Olivier doing Hamlet or Othello or whatever – "Breathe deep," etc., etc., etc.  

The Moody Blues

He was insufferably annoying, as all my other friends told me he would be – I should have listened.  I should have known the first time I saw him do his little dramatic reading of these lines.

Lines like "New mother picks up and suckles her son/Senior citizens wish they were young" are just banal.  But what are we to make of this gibberish?  “Red is gray, and yellow [is] white/But we decide which is right/And which is an illusion.”

(Say whut?)

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Click here to listen to “Nights in White Satin” and “Late Lament.”

Click here to buy “Nights in White Satin” without “Late Lament” from Amazon – 'cause who in the hell wants to have to listen to that nonsense again?

Stereo MC's – "Connected" (1992)

If you make sure you’re connected

The writing’s on the wall

You have three basic options when you’re out on a bike ride and need to drain the lizard.

First, you can find a fast-food joint or a bar or some other place with public restrooms.  That’s fine if you’re riding in a busy urban neighborhood, but what if you’re riding on a rail trail out in the middle of nowhere?

There are often porta-potties at the trailheads where you go to access such trails, but they are usually waaaaay too foul and disgusting for someone with the delicate sensibilities that I have.  No thank you!

That leaves option number three: the great outdoors.  If the wild beasts who inhabit the woods and the fields aren’t embarrassed to do their business in public, neither am I.  

Does a bear sh*t in the woods?  Mos’ definitely!  Do I simply dismount and go behind a tree when nature calls?  Yes, indeedy!

That works just fine, assuming that it’s not so frigid that I have to take off my gloves and pull down my bike pants to unlimber and let fly – exposing my tenderest body parts to the bitter cold.

Also assuming that a couple of spinsters out for a little bird watching or a new mom pushing a stroller don’t happen by and catch me ganging aft agley.  I’ve had a couple of near misses, forcing me to shut things down midstream, put my junk away, and try to look innocent until the passers by have passed by.

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Last week, I stumbled across a high-tech solution to this problem while riding in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

The "Throne" is a smart portable toilet that was developed to cure the shortage of clean public bathrooms in American cities.

In the words of the Throne’s developers,

In a world with Thrones, parents of young children leave home knowing they’ll be able to find a clean bathroom before a request becomes an emergency.  Mobile workers, such as rideshare and delivery drivers, focus on keeping our cities moving without losing time or dignity.  Small businesses aren’t burdened with the cost of maintaining clean bathrooms for the general public.  People with elevated urgency or frequency of nature’s call, leave home with confidence.  Trans and non-binary people know they are welcome.  Tourists spend more time seeking experiences, less time seeking relief. Joggers run freely.  

And bikers bike freely, I might add.

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The Throne offers a completely touchless bathroom experience.

You walk up to any Throne and scan a QR code, which generates a text message for your phone.  Click “send” on that message and the Throne’s door automatically pops open (assuming no one else is already using it, of course):

When you go inside a Throne, you’ll find a porcelain toilet that actually flushes and a sink where you can wash up after doing the deed.  (The “gray” water from the handwashing sink is what flushes the toilet – waste not, want not!)

At the end of your experience, you are asked to rate the cleanliness of your Throne.  If the previous patron was guilty of bathroom conduct unbecoming a civilized human, Throne’s computers make a note – malefactors may be refused entry the next time they try to use a Throne.

The Throne operates on solar power.  Sensors inside the unit send out a signal when the Throne needs to pumped out and cleaned – after every hundred uses or so.  

The cost of unit is roughly $70,000.  Because there’s no need to connect the Throne to the electrical grid or to the water or sewer infrastructure, installing a Throne costs next to nothing.  

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When I saw my first Throne last week, I was riding the Anacostia River Trail through the busy Bladensburg Waterfront Park just a few miles northeast of downtown Washington, DC.  I couldn’t wait to take it for a test drive.

Despite my advanced age, I’m a pro when it comes to reading a QR code with my cell phone’s camera function – that’s the way most breweries offer access to their draft beer menus these days – and found it easy to generate and send the text message that was supposed to unlock my Throne’s door.

But my hopes were dashed when I received this reply from Throne:

That’s right – this supposedly high-tech toilet was on the fritz.  

