That’s Entertainment – Paul Weller in New York, 2nd Night

Music

The song was over, but the audience was still singing.

At the second night of Paul Weller’s three-night run of performances at the Irving Plaza in New York, the focus of his musical retrospective was on the music from his band The Style Council. But as he had done the previous night, when the focus was on the music of The Jam, after performing about ten Style Council songs Paul said, “OK, that’s enough with the nostalgia for now”, and continued with amazing performances of his more recent work.

But he wasn’t completely finished with the nostalgia. He repeated a song from The Jam that was one of the high points of the first night, That’s Entertainment. Among the multitude of great songs from The Jam, That’s Entertainment is among their greatest. It is certainly The Jam’s most acclaimed song, coming in at #306 as The Jam’s only appearance on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, it was also the song my brother Kevin had requested to hear by cell phone when performed on the first night, and getting a repeat performance on the second night was an unexpected bonus.

The song is great live, as it has a very easy to join background chorus, which written text cannot do justice to, but is essentially a slowly delivered “la la la la la la-ah“. Now obviously that may not seem like much, but having a club full of enthusiastic fans singing along and hitting their parts with unity and precision is something great to be a part of. When the song concluded, and Paul and the band members took a moment to change instruments, or take a drag from a cigarette, the audience kept on going with an extra, room-filling verse of our “la la la la la la-ah’s“, and in unison, as if well rehearsed, the singing gently faded out to a perfect on-cue stop. By this point Paul had moved from his center stage guitar stool to the piano in preparation for his next song, and he watched and listened to the audience’s bonus ending to his just finished song. When it ended he said, “Awesome, fucking awesome.” It was one of the nicest moments of seeing a performer genuinely enjoy an audience that is likewise genuinely enjoying a performance that I’ve ever seen.

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Ireland Books: Midlife Irish

Books

This wasn’t the first of my growing collection of Ireland related books that I started, but it was an easy first across the finish line. Part personal history, part Irish history, and part travelogue, Frank Gannon’s book Midlife Irish is a tremendously enjoyable read that I recommend to anyone interested in Ireland. Gannon was a 40-something, first-generation Irish American, who after both of his parents passed away set out to learn more about his own ‘Irishness’ and his parent’s seldom spoken about homeland.

This was really an ideal read for me, as I find myself in a similar place as Gannon did. My own Irish history is much more distant that his, I’m the fourth-generation since my Great Great Grandfather Michael Casey immigrated to Chicago from County Limerick, and happily my parents are still with us. But like Gannon I’m also recently curious about my family history, and planning my first trip to Ireland with hopes of exploring my ‘Irishness’ and touring a country that has intrigued me my whole life. The book offered many humorous insights into the Irish character, useful history that explains this unique character, and thoughtful reflection on family and personal history.

You don’t have to be Midlife Irish or even planning a trip to Ireland to enjoy this book. But if you are, it’s certainly a must read.

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Ireland Reading

Books

If you pay any attention to the ‘What I’m Reading’ block in the right column of my blog, then you can probably see a pattern among my current selections. Yes, they are all related to Ireland. I’m doing my homework in preparation for a planned trip there this spring. And so I’m looking for good books on the subject; histories, travel tales, guidebooks, and anything that my help me make the most of our coming visit. Suggestions are welcome, and I’ll write my reviews of each of them as I finish them.

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Obama to Explore

News, Politics

Barack Obama has announced that he has formed a Presidential Exploratory Committee and will make a final decision on whether or not to run on February 10th. The presence of his Google Ads here on the Casey Blog bodes well for him 🙂

UPDATE: I tried embedding Obama’s announcement video using the web code provided from his own site’s video player. But instead of the video, you may see the below statement dissing my site as unqualified to share it. Barack’s first stumble??!!

UPDATE: Phew! They fixed it. Nice recovery Barack.

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An Old Post

News, Politics
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We get one every day, churn through it, and then add it to the recycling pile. But yesterday, while poking around an antique mall, I found an old copy of the Washington Post that just felt worth buying. On Friday, August 9, 1974, I was just a month past turning nine years old. The Presidential campaign of 1972 is really my earliest political memory, and while I don’t specifically remember the moment, I’d like to think I was aware of the big news of that day. You can read the headline online today, Nixon Resigns.

What else was going on in this 15¢ copy of the Post? Rain was predicted, with a high in the mid-80s. The Senate Banking Committee decided to delay their vote on the nomination of Alan Greenspan to be Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to give newly sworn-in President Ford the “flexibility” to offer his own nomination. NFL Players were considering a strike. The TV guide took up a quarter of a page and listed seven channels. Three Dog Night was coming to play at The Capital Centre, and The Three Musketeers, Born Losers, Walking Tall and The Sting were playing in local theatres. At the Penn Theatre on Capitol Hill you could catch a double bill of Dairy of a Stewardess and Pigkeeper’s Daughter. An AM/FM stereo with built-in 8-track tape player could be had for $99 at Custom HiFi.

