inFAQ's Top 40

 I thought to do a top 10 list of my all time favorite songs. Like such endeavors, I kept thinking about other songs that should be on the list. I figured I would just pick a bunch of songs and pare it down to 10.

Didn't work.

So, I expanded the list to be my top 20. Then top 30. Now it's top 40 and will end there. Briefly flirting with the idea of top 100, I realized that would be too much. Even now, I tend to think 40 is too much, at least in this day when people don't bother reading beyond a certain point.

I didn't place the songs in any particular order. Rather, the list is organized by what came to mind at any given moment. Also, I had considered making commentary on each, but won't bother.

As for list criteria, I'd have to say that these songs are welcome to me any time they come up on the radio or a YouTube suggestion. Some may ask why Stairway to Heaven isn't on the list. Or Smoke on the Water or ____________... name any song. And it's partly due t o the fact that I over heard songs back in the day when I listened to the radio more than I do now and developed a fatigue  from it.

So, here's the list and it could change eventually. But it stands for now.

1. The Great Gate of Kiev - Modest Mussorgsky
https://youtu.be/vw7OM_Q810k

2. Little Darlin' - The Diamonds
https://youtu.be/jGcx5fVZRkI

3. The Weight - The Band
https://youtu.be/q-w9OclUnns

4. Drift Away - Dobie Gray
https://youtu.be/NIuyDWzctgY

5. O Tannenbaum - Vince Guaraldi
https://youtu.be/YLdTU25vsVo

6. Heart of the Night - Poco
https://youtu.be/MN7y1Qys2f4

7. Peace in Our Time - Eddie Money
https://youtu.be/I7iRe81VTq4

8. Missing You - John Waite
https://youtu.be/k9e157Ner90

9. You Are the Girl - The Cars
https://youtu.be/DmFdW1JyccA

10. Texas Sun - Khruangbin & Leon Bridges
https://youtu.be/Whe7MURlKLw

11. Home at Last - Steely Dan
https://youtu.be/Hx5ZlTyzU-k

12. Gentle on My Mind - Glen Campbell
https://youtu.be/ETkzK9pXMio

13. Don't Stop Believing - Journey
https://youtu.be/VcjzHMhBtf0

14 - Funeral - Devin Townsend Project
https://youtu.be/0ItzTi4CVMw

15. Time - Pink Floyd
https://youtu.be/oEGL7j2LN84

16. Tennessee Whiskey - Chris Stapleton
https://youtu.be/IBLruNfUqUs

17. Where the Streets Have No Name - U2
https://youtu.be/GzZWSrr5wFI

18. Christmas Must Be Tonight - The Band
https://youtu.be/Y5bKtRU0Q6c

19 - The Reach - Dan Fogelberg
https://youtu.be/HEL_qqXGjHU

20. November Rain - Guns N Roses
https://youtu.be/8SbUC-UaAxE

21. Driver's Seat - Sniff n the Tears
https://youtu.be/9SCzVEUlqqA

22. King of Glory - Exit 244
https://youtu.be/tDqEsuUmzUI

23. Finlandia - Jean Sibelius
https://youtu.be/F5zg_af9b8c

24. Humans Being - Van Halen
https://youtu.be/b9e5fT8migI

25. Hysteria - Def Leppard
https://youtu.be/UIlHi15I9YQ

26. China Girl - David Bowie
https://youtu.be/NEl6BBLwSa0

27. 1812 Overture - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
https://youtu.be/QUpuAvQQrC0

28. Sing - Travis
https://youtu.be/eYO1-gGWJyo

29. Hold On - Tom Waits
https://youtu.be/0P5jV4lHHR0

30. Money Talks - AC/DC
https://youtu.be/LBYZoc9lnvE

31. Dig a Little Deeper - The Fairfield Four
https://youtu.be/-fOmKNOeJpc

32. On the Water - Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers
https://youtu.be/7prhBlma3Ys

33.  I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day - Casting Crowns' version
https://youtu.be/M7670CXvPX0

34. Waiting on a Friend - Rolling Stones
https://youtu.be/DltGvCatNwA

35. Bittersweet - Big Head Todd and The Monsters
https://youtu.be/Wyd9OcI37AY

36. Out of This World - The Cure
https://youtu.be/1SSPOsf09JA

37. Mavis - Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
https://youtu.be/i8cogQpcTYA

38. Turn of the Century - Yes
https://youtu.be/zY9gopSNptQ

39. Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
https://youtu.be/_OO2PuGz-H8

