I just haven't felt up to spending time in front of this computer and I hope that explains that lack of attention in the past couple of weeks. I have been ill, but as I told my brother, earlier this week I was 80% ill and today I am 68% ill. So I am getting better. Main problem is that sitting here in an up-right position makes me dizzy. Of course, dizzy is my usual state. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I don't know if you've checked out the website but the chapters in My Story have been consolidated and the chapter navigation is much much improved. Now I must, as promised provide you with a wrap-up of my career in Minnesota and the move to the land of the fruits and nuts. Before April 15th.

Hope your Easter was nice. Mine wasn't.

Rob

Since I don't work, I don't get excited about week-ends. This year, though, the HD live broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera have given me something to look forward to on Saturday afternoons. Peter Grimes was the opera this past Saturday so I joined the cotton-tops and enjoyed myself thoroughly. (The title character is driven to madness by rumor and accusations so it isn't a happy subject) I have no explanation why I love this music. It gives me a reason to consider the weekend, special.

Hope you all had a good week-end whatever you planned. The changes on the website progressing and if you check out you'll notice the various threads are all contained now in one series of chapters...My Story. And My Story will continue with the period between July 1978 and December 1979 when I left radio the first time. I am writing it in dribs and drabs at the moment. I looked at my mail and there are a bunch of people I owe mail to and I am taking care of that tomorrow.

I was going to write some more but all of a sudden my head is heavy with weariness....so, to bed!

Rob

I have made no secret that I am an American Idol fan. Not only do I watch it (without fail), but I chat about it, read the blogs, and follow the subsequent careers of losers. I am not surprised that one of my favorite forwarders, emailers, commenters, and bloggers has the opposite view. He mailed me:

have never liked that show...yes theres been a few good singers on it...and in the beginning of the shows run i did watch it to give it a chance and it was kind of fun to watch... but now it just getting ridiculous.... now thier going to get singers to do Beatle Songs.... this is one show along with many i will really be sure to miss..... that show reminds me of a bunch of karoke singers in a bar... and who are the judges to say what good talent is?!!!! Simon is a tv show producer nothing else.... another is in the record bussiness but ive never heard of him untill that show.. and the girl? she has not had a hit record since the mid 80s and they all sucked.... (my opinion..) to me the show is just another waste of time...if watching it i could be doing more constructive with my t.v. time.... which lately nothing has really grabbed my attention so i keep it off..... reality tv.... hummmmmm is there any reality on tv?.....

I so disagree with so much of what the wonderful Axman wrote. Don't confuse Simon COWELL with Simon FULLER. The latter one is the TV producer. Randy has worked with some of the biggest in the music business and I LOVE Paula. (She squeezed my knee!) But all that isn't the important thing. What attracts me to American Idol also attracts me to a whole slew of 'reality TV' shows. Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, Last Restaurant Standing, Ramsay's Nightmares, as well as So You Think You Can Dance, Runway, and on and on.... These shows all have one thing in common. The contestants, almost without fail, have a dedication and passion for their 'thing' that makes me ashamed to have ever claimed a similar feeling. Here are people so obsessed by their own vision they sacrifice EVERYTHING for it. Those who don't make that sacrifice don't make the cut. In this world, talent doesn't grow roses. It helps. Add to the talent some dedication, encouragment, obsession and a bit of luck. There is the stew that awes me as I watch it unfold on TV.

Last spring I spent a couple of weeks in England with a friend and his family. I have known him for over 35 years. When he was 16 he went to school during the day and worked at a bakery beginning each morning at 3am. That ungodly job provided the money for ballet lessons his parents refused to pay for or support. What drove a 14 year old boy to know in the depth of his soul he HAD to dance ballet? Where does that come from?

I just thought of the guy on the Animal Planet show Escape From Chimp Eden who wanted to be a computer programmer but has now dedicated his life to saving abused chimps. Damn! I admire people who sacrifice for their dreams. Sorry Axman, I used you to climb on my soapbox. The last time I suffered such umbrage was when someone in 1975 wrote in a radio-industry trade-sheet that Disneyland WASN'T the Happiest Place On Earth and he was bored by the place.

Rob

PS: I once considered going to Calcutta to work with Mother Teresa but changed my mind when I found out she didn't have cable.

I met my brother for Chinese buffet this afternoon and now it's late and the MSG is keeping me at this infernal machine. I got to the place early to give me a chance to eat some salad before he arrived. Otherwise, I'm eating salad and he's diving in to fried rice and our buffet procedure is out of whack. Anyway, while I'm sitting there one of the guys in the next booth decided to blow his nose just as I was digging into some egg foo yung. It was a quick sniff blow but a prolonged evacuation of all this sinuses as well as the sinuses of half the restaurant. It sounded like the opening scene of the witches in Macbeth. The contents of his nose bubbled and roiled. It was Mount St. Helena just before the big blow. It sounded like a huge pot of oatmeal. It put me off my moo goo gai pan.What is wrong with some people?

I couldn't help thinking of the joke I heard when I was about 8 years old. It involved a barrel with a dead Chinese guy and a soda straw in each nose poking through a hole in the top. I don't remember the joke but it was disgusting.

Speaking of jokes, I am putting a link here to one of the most disgusting and perverted jokes you will ever hear. If you ever want to be the same again you won't listen to it because it is rank beyond perverted belief. I should tell you that when I was watching it the first time, I was laughing so hard I had to pause because I was losing my breath and was seriously afraid I would have a stroke...or at the least black out, collapse and do a William Holden. You have been warned. I am serious. It is horrible and just thinking about it makes me want to shower. If you are a parent and ever want to look your children in the eye again, don't follow the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw10xa_xtNg&feature=related

American Idol is very good this year and a couple of the songs the guys sang on Tuesday were beyond belief. So good. Vantage Point is a good movie. The Metropolitan Opera rocks. Winter sucks.

Rob

A couple of weeks ago I was working on the next chapter for the web-site. I was concerned that I was repeating a story so I tried to check it out in previous chapters. That's when I realized the whole thing was a mess. Over the last 4 years I've followed so many different threads with so much time between writing, it got confused and repetitive. Not for long. In a few days all the chapters in My Story and The Twin Cities years will be re-posted with more cogency, a little more continuity, and a lot less repetition. Nothing is being removed and the story remains as was originally written. The grammar gets a little better, some of the typos are corrected and my frequent apologies for delays eliminated.

If anyone wants to keep any of the original musings, copy and paste now, because soon they go away.

After the re-posting you might like to re-read some to see what you missed in the previous mess. The Prologue plus Chapters 1-17 plus the new one coming soon will be My Story soon. And at long last the California years begin before April.

Thanks for sticking with me and now that THAT project is over I can get back to puerile blogging in this space.

Rob