My Podcast Experiment

 

I'm a firm believer in "trying things". How does one know if they'll succeed or fail if they don't try? I've tried lots of things -- songwriting (succeeded!), novel writing (succeeded in my mind, if not in sales), and now podcasting (failed miserably).

But now at least I know.

I don't mourn the demise of my podcast, Hitsvilly. There probably won't be any new episodes forthcoming. I tracked my "listens" and found that my original concept didn't resonate with anybody. So I tweaked it and still it didn't catch on. I guess the subject matter is only interesting to me. That's okay. I'm more of a written word girl than a conversationalist. What matters is pleasing oneself, and my writing pleases me. I'm pretty good at it. If I want to talk about country music (and I do) I'll put pen to paper, or more accurately, tap it out on my keyboard. I'll leave podcasting to the experts.

But, see, I no longer have to wonder. Wonder if I can make a go of it. Now I know -- I can't. I've failed at plenty of things I tried, and I succeeded at plenty of things I've tried. Life is a crapshoot. And I learned something from every success, every failure. That's how life goes, unless you don't even bother to try.

I'm pretty convinced there's something I gleaned from the demise of Hitsvilly. I'm not yet sure what that is, but it'll hit me sometime. Something I can pluck from the detritus and use. Every single experience, even the absolutely most devastating, embarrassing failures, are nitrogen for something yet to come.

Failure doesn't cause the world to end. Lack of trying shrivels the soul. 

Okay, One More Playlist

In creating my (awesome) Spotify playlists, I suddenly realized I'd completely overlooked the seventies. I have a love/hate relationship with seventies music. I can't pinpoint the reason, other than frustration. It's not that there weren't great singles released in the decade, but there were also so many bad ones. One's memory can become clouded. The seventies actually weren't all cheesy disco songs. In perusing the top one hundred charts from each year, I found tons of tracks I'd forgotten. And yes, there was Barry Manilow, who actually wasn't bad, and the Bee Gees, who actually were pretty great. But there were also a lot of one-hit wonders, whose singles were kind of wonderful.

Just as the sixties were a dichotomy, the seventies, too, were delineated for me by my station in life. From 1970 to 1973 I was in high school, a time when music meant everything. By '76 I had more important priorities -- being a mom -- and music fell to the background, though I was still aware of it. The year 1973 resonates with me most keenly, music-wise. Those are the tracks that occupy prime positions in my playlist.

And a word about classic rock radio: I hate HATE it. I don't even know why it still exists. Guys who still listen to classic rock are at least in their mid-fifties. It's time to move on, boys. My local classic rock station's rotation consists of this: Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. Lather, rinse, repeat. I can barely tolerate most of these bands, and my playlist reflects that. I threw in one or two samples of each, just because people searching Spotify for seventies music (old geezers) will expect to find them on a playlist titled A Decade Of Seventies Hits.

As I've done before, I researched the top one hundred singles from each year and made my selections accordingly. After 300 songs I just got tired. I might revisit my list later, but for now three hundred will have to suffice.

 

 

 

I knew I said I was done with playlists, but it's addictive. Too addictive. 

Who knows where I'll travel next?

Thanksgiving Eve

 

My life has changed in the last year and a half. I'm not a fan of the nine-to-five, but I will say that having a schedule isn't necessarily a bad thing. I retired in June of 2020 after spending three scary months telecommuting. The telecommuting wasn't scary -- in fact, I enjoyed it -- but the outside world was scary. I recall being afraid I would run into another human on my morning walk, and -- gasp! -- what if I caught Covid from them?? We weren't even calling it Covid then. It was "corona virus", or the shorthand "corona". Covid elbowed its way into our vernacular sometime in the summer. 

I retired in June of that year, sans a going-away party, because, you know, we weren't allowed to interact with other humans. I dutifully ordered our groceries online and dealt with some surprise items -- like two tomatoes magically becoming two dozen tomatoes. I even had liquor delivered. I went stir crazy, only ever interacting with my PC. I think it was September before I ventured out to get my hair cut, and that in itself was a drama -- wait outside -- not too close to any other loiterers -- lather up with the supplied sanitizer, complete a Covid questionnaire, have my temperature read, adjust my mask, and finally settle into a chair six feet away from the other customers. It was an existence of pure fear until my husband and I at last secured our vax appointments in April of this year.

