Mike is a retired stock broker, and now supports his wife’s furniture business. He is her warehouseman, deluxer, a.nd marketing guru. In addition, he writes poetry and finds abundance, health and joy in the world around him while pondering life’s little mysteries
Her music was played at our wedding. Bev married for the first time at 42, requested we dance the first dance to Etta James singing “At Last.”
Etta James, whose powerful, versatile and emotionally direct voice could enliven the raunchiest blues as well as the subtlest love songs, most indelibly in her signature hit, “At Last,” died Friday morning in Riverside, Calif. She was 73.
Her manager, Lupe De Leon, told The Associated Press that the cause was complications of leukemia.
Yesterday, Steve Jobs died after a long battle with Pancreatic Cancer. How indebted are we to his ability to create new products? My first computer was an Apple 2 and it allowed me to chart stocks better than I ever could before and it just kept getting better.
This morning I learned that 19 year-old Cody Myers was found dead. The two who jacked his car, David Joseph Pedersen, 31, and his girlfriend, Holly Ann Grigsby, 24, were driving Myers’ car when an officer pulled them over.
Then this morning I learned that Teisha Helgerson, just 42, the singer, guitarist and drummer for the band Amelia, died after her long battle with cancer. Man, I will miss her singing and new songs from her group. I first saw them perform on Mississippi Ave. here in Portland and have posted many times about them. I just love their sweet sound.
There will be a memorial service at Peace Lutheran Church (2201 N. Rosa Parks Way). 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. Potluck to follow.
“It’s sad to contemplate all the music we missed due to Teisha’s diminished energy during her long illness, and the music that she might have given us in the future. But we must also be grateful that this exceptionally kind and gifted woman had the guts to put her voice before the public in the first place;”
Sometimes a song just goes through my brain and I can’t get it out. The song “Brand New Key” by Melanie is the song today:
I rode my bicycle past your window last night
I roller skated to your door at daylight
It almost seems like you’re avoiding me
I’m okay alone, but you got something I need
Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates
You got a brand new key
I think that we should get together and try them out you see
I been looking around awhile
You got something for me
Oh! I got a brand new pair of roller skates
You got a brand new key
I ride my bike, I roller skate, don’t drive no car
Don’t go too fast, but I go pretty far
For somebody who don’t drive
I been all around the world
Some people say, I done all right for a girl
Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates
You got a brand new key
I think that we should get together and try them out you see
I been looking around awhile
You got something for me
Oh! I got a brand new pair of roller skates
You got a brand new key
I asked your mother if you were at home
She said, yes .. but you weren’t alone
Oh, sometimes I think that you’re avoiding me
I’m okay alone, but you’ve got something I need
Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates
You got a brand new key
I think that we should get together and try them out to see
La la la la la la la la, la la la la la la
Oh! I got a brand new pair of roller skates
You got a brand new key
August 17th is the release date for the new Album from Ray LaMontagne titled GOD WILLIN’ & THE CREEK DON’T RISE. Here’s the new single “Beg Steal or Borrow.”
If you like it as much as I do you’ll be playing it over and over and over…
Heard more from the alphabetized KINK library this morning as I’m sitting up at NW Skyline and Germantown Road: Toni Childs singing “Stop Your Fussin Boy”. Giosh where has she been? She hasn’t released a CD since 2000. I have every one of her albums and have almost played the grooves off, but haven’t played them at all in the last year. Here’s a refresher:
One of the last passengers to board is Matisse. This morning she wore a bright pink sweatshirt with eight penguin like birds standing in a row.
“Penguins!”, I said.
Close, but not Penguins.”
“What are they?” I asked.
She turned red and said, “Blue-footed boobies.” She giggled as did her girl friends.
“Sorry I asked!”
You know the kids on the bus are not into conversation with the bus driver. I pick them up all the way out to Cornelius Pass in my yellow bus and take them to Lincoln and then take them home at night. The 13 to 20 of them mostly sit toward the back. Actually, they fill the bus from back to front. Those poor kids who sit toward the front! I can hear their conversations and sometime I just have to butt in.
One day one of the students, Sienna I think, said, “I never really learned to multiply fractions.” In my head I’m thinking 1/2 X 2/3. The rule used to go: multiply the tops, the numerator, then multiply the bottoms, the denominators. The result would be 2/6. I can instantly see 1/3 or .33 in my head. I wanted to share this with her, but she went on to sines and cosines, so I thought better of sharing.
Anyway, if they are not talking to each other, they are being quiet, listening to whatever is current through their ear plugs. This gives me lots of time to think as I drive along.
KINK has been playing their musical library in alphabetical order. The song titles are alphabetized from A to Z. One of the songs I heard today was by Mark Knopfler or Mark Knopfler while he was with Dire Straits. I remembered telling my Dad on our convertible trip to Yosemite years ago. I played Dire Straits and told Dad that you could instantly recognize the unique guitar sound and know Knopfler was playing.
As I was driving today, I thought, what does he play? So when I got home, I googled “What instrument does Mark Knopfler play?” I found hours of videos of him playing and this video about the evolution of his playing:
Tomorrow, I will work out solutions to some problems, unless I’m interrupted by those chatty Lincoln students.
Leah Nash, Special to The OregonianRita and Les Sarnoff relax at their Gresham home. When they met in 1987 the first thing she told him was to quit playing so much Doobie Brothers music on KINK’s morning show.
My wife Beverly just called to say that Les Sarnoff died last night of cancer. Les was hired by Jeff Douglas in 1968 and she’s listened to him on Kink.fm ever since. Bev says Les was brave and optimistic to the end. He always believed he was going to survive.