Somewhere in my basement, hidden under a false floor created when the basement was finished, is a copy of the Washington Post from the morning after Election Day, proclaiming Bill Clinton’s presidential victory. It it’s ever discovered, and assuming it’s held up over time, perhaps it will sell for a few bucks at a flea market in 2025. A much happier political memory, it should be worth something.

 

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Obama Book #1

Books, Politics

One of my New Year resolutions is to do better with my book reports. From the number of Amazon links on this page I’m starting to look like a real book pimp, but honestly, it’s just a nice way to share some insight and a link to surf. I think you often can tell a lot about a book by its cover, and a lot about a person by what they read. But I digress.

Obama-mania, hard to miss it isn’t it? And good for him. But the hype remains a bit of a mystery to me. I’m all about counting down the days until President Nimrod leaves office, and assuming we still hold elections in our county by that point, the 2008 race for the White House will be huge. But it’s sadly a long way away. Remember, Howard Dean was a shoo-in to win the Democratic nod in 2004, right up until people got to cast a vote. So while trying to be wise enough not to race to any early anointments, I’m curious enough to want to learn more, and so my first book finished in 2007 was Barack Obama’s ‘Dreams from My Father‘, and I found it to be a very interesting and enjoyable read.

As a genealogist, I genuinely appreciated and enjoyed reading about Barack’s journey to discover his personal history. It’s not a typical political bio. In fact, the book was written long before he entered politics and there’s been speculation that his candor about drug use could come back to haunt him on the campaign trail. I hope that the opposite is true. Recently when appearing on Leno, Jay had to jokingly ask ‘did you inhale’, and Barack replied without hesitation, “Jay, that was the point”. We don’t need any more liars who pretend to be saints in the White House. We need real people who can admit to being human.

Another appealing trait about Barack Obama is his sense of humor and ability to recognize and laugh at the absurd amount of attention and speculation he has generated. His important announcement on Monday Night Football a few weeks ago was classic. He knows he’s in the spotlight, and he’s not afraid to have fun with it. At the same time, he recognized that the spotlight is now on all Democrats, and he wrote an opinion piece this week about the need for Democrats to not mess up this important opportunity and obligation which the voters have provided.

I’m looking forward to reading his second book, The Audacity of Hope, which I expect will be more issue oriented and less biographical than his first book. We’ll see. I’ve signed the petition at DraftObama.org and I hope he runs. But I’ve got plenty of time to make up my mind. I’m sure Obama would be an excellent President. So would Hillary, and so would John Edwards. George Bush will leave his successor a colossal mess, his legacy will be measured by how deep a hole he can dig, and by how many years he can set back democracy in America. Two years is a long time. But I feel good about our field, and look forward to considering our options, making a choice, and working to help make that person President.

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Piano’s Last Hurrah

Diversions
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Last August I wrote about the piano we obtained from Craigslist for free. Today I leared we got what we paid for. Among the many ‘things I need to get to’ that the New Year has motivated me to finally ‘get to’, was to have a piano technician out to look at our new instrument and hopefully bring it into playing shape with a few turns of a wrench.

Matt was fast and efficient in removing the various lids and covers that are the piano’s skin, exposing an intricate interior. It didn’t take him long to offer the bad news, the sounding board is broke in multiple places, rending our free piano ‘not worth a penny’.

I explained that although the piano lacked pany particular sentimental value that might justify a major expense, the reality was that we need only an instrument good enough to suit the practice needs of a beginner player. With that understanding Matt agreed to ‘tune’ it as best as possible, and give it a good cleaning, with the understanding that he did not recommend our investing any further money into its repair and that if our kids became serious about the piano, we would want to get them a new one within a couple of years.

While removing the keys, Matt commented, “I wonder what we’ll find inside. I could tell you many stories about the things I’ve found inside of pianos.”. He was right that we’d find something. We found a six-ounce fishing weight, and a small baseball bat. By looking up the make and serial number, we concluded that this piano was built between 1905 and 1910, meaning it has either reached or is very close to reaching 100-years of age. We’ll never know the story behind the lost toy and fish weight, but we can give a respectful ‘last hurrah’ to a good looking instrument that is well past its prime.

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Protecting Our Rights from Ourselves

Guide to Life, Rants

In 2007, resolve to pay attention, get involved, and speak out. Do not underestimate how much more harm George Bush is capable of inflicting on our country and our Constitution in his remaining two-years in office. And never forget the damage already done.

The 2006 Bill of Wrongs
The Washington Post, Opinion Page, 12/31/06

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Reading List Catch-Up

Books

OK, so I’ve been WAY behind on writing up anything about what I’m reading. This post has been sitting in my ‘drafts’ folder for months, where it began as a posting on summer reading. But with the New Year looming I need to clear the decks and admit that neither time nor memory will allow me to post any useful individual reviews on these books. So I’ll say only that I enjoyed and recommend each of them to any who may interested. Give one of them a try in 2007.

 

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