I didn't see my grandchildren until July.

So now I've settled into my new routine, which consists of "What day can we go out and get groceries?" We don't go anywhere except the supermarket, the convenience store, the liquor store (now), and fast food drive-thru's. I can't even imagine eating a meal inside a restaurant. I look forward to seeing the friendly cart-wiper at Target, though I don't even know her name, but she's nice and she knows us now. She's my new best friend.

Friends. I miss seeing them, gossiping with them. Texts have their limitations. My friendships are slipping away. It might have happened with or without Covid, but at least we might have been able to share an occasional lunch and catch up.

I guess I'm lucky in that I'm an introvert. I don't mind sharing my life with my computer. I have the news streaming while I pursue my directionless hobbies. But, in actuality, the days are long. Thus, my sentimentality for schedules. 

Of course, everything isn't dreary. Though we lost both of our babies during the height of the pandemic, we did adopt a new baby -- a kitten we call Sasha -- in March. She's no Ragdoll, believe me. I was used to my Bob, who basically did his own thing (sleep) most of the day. Of course, he was eighteen years old. Sasha is go-go-go, always searching out new adventures. Wondering why we're asleep at night when the whole world is there for us to explore. She often finds herself trapped behind closed closet doors and requires rescue, but she takes it in stride, viewing her temporary incarceration as an opportunity to analyze new phenomena. 

So Sasha makes my list of things I'm thankful for. 

I'm, of course, thankful for my grandchildren, Asher and Ollie, who are now two and have revealed their quirky personalities. I'm not one to brag, but I do have the smartest grandsons in the known world.

I'm thankful Dementia Joe hasn't completely depleted our checking account yet and we can still pay our bills. (And I'm mostly thankful that we don't have to make a twenty mile round trip every day, or I'd be looking for a second job.)

I'm, in fact, one of the lucky ones. I have a little tiny nest egg, I can manage to cover our monthly expenses, and I have my wonderful husband and Sasha. 

I guess Thanksgiving isn't so bad.

 

My Latest Spotify Playlists

 

Who says I'm a time waster? Okay, me, probably. Regardless, I've been busy creating new Spotify playlists, for those days when there's nothing on TV and I need something playing in the background.

I believe the sixties were the best years for rock (or pop - your choice) music, and thus I formulated a playlist for the entire sixties. This posed some problems, because trust me, 1960 was eons different from 1969. Melding the entire decade together was kind of clunky.

And though my memory is still pretty good, even I couldn't even begin to remember every hit song from every year. So I consulted Billboard's top one hundred hits from each of the ten years and then started selecting.

I ended up with a playlist of 373 songs (yes). I'm not in love with all of them, but my criteria was that I had to at least kind of like the song. The ones I hated were not included.

Side note: 1964 and 1965 were the best years of the bunch.

Here it is:

I've also created a playlist for the eighties. This one only has 124 songs, which I admit is much more manageable. And this one was not based upon any record charts.

One downside to Spotify's playlists is that it doesn't allow one to reorder songs, other than by title or artist. I would like the ability to rearrange songs to my liking. But I can live with that.

I may have exhausted my playlist options, but I doubt it. Now I move on to other distractions (for now).

Jay Black ~ Jay And The Americans

 

I was eight years old in 1963, too young and poor to buy my own records, but I had a nine years older brother who managed to buy every album and single that was hot. Plus my brother seized the kitchen radio and tuned the dial to the local rock (okay, pop) channel. Without him, left to the devices of my mother, I guess my earliest musical memories would have consisted of Perry Como and Eydie Gorme.

I was thus fascinated by Jay and the Americans, because this Jay did not have a rock 'n roll voice -- at all. To my young mind, he sounded exactly like what an opera singer would sound like. And in fact, he did. I was at the age when everything is fascinating or supremely important; when a kid needs to suss out what the heck is going on. And this guy just didn't fit in with the likes of the Beach Boys or the Four Seasons. This "Jay American" really belted it out!

 

"Jay's" actual name was David Blatt, and he took over for the original Jay (whose real name was Jay) in 1962, and that's when the group took off.

