Frank Gutch Jr: Music To Stuff Stockings By… And With; Plus No Notes… Consider It a Lump of Coal

It’s that time of year again, sports fans.  Santa has been on the radio for the past two months, robot disc jockeys and purveyors of everything muzak beating us senseless with varying renditions of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, hoping to lighten our mood enough to loosen the old purse strings.  Hallmark Channel have kicked into full Christmas mode, plastering their channels with their cookie-cutter movies which vary mostly by the changing of leading ladies (this year’s favorite, by far, is Hilarie Burton, whom I saw in an old Castle episode and was floored by not only her beauty but the fact that the casting could not have been more right).  I wish they had more creativity over at Hallmark, their overuse of the five plots and rotating stars coming very close to consumer abuse.  But, hey, I’m a sap.

Frank Gutch Jr: Life at 45 RPM… My Life as a Vinyl Addict; Plus Copious Notes

I am a vinyl addict. The gateway drug was radio.  When it was riding the crest of the wave before TV came along and kicked it to the curb that wasn’t there.  Before TV which a lot of people thought would be the death of radio, a format already writhing in pain.  You could only get so big and radio was gargantuan— a seething mass of gelatinous goo— an 800 pound gorilla.  By the time I came along, everyone had a radio.

Frank Gutch Jr: Look What They’ve Done to my Country, Ma! (Thoughts inspired by Alistair Cooke, Header inspired by Melanie Safka); Plus Notes…..

Pardon me while I get serious for a moment.  My country seems intent upon flushing itself down the toilet and before it does I would like to share a few words with you about– Alistair Cooke?  But he is (or was) not even American!  True, but he is (or was) more American than many of the people who portray themselves as “patriots” (I put it in quotes to point out that the word has been cheapened and no longer holds value to me).  I too think it strange that I would look to a “foreigner” to make my case about The Unites States, but it seems natural.

Frank Gutch Jr: Sometimes the Past Is the Future (and Sometimes the Past Is Just the Past)— Revisiting Items Which Beg Revisiting…..

Lots going on in music these days— Apple announcing their foray into streaming (I love the headlines such as “Apple May Save the Recording Industry”— I mean, what idiot thought that one up?) and the Brian Wilson biopic (My buddy Stan Twist says that if you are either a Brian Wilson or a Beach Boys fan, you won’t want to miss it) and there are lots of new albums to go over.  And, as always, old ones too.  But…

Frank Gutch Jr: The Chicago I Never Knew (and the Chicago I did)

I have to come to the conclusion that if there weren’t major sports in the US of A, the youth of America would not know where they were.  Sure, they would know they were in Dallas or Little Rock or Minneapolis if they happened to live there, but knowing where you are does not equate to knowing where you are.  You have to be somewhere in relation to somewhere else to really know where you are, don’t you?  Well, maybe not.

Frank Gutch Jr: Bubbling Under in the Swinging Sixties; My Father and the War; Plus Notes

Rock ‘n’ roll radio.  There was nothing like it.  It was fresh and exciting and exposed teens to a whole new world beyond their doorsteps.  If the fifties had cracked the egg, the sixties had spilled the eggs guts.  All over the place.  Humpty Dumpty magnified.  Omelet City.