If the park where the Throne stood hadn’t been so busy, I would have been tempted to yank my you-know-what out and christen it with my precious bodily fluids.  

But given the heavy foot and bike traffic around me, I had to squeeze my sphincter shut until I was able to ride to a less populated stretch of the bike trail – where I happily made like a dog and relieved myself on a tree.

You were a great disappointment, Throne!

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The Stereo MC’s are a British hip hop group that formed in Nottingham, England in 1985.

“Connected” was released on the group’s album of the same name in 1992.  It was their biggest U.S. hit single, and is the only record by the group that I’ve ever heard.

“Connected” is infectious as all get-out.  Like Ol’ Man River, it just keeps rollin’ along – it’s very loosey-goosey . . . and never goes offline!

Click here to listen to “Connected.”

Click here to buy the song from Amazon.

Max Frost and the Troopers – "Fourteen or Fight!" (1968)

Gettin’ old

Lookin’ old

That’s a drag now!

(You can say that again!)

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On November 8, Maxwell Frost was elected to represent the 10th congressional district of Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives.

I wasn’t aware of Congressman-elect Frost’s victory until I heard President Biden mention him in his post-election press conference.

Biden described Frost as the youngest person ever elected to Congress.  He was almost right – Frost was actually the second youngest Congressman-elect.

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The youngest person ever elected to Congress was actually William Charles Cole Claiborne of Tennessee, who was only 22 when he was elected to Congress in 1797.  At least that’s what the official House of Representatives website says – other sources report that Claiborne was 23 or perhaps 24 when he took the oath of office. 

In any event, the U.S. Constitution provides that members of the House of Representatives must be at least 25 years of age – which Claiborne clearly was not.  That fact didn’t seem to have bothered the members of the House, who chose to seat Claiborne despite his youth.

Unlike Claiborne, Maxwell Frost was 100% legal.  He was born on January 17, 1997, which means he celebrated his 25th birthday almost a full year before he will be sworn into Congress.

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After congratulating Congressman-elect Frost at his press conference, the President noted that he had been the second-youngest person ever elected to the Senate.

As we learned above, Maxwell Frost wasn’t actually the youngest person ever elected to Congress.  And Joe Biden wasn’t actually the second-youngest person ever elected to the Senate– he was actually the sixth-youngest Senator.  

Biden was 29 when he was elected in 1972, but was 30 years, six weeks, and one day old when he was sworn in as a Senator.

Given that the Constitution provides that you must be at least 30 years old to serve in the U.S. Senate, Biden cut it fairly close.  But not as close as William Wells.

William Wells

Wells – like Biden, he was from Delaware – was only 30 years and ten days old when he was sworn in as a Senator.  (Not that it really matters, but William Wells was the great-great-grandfather of Orson Welles.)

While Senators are supposed to be at least 30 when they take office, four men were seated in the Senate despite being younger than that – including the legendary Henry Clay, who became a Senator from Kentucky when he was only 29.  

Second-youngest, sixth-youngest, whatever.  (Uncle Joe is known for not sweating the details.)

*     *     *     *     *

Back to Congressman-elect Maxwell Frost . . .

In 2010, I wrote about Wild in the Streets – a movie that was released the day before my 16th birthday. 

That movie starred Christopher Jones – an actor who is now largely forgotten – as a rock star who was asked for help by a Senator who wanted the voting age lowered to 18.  (That actually happened only three years after the movie was released.)

The rock star did the Senator one better – he released a song titled “Fourteen or Fight,” which inspired massive protests and demonstrations by teenagers.  As a result of the chaos that was unleashed by “Fourteen or Fight,” the oldsters in Washington cried uncle and lowered the voting age to 15.  Eventually, the kids took over the government, which put everyone who was over 35 in “re-education” camps, where they were given daily doses of LSD and lived happily (and obliviously) ever after.

The name of the fictional rock star portrayed by Christopher Jones (who was elected President by all those newly-enfranchised teenage voters) was . . . Maxwell Frost.  (Actually, it was Max Frost – but if the President can say he was the second-youngest Senator when he was actually the sixth-youngest Senator, I reckon I can say that the Christopher Jones character was named Maxwell Frost when he was actually Max Frost.)