40. Copperline - James Taylor
https://youtu.be/QAaAhi37IHg

Ghost Runners

I wrote something years ago that has stuck with me. It was describing a place we used to play baseball as kids. Being short enough players to field two teams, we utilized ghost runners for the team at bat. For those unfamiliar with this practice, say six kids decide to play. That would be three per team in a game that fields nine players normally. When the team at bat got hits, any kid who was still on base when his turn to hit came up again would declare a ghost runner would be taking his place. Thus, the game progressed and ghost runners could score or be forced out. They could never be tagged out, of course. But it was a way to be able to continue the game.

What I wrote years ago included this part:

one day
we left the ghost runners stranded
standing on their bases,
waiting, a setting sun
shining on their faces
and there they remain
among houses sprung
up from the weeds

Here's what stuck with me about this.

I don't recall there ever being a collective agreement to not play there any more. We didn't change fields. We weren't forced to stop playing there.

We just stopped.

In the normal evolution of life, people moved away and kids grew up and this is obviously the root of it all.

1 Corinthians 13:11 says "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (NKJV)

Neighborhoods change. Friendships change. People change. With age comes new responsibilities, new challenges, different circumstances in different locations, some far from the old homestead.

I can think of many things I used to do with friends that we just stopped doing. Not by agreement or decision, but we all just moved on to something else.

I still like to think those ghost runners remain at their bases waiting for us to return and continue playing. It's a fool's dream, of course, because that field is now cluttered with houses.

But they're still there. I know it.

And they are patient.
 

Chuck

I recently finished watching Chuck, the action-drama-comedy TV show that aired from 2007 to 2012 on NBC.

It was only 4-1/2 seasons long as the fifth season ended with only 13 episodes. For some reason, it never really garnered ratings strong enough to keep going.

I watched it on Amazon Prime and somewhere in mid-fourth season, Prime started requiring payment for the show. Prior to that, it was part of the Prime package and free to watch.

My wife decided she didn't want to watch any further, so I ended up doing it by myself. And I'm glad I did.

Like many TV shows, it started off with an interesting premise. Chuck Bartowski, a computer nerd, worked for the Nerd Herd at big-box store, Buy More. This was modeled after real-life Best Buy's Geek Squad.

Chuck received an email from an old college friend that had an attachment which downloaded the CIA's database into Chuck's brain. This database was called the Intersect.

Two agents, Sarah Walker from the CIA and John Casey from NSA, were assigned to Chuck. Sarah was a gorgeous blond  and Casey a no-nonsense, sharpshooting, rough-and-tumble guy.  Both were tops in their fields with assassin and close quarters combat training under their belts. It was their job to be handlers and protect Chuck as an invaluable asset to national security.

The first couple seasons, Chuck fumbled and bumbled his way through missions relying on flashes from the Intersect to recognize villains and even perform kung-fu in hand-to-hand combat situations. His background as a tech nerd came in handy many times for hacking computers and disabling bombs.

As was expected, a romance developed between Chuck and Sarah. It was rocky at first as both resisted their feelings though Chuck more readily admitted to his. Dalliances with other people were something of an issue, but eventually their relationship flourished and they married at the end of the fourth season.

Other characters included Morgan Grimes, Chuck's best friend and colleague at the Buy More, Ellie Bartowski, Chuck's sister, who ended up marrying Devin Woodcomb (Captain Awesome), Jeff Barnes and Lester Patel, a pair of loser doofuses who also worked at Buy More but played an incredibly redeeming role in preventing a bomb from going off in the finale, General Diane Beckman, NSA director who handed out assignments to the team and Big Mike, originally manager of the Buy More, but later assistant manager.

As the series progressed, Chuck became a capable agent and used the alias of Charles Carmichael when out in the field. Early on, there was a touch of Michael Scott to him, but he outgrew it quickly.

In the fifth season, Sarah downloads a corrupt version of the Intersect which caused her to forget she's married to Chuck and is instructed to kill him. With her amnesia, she is led to believe that her whole relationship with Chuck was just a deep-cover assignment by rogue agent Nicholas Quinn who wanted the Intersect all for himself.

