T-shirt #262 - Feist

T-shirt #262 - Feist

I have been trying not to repeat types of shirts, subject matter, two days in a row. This is difficult to do with the sheer number of comic book shirts I own. But I am resorting to another music shirt, a second day in a row, because I am putting off the entry I had planned for today as I am not done writing it yet. I have been planning this entry since JULY, so it's a long time in the making. I want it to be good. And it's not ready.

Also, given the girth of the entire I had planned for today, I did not think I could sneak in more comic book content, which I plan to do.

What's interesting is that this may be the first time period in which I featured three music shirts within seven days of each other. Okay, I quick revealed that this is not totally true. But it is unusual for me to feature music three time in seven days. I tend to spread out my music more often.

I wanted a quickie when I decided to run forward with the entry I had planned. I do not have much to say about Feist that cannot be carried by a handful of videos I will share.

I have actually seen Feist twice in concert, once at the Filmore in Detroit, when she actually had to tell the audience to shush, which is something I had seen Natalie Merchant do as she started to play "Verdi Cries" in concert. The other time I saw Feist was at the Michigan Theatre, which was a much better show as it was not like she was playing in a large bar with a stage in it. Everyone was seated and ready to listen to her concert.

I discovered Feist in one of those happy accidents of serendipity. I was at an event for the People's Food Co-op and the facilitator was playing her music. I asked what that divine sound was and thus I discovered Feist, glorious Leslie Feist.

FEIST WIKI

Speaking for myself, there is a hypnotic effect to listening to Feist, which makes it easy to listen over and over. I like that her music is classified as "Baroque Pop."

For those who don't know, Feist had fronted an indie band called Broken Social Scene. She is from Canada.

Feist also performed in The Muppets, the movie with Jaosn Segel and Amy Adams, which is awesome if only by itself.

I wrote much of this text yesterday, Saturday. I just returned home from playing a Pathfinder (D&D) adventure of WE BE GOBLINS in which I was Chuffy Lickwound seen in the picture below. Very fun. We killed lots of things, the biggest of which was a spellcasting Ogre.

Here's my character sheet and my goblin miniature painted ans gifted for me by Randall Davis. Thanks Randall!!

"Chuffy's face may make you sick,
But Chuffy's knife is awful quick!"

I do like to share pages from my ticket book. So here's one such page.













I had to return to Fanfare Saturday as some of the comics for 1312.04 did not come in until the next day, and this was my first opportunity to return.

So here's my updated list from this week's comics with the new comics in bold. Plus there were two special purchases as noted.

Since I had already read the first four comics in the list, obviously, these cannot be ranked among the top four. Only the X-Men comic had a shot to rank high, and at best, I would have ranked it fourth. I will rank it fifth, so that it's my next read.

COMICS FOR 1312.04

Inhumanity #001
Velvet #2
Green Arrow #26
Guardians of the Galaxy #009
Amazing X-Men #002
The Superior Spider-Man #023
Young Avengers #013
Iron Man #019
Action Comics: Superman #26
Daredevil: Dark Knights #007
Fearless Defenders #012
Batman: Detective Comics #26
Earth Two #18
Green Lantern #26
Secret Avengers  #012
Indestructible Hulk Annual  #001
The Amazing Spider-Man #700.1

BACK LOG

Great Pacific #12
Fairest #21
Cataclysm: The Ultimates Last Stand  #002
God is Dead #4
Trillium #5

SPECIAL PURCHASES

East of West - volume one

Mister Miracle T-shirt (another preview of a future shirt, and I learned some fun facts about Jim Steranko related to this character).

FEIST VIDEOS

Enjoy a boon of Feist goodness for your Sunday evening. I strongly recommend that if you have never listened to Feist that you check out these videos. If you do know Feist's music, you will enjoy these videos even more.

Feist - The Bad In Each Other

Feist - I Feel It All

Feist - Graveyard

Feist - Gatekeeper (Live At The Rehersal Hall)

Feist - Sea Lion Woman

Feist - 1234

Feist Let It Die Live Montreal 2012 HD 1080P

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 103 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.08 - 19:16

T-shirt #261: Ramones

T-shirt #261: Ramones

I have never really been a huge fan of the Ramones, and yet I own a shirt. It's a relatively recent purchase, within the last ten years, and the shirt has not been worn that often. Note that I am linking many of these subjects for your convenience and edification if you so desire. Also, for my later reading, as I reread my own blogs. Go figure.

I bought it at the same time as I bought the CBGB shirt that I featured when I said goodbye to Lou Reed in T-shirt #231, which is fitting as the Ramones played their first gig at CBGB in 1974.

I wish I could remember the bands I saw in the show I went to at CBGB in 1985, but these facts are lost in time.

I like punk music, but I never considered myself a punk or a punk rocker. However, in the 1980s, I did go to a lot of punk shows in Kalamazoo, more because of the scene than the music. Black Flag, a local band called the T-Snakes. All sorts. I hit a few shows in Ann Arbor, too, though I hardly remember. I played the Ramones at college dances and in my radio show, but I did not own any Ramones albums. In fact, I may like the Harmones, a Kalamazoo College Ramones inspired  band named for their dorm, Harmon.