Click here to read my 2010 post about Wild in the Streets.

Click here to listen to “Fourteen or Fight.”

Click here to listen to “Shape of Things to Come,” which was the best Max Frost song from Wild in the Streets.

Cheap Trick – "ELO Kiddies" (1977)

 

So you missed some school?

You know school’s for fools

Today money rules

My obsession with rewards-offering credit cards started out innocently enough.  I signed up for a few airline-branded cards that offered 50,000 free miles to new cardholders – good enough for a free roundtrip.

Then I got a credit card that offered a 1% rebate on all my non-airline-related purchases.  Life was good!

But eventually I was seduced by the appeal of a dizzying array of niche credit cards, each of which offered a unique discount – money for nothing.

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Did you know that Amazon has a credit card that gives Amazon Prime members 5% back on Amazon purchases.  Walmart offers a card that does the same when you buy from Walmart.

I don’t do the majority of my shopping at Amazon or Walmart, but I obtained cards from those two companies and set up my online accounts with them so that my purchases were billed to those credit cards instead of to my regular 2% card.

I also picked up an REI card, which gives you 5% back on REI purchases.  I do relatively little shopping at REI.  But if I use my REI card to pay my cell phone bill each month, I get free insurance on my cell phone – no more paying the cell phone company $10 or $15 a month to protect me if I break or lose that b*tch.

*     *     *     *     *

About a year ago, I was filling up at my local Exxon station when I saw a brochure offering an Exxon/Mobil Mastercard.  That card gives you 10 cents off a gallon when you use it to charge Exxon/Mobil gas – which usually works out to be a bigger discount than the 2% rebate I get by using my regular credit card.

But for the first 60 days after you activate your Exxon/Mobil card, you get an additional 30 cents off per gallon.  If my math is right, that’s a total of 40 cents a gallon . . . which is about 10% off the current inflated price of Democrat gasoline.

Shortly after I got my Exxon/Mobil, I learned that BP offered a similar card – so I got one of in case I needed to buy gas at a BP station.

By the way, there two grocery store chains I shop at regularly have programs where your grocery purchases can earn you discounts of up to $1.00 per gallon on gas at Exxon/Mobil and BP stations, respectively.  That’s why I buy gas from those stations whenever possible.

*     *     *     *     *

So far, so good.  But one day I got an e-mail from Amazon offering me a 10% discount on gasoline purchases for a 90-day period.

That’s few cents a gallon more in savings than my Exxon/Mobil and BP credit cards offered.  So I quickly switched to using my Amazon card to fill up.

*     *     *     *     *

The Amazon card also promised me a 3% discount on restaurant and grocery store purchases.  That trumped my Harris Teeter credit card, even on purchases at Harris Teeter grocery stores – which is my go-to for the wild-caught salmon I eat three or four nights a week.  

But I also have a Citibank-issued Mastercard that gives me a 5% discount on whatever is my biggest purchase category each month – which is almost always groceries.  

The only catch on that card is that if you spend more than $500 on groceries in a billing cycle, the discount reverts to 1%.  (That’s chump change, bro!)

I try to keep a running mental tally of my monthly grocery purchases so I can switch credit cards at the appropriate moment.

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Every time you make a hotel reservation these days, you’re offered the opportunity to get a Hilton or Marriott or Wyndham or Holiday Inn credit card.  

If you take the company up on the offer, you’re given a sizable number of points good for free hotel stays.  Since I was thinking I might be staying at a Hilton-branded hotel for some time while the 2 or 3 lines organization was moving into its new digs, I jumped at the chance to get a Hilton card.

Later, I found out that I could save some jack by staying at a nearby Marriott property instead of the Hilton I had originally made a reservation at.  Naturally, I applied for a Marriott card.  

But much to my dismay, the bank that issued the Marriott-branded card turned me down!

My credit score was a few points higher than my SAT number – so what the f*ck was that all about?

“We have denied your application for a Marriott Bonvoy credit card because you have recently applied for an excessive number of new credit cards,” I was told.

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I bought Cheap Trick’s third studio album, Heavn Tonight, shortly after it was released in 1978.  The first track on that album was the brilliant “Surrender” – “Mommy’s alright/Daddy’s alright/They just seem a little weird” – and I just had to have it.