In the end, Quinn is defeated and Chuck is left to try and get Sarah to fall in love with him again. The final scene where they are sitting on a beach and he tells her their story of which she had no memory and no feelings attached to it, leads to a kiss as music plays and the screen goes black. The producers wanted to leave it to the audience's imagination as to whether or not they rekindled what they had. I tend to think they did. But, apparently, a lot of watchers were miffed that it was left open-ended like that.

The finale tied up everyone's storylines with Ellie and Devin moving to Chicago to work as department heads in a hospital there, Morgan moving in with Alex (John Casey's daughter), Casey heading off to Germany to find the woman he loves and Jeffster (Jeff and Lester) getting a recording contract from a German record producer.  

Of course, the two main characters' ending wasn't conclusive, but I prefer to think of it as Chuck and Sarah starting over and building their relationship again from scratch with all the excitement and magic that implies. It's a sweet ending despite what the naysayers complain.

I found the cast to be likeable as the characters they portrayed were all very well rounded with their own quirks and nuances.

As for eye candy, there was Sarah, Ellie, and Alex to appeal to men and Devin for the women. Perhaps other male characters had some appeal to women, but I'd have to ask one to find out. I'm talking strictly looks here.

It's no surprise that Hollywood uses attractive females in television and movies. After all, they offer a lust factor that keeps men coming back to watch the show. Or, at least, keeps their attention long enough to hook them on the storyline.

But I prefer to view them as a mental exercise in choosing a mate. Which character would I want to spend the rest of my life with?

Of all the television I have watched over the years, I can certainly say that Elliot Reid, Pam Beasley, Temperance Brennan, Angela Montenegro, Kate Austen, Claire Littleton,  Lisa Braeden, April Ludgate, Ann Perkins, Juliet O'Hara, Elizabeth Keen, Liv Moore, Elaine Benes, Daphne Moon, Dana Scully, Maggie Greene, Audrey Horne, Deanna Troi, Diane Chambers, and so on, ad infinitum, all had a hotness factor.

But Sarah Walker is the only one I could envision spending my life with. The character portrayed by Yvonne Strahovski had an immeasurable sweetness and kindness (not to mention toughness) to her that few, if any, of the others generated. Maybe it's just the nature of the show and casting, but Strahovski, whom I had never seen act before, captured an essence not usually seen.

Anyway, that last bit is neither here nor there in real life but just some musings I had.

I would watch Chuck again if it was available on Netflix or Hulu. But I most likely won't buy the entire run of it. The last 20 or so episodes I bought is enough. Besides, it's probably available on Peacock streaming as NBC has been pulling in all their content for its service and I won't subscribe to it.

Give Chuck a look if you're so inclined. I think it's far better than the ratings made it out to be.

Everything Looks Worse in Black and White (2011)

Can so much recollection be tied up in so small a place in such pictures and imagery as I know to be inaccurate at best? It’s like the song So Long by Fischer-Z that I so wanted to re-obtain from decades before, and I remember riding with Dave in his Celica listening to its thrumming beat, its synthesized lull. Then when I finally got my ears around it for the first time in eons, I was disappointed to realize that it had disconnected from me long ago.

But even so, I still see the images, and I have to wonder what portions of them are real and what are fabricated from a mind trying to fill in the blanks. Snippets I recall from the field, standing on dirt roads in full combat gear with LBE, ammo packs and gas mask hanging limply at the side, steel pot tipped back on the head, boots dusty from the march, M16 dangling from nonchalant fingers. Probably smoking a cigarette because that’s what we did when we got the chance. That and beer. And these pictures fade in and out with some inconsistency of background.

Lush vegetation beside some ramshackle wooden structure. Many pathways through brush with something to do with weapons or grenade training. A hornets’ nest between trees in an opening in the woods. Different forts, different flora, but the same pose. Those are the faint times, somehow impactful enough to plant a picture, but not near enough to hold onto it like a life preserver. Who would want to?

Were there really armored vehicles in that one sand pit? Or was that a dream? The older, the harder it is to differentiate.

Riding down Hancock Street, heading south, already past that sporting goods place - can’t even remember the name. Then there was a tuxedo shop on the right beyond the intersection, and the ski shop up the hill where I bought $50 skis on sale and had to borrow the money for those because that was a lot back in 1982. Further down Hancock, there’s a package store, called a packy by the locals, where they sold Genessee Cream Ale which was really nothing but stanky pisswater in a can. What cream?