It wasn't all about seismic vocals, however. In 1964, the same year that Come A Little Bit Closer was a hit, Jay and the Americans also released this:

 

As rock (or pop) came into its own with guys who most certainly didn't sing like New Jay, the group continued to chart well into at least 1968, but they frankly sounded out of touch.

The group's last real hit came that year with a cover of the Drifters' song:

(Sorry, only performance video I could find)

They say that "Jay" maintained those powerful vocals well into advanced age, and yes, he did:

 

From starting out as a curiosity that eight-year-old me was compelled to ponder to a phenomenal vocal talent that little kids fail to recognize, David Blatt's was a rare, powerful voice.

 

David (Jay Black) Blatt passed away on October 22, 2021 at the age of 82.

 

Rest in peace, Jay.

 

 

Retro Movie Review - I Walk The Line

The Peacock app doesn't offer a lot of selections. I've watched the entire eleven-season run of Modern Family, rewatched all episodes of The Office, rewatched Downton Abbey, and even labored through Everybody Loves Raymond's full nine seasons. So now, unless I want to view corny seventies sitcoms, I'm left to pick through Peacock's paltry movie options.

Which brings me to I Walk The Line. I saw it before, but didn't pay much attention to it, other than to critique Joaquin Phoenix's musical portrayal. I am now watching it again, and about halfway through I've reached the conclusion that I really don't like this Johnny Cash.

I know that biopics are not real life. Mooney Lynn looked nothing like the young Tommy Lee Jones. I also know that Johnny and June's son John Carter Cash was an executive producer of the film, but it seems that he advocated for a false narrative of his parents' long relationship. For example, much as the movie strives to portray Johnny's first wife Vivian as an unsupportive spouse, resentful of his burgeoning career, I found her character to be one of the few sympathetic portrayals in the film. 

And much as Reese Witherspoon's June is an absolute angel, the truth is it was she who pursued a married Johnny, not the other way around. Again, however, John Carter certainly didn't want to besmirch his mother's memory.

Aside from glaring chronological errors (I'm not even a Cash fan, but even I know when certain songs were recorded), the portrayal of Jerry Lee Lewis is...odd. No one can seem to capture the real Jerry Lee; not even Dennis Quaid, who embodied a spastic, endlessly mugging Lewis in Great Balls Of Fire. Someday maybe a decent film will be made about this seminal artist. Carl Perkins, at least, is represented as the reportedly decent man he actually was, albeit one who has a fondness for blowing things up. And the film seemingly just pulled some dark-haired stranger off the street to play Elvis, who possessed zero charisma (in the film) and was a pale pretender next to the great J.R. Cash.

If the real Johnny Cash was as much of a jerk as the movie depicts him, those hipsters who cite him as their favorite "country artist" might want to rethink their heroes.

As fiction, I do give the movie a B minus. The lead actors do a good job in what amounts to a country music soap opera. But again, I don't have a lot of movie choices.

Where've I Been?

I used to be so fastidious about updating my blog. Now I realize my last post was on October 3. So, where've I been?

I've taken a lot of winding roads. I started a new novel that I realize I don't care about, I started a podcast that no one listens to, and mostly I've been making playlists on Spotify. It started innocently enough -- my podcast was going to feature a particular year, so I began compiling hit songs from each of those years. Then when I realized (finally) that no one cared, I started making playlists for myself.

Here is mine for nineties country:

It's really good, if I say so myself. And quite comprehensive -- 215 songs, 12 hours and 19 minutes of really good.

Of course, I couldn't stop there, so I created a playlist for the eighties:

 

Then the seventies:

 

And who could forget the sixties?

 

What the heck? The fifties weren't my time, but I was familiar with several fifties hits, so dang, why not?

 

 

Where does it end? Well, I can't do the 2000's, because it would be a paltry list of maybe twenty five songs. Sorry, I gave up on country the first time I heard "Breathe" on the radio and realized everything had gone to hell.

You may think this was a needless exercise -- the ultimate time-waster -- but believe me, it wasn't easy! I don't have much to be proud of, but at least I can say I created better country playlists than 99.9% of all the Spotify users who created country playlists.

So, you see, I haven't been wasting my time after all. 

P.S. I'm coming back to my blog full force.