But I was not at all familiar with the rest of the band’s oeuvre until I started listening to the “Underground Garage” channel on Sirius/XM – you hear quite a few Cheap Trick songs there.

“ELO Kiddies” is the very first track on Cheap Trick’s eponymous debut album.  It’s a little bit m-o-n-e-y!

Click here to listen to “ELO Kiddies.”

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.

Bee Gees – "Lonely Days" (1970)

I see you every morning

Outside the restaurants

The music plays so nonchalant

Twenty-five years ago, I was a busy lawyer and had four kids living at home.  My life was busy and somewhat complicated.

But now that I’m retired and my kids are grown up and living on their own, things should be a lot simpler.  But I’ve worked hard to keep my life busy and complicated!

One way I’ve accomplished that is by applying for a lot of credit cards in an effort to take advantage of the dizzying array of discounts and other benefits that different credit cards offer these days.

*     *     *     *     *

Twenty-five years ago, I was good with a couple of Visas or Mastercards.  I didn’t have to pay attention to how much interest the different cards charged because I paid my balances in full every month – which meant the interest rate was irrelevant.

Then the airlines began to push their branded credit cards by offering you a ridiculous number of miles to sign up.  I remember when Southwest Airlines used to have a couple of people manning a kiosk at BWI airport. “Would you like 60,000 free miles and a T-shirt?” they would say as you walked by on your way to your departure gate.  “All you have to do is apply for our no-fee credit card.”

At one point, I had credit cards from Southwest, American, United and US Air.  I did a lot of flying in those days, and you got miles not only for flying, but also if you used the card to pay for your hotel and rental car.  But the key was the free miles you got just for signing up – usually enough miles for a round trip on that airline.

Eventually you had to start paying a fee to have the card.  The first year would be free, but after that the card might cost $99 a year.  I usually cancelled the card at that point.

I figured out that you could cancel, wait a couple of years, and then reapply for airline-branded credit cards – you’d get the free miles again, and the cards were free for the first year.

It turns out that I never had to truly cancel my American Airlines card.  That’s because when you called up to cancel at the end of the year – when they were about to hit you with the $99 fee – they would bend over backwards to talk you out of cancelling.  “Sir, would you keep the card if we offered you a $100 statement credit next month?” the rep would ask me.

“Let me get this straight,” I would answer.  “I pay the $99 fee now, and you’ll credit me $100 against my balance next month?”

This seemed unnecessarily complicated.  Why didn’t they just waive the fee?   

In any event, I went through this little dance with whatever bank issued the American Airlines credit card every year, just like clockwork.

*     *     *     *     *

Eventually banks started to offer credit cards that rebated 1% of the amount you charged on the card.

In other words, if you charged $2500 in a given month, the card issuer would reduce your balance due by $25 – or even mail you a check for $25.

I picked up a couple of those cards – 1% isn’t a lot, but every little bit helps, especially when you use your credit card for just about all your purchases.  (“Cash”?  What’s that?)

Then several years ago, a large bank started offering a “double cash” Mastercard that rebated 2% of your purchase amount back to you.

You best believe that got my attention.  I applied for that card toot sweet, and started using it almost exclusively.

*     *     *     *     *

I say “almost exclusively” because I also had several niche credit cards that offered me more than a 2% discount on certain purchases.

I’ll tell you about them in the next 2 or 3 lines.

*     *     *     *     *

Here’s how one critic described the Bee Gees’ 1970 hit, “Lonely Days”:

The song incorporated the innovative structure and knack for changing tempos exemplified by the second side of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album, released the previous year and a clear influence on this single. 

The Bee Gees circa 1970

I don’t know about that.  But I do know that “Lonely Days” consists of two brief verses plus a chorus that consists of the following two-line catchphrase (which is repeated mucho times):

Lonely days, lonely nights

Where would I be without my woman?

The Gibbs boys obviously learned a lot from Sir Paul McCartney, who was the master of bolting together verses and choruses that sound like they belonged in two different songs and then using repetition in order to make a three-minute hit single from a ninety-second songlet.

Click here to listen to “Lonely Days.”

Click here to order the record from Amazon.