I do think the Ramones are a good band, but they were never among my favorites. I think their stuff is fun and a great portrait of the time period. I own much of it. I do not listen to it very often of my own choice, but my step-son Ivan plays it for me on occasion so I keep tunes on my iPod.

Punk is punk. I do not enjoy debating which came first American punk via the Ramones or British punk via the Sex Pistols.

All of my favorite punk songs--if they can be considered "punk" and I don't think they can be--are by the Clash and the Jam. The former I wrote about recently in T-shirt #238. The latter I have not written about yet as I am saving my shirt featuring the Jam for a time when I can really devote myself to what is probably my favorite band and certainly in my top five as also mentioned in T-shirt #238.

I do like what is considered Post-Punk possibly more than punk itself. Bands like Gang of Four, Killing Joke, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and especially Cabaret Voltaire are among my favorites, but they are considered post-punk. I also liked the New Wave bands, such as DEVO, XTC, Blondie, Ultravox, Gary Numan's TubeWay Army, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, and most especially Talking Heads.

But this is about punk and the Ramones. And I meant to let the music speak for itself.

This is meant to be a quickie.

I wish to present my five favorite punk songs that are not by the Clash or the Jam. And, hey, guess what. There's a Ramones song. Okay, I am lying. These are not my favorites so much as the first five that spring to mind. Or is this the same thing? If the songs spring to mind, then must they be my favorites?

In any case, enjoy the exploration of my top five punk songs.

Suicidal Tendencies - "Institutionalized" Frontier Records

The Ramones - I wanna be sedated (Official Video - HQ)

The Cramps - Goo Goo Muck

Dead Kennedys - Kill the poor

Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK 1976

Misfits - Astro Zombies live

I could not embed the video for the next one, and though it's from a later period, more grunge, it's true punk in its aesthetic and I love it.

Sleater Kinney - More Than a Feeling

Okay, I lied, that's seven. I couldn't keep it to five and even with two extra I am leaving out some great bands. Still, this is a good sampling.

Now, more true than ever, "I wanna be sedated."

Also, as mentioned in the first video: "All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't bring it to me..."

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR: 104 shirts remaining

-chris tower - 1312.07 - 9:34

T-shirt #260 - Stark Industries R&D Department

T-shirt #260 - Stark Industries R&D Department

The other night during my reading time in bed when I started the Warren Ellis/ Mike McKone graphic novel of Avengers: Endless Wartime, I had one of those brain fart moments about which I am a little embarrassed. The book starts with an introduction by Clark Gregg, the actor who plays Agent Phil Coulson in the Iron Man and The Avengers movies and now on the TV show Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Gregg was writing about his introduction to comic books. First, he explained that he had been a mad thing for Science Fiction (SF) reading Bradbury, Asimov, and Dick in the early 1970s. I have an aside about these authors, but I will save it (see below). He said that during this time his brother brought home an issue of Iron Man drawn by Jim Starlin.

Huh?

I thought to myself "when did Jim Starlin EVER draw Iron Man?"

I could not remember any run of issues with Starlin on the art for Iron Man, a book I read regularly in the 1970s. I had a subscription for a couple of years after I asked my parents for comic book subscriptions as Christmas or birthday presents, alleviating the need to pick up issues at various stores around town, which meant that I was not asking during each car ride to stop at the liquor store that had a comic rack, Louie's Pipe Shop, the Michigan News Agency, or if I could head over to the magazine and book department when we were in Meijer buying groceries.

But Starlin on Iron Man??? I assumed that this "actor," who was trying to pass himself off as a comic geek did not know what the fuck he was talking about, and no one bothered to fact check his little preface. After all, I KNEW Iron Man, and this fraud, whose fraudulent nature was further emphasized by his choice of SF authors, had obviously also tried a lot of drugs in the 1970s.

But I had a handy computer on my night stand, the ever useful Google Nexus 7 tablet. I quickly searched "Jim Starlin Iron Man," and to my shame, I found one of my favourite Iron Man comic book covers (see left). But this was not Starlin's first work on Iron Man. He originated the character of Thanos in Iron Man #55. Starlin drew issues 53, 55, and 56 of Iron Man in 1972 and 1973 and contributed to issue 54 along with one of my favourite artists of all time: Gil Kane. I wrote of my love of Gil Kane among others in my list of favourite 1960s comic book artists in T-shirt #83 the X-Men Logo.


I have been threatening to create a list of favourite 1970s artists, which would surely include Jim Starlin as well as George Pérez. One of these days I am going to do that.

But back to Starlin. Okay, so I am obviously getting old. Or rather, my comics are all packed in boxes, which I have not looked at in many years. I have not SEEN that issue of Iron Man in maybe 20 years or more. I remember issue #100 well as it sat on top of a stack of comics for a long time while I was grounded and not allowed to read comics. I was not allowed to do anything but homework, which is a different story, and one that I may not tell on the blog.

Anyway, regardless, I am ashamed at my faulty memory because like Clark Gregg (who is no fraud and seems like a cool guy), I was also a HUGE Starlin fan.

Just a cool side note, in doing a little research here, I have discovered that Jim Starlin's home town (or possibly current town) is Detroit, Michigan.

I met Jim Starlin when I worked at Marvel Comics' Epic Comics division in 1985 for my college internship. Epic was publishing Starlin's Dreadstar. I was