But I know that somewhere heading in to Weymouth, or some other place on the south shore, that the road came down into the city with a sort of panoramic sight, and I only went there once or twice, so it’s not even recognizable in street view any more. More’s the pity. What could be a useful tool for retracing steps has left me unsettled and a bit confused for the lack of ability to match the scene on the screen to the one in my head.

Hendrie’s Ice Cream plant. I’ve searched for it in Google. It was somewhere near Mattapan, but it’s elusive now, hiding way back in the nowhere land that exists in the small place with so much recollection.

I know I painted a house in Winthrop. I know I went snorkeling in Boston Harbor.

I know I walked through Braintree to someone’s house. That fellow is a friend on Facebook now, and no one should tell him that he is middle-aged.

Go figure. I’m still walking old streets while everyone else has gotten older.

A beach south of Boston, but still in the city. To me who is accustomed to broad sweeping beaches looking out over a wild Atlantic Ocean, this had the makings of being caught and canned in a lagoonish setting with a building on the left and every square inch of sand covered with supine bronzed bodies. I know it exists, for Pete and Pat and I went there one summer. But I don’t know where exactly and street view isn’t helping.

These images refuse definition, as if by doing so they will be rendered even more harmless than they already are. I know there’s a swimming pond out off 84 somewhere, and pretty Janine wore her pretty bikini there, but I could only look nonchalantly because Chad was there, too.

Perhaps the dirt road that led out to it is now paved and homes were built all around it so as to provide easy living for those with money. Change does that to a place and nothing can save it after all, except memories.

But what will save the memories? Like jigsaw puzzles, pieces go missing even as they sit unused in a box in the closet until one day they are pulled out and an attempt is made to reassemble them.

Unfortunately, not every memory is worth saving, even though they may be pleasant. So we find ourselves in something of a construction business as we try to remold them enough to be able to describe them in stories or poetry because we know... WE KNOW... they would absolutely add the necessary seasoning to make the written piece taste real and exotic. Or at least just real.

So, A Corner of Nowhere gets written. There’s no mention of Shevlin and his doings, but I can still decode it though others may frown and walk away none the wiser. And that all took place out.... out.... out there somewhere and the maps aren’t being specific enough.

Just do something with it and re-sculpt everything, though it may only be a fantasy.

No one will know

Not even me.

Note: The words “street view” in here refer to a feature in Google maps that allow you to virtually drive any streets that they have recorded with their street view car.

Eulogy

 So my father died a little over three weeks ago on Christmas morning. When it was apparent he didn't have much time left, I prayed that God would extend him at least into January so my mother wouldn't have to associate Christmas with the loss of her husband of 66 years.

God ignored me.

I don't know what thoughts I have of all this. It seems like everything now is really geared towards getting his funeral arranged and taking care of death business. I suppose all the contemplation will come later when there is less organized chaos.

I do know that my father was never about taking care of himself physically. He didn't exercise or care that he ate way too many sweets. Those things just weren't important to him.

I could also make the point that his son wasn't that important to him either, though he did take me fishing when I was a kid. Other than that he really took little interest in the things I liked and wanted to do.

That last statement is probably unfair of me. There were other things he did for me, but I remember him showing up for one little league game I had and left because I wasn't in the game. He showed no real support for that or other things I did.

If I sound bitter, I'm not, really. He admitted that he wasn't a very good father to me and I can agree with him. Yet he provided a roof over our heads and food to eat. We never went without what we needed physically. For those things, I am thankful.

And I'm also thankful for the negative things as well, for it has instructed my own parenting with regards to my sons. I spent time with them doing things that he was unwilling to do with me. I can still see places where I could have done better. That's probably the curse of hindsight.

I can say that my father was an honest man and there are many examples. He held to fairly firm principles, though at times he was easily led astray by narratives that appealed to him. We are probably all guilty of that at one time or another.

But I can't really put together a glowing outline of his life to use as a eulogy if asked. Not if I'm being honest and frank. If asked to say something, I'll probably refuse, though I confess to a sense of obligation as I was his only son.

My dad was okay to me and not abusive and maybe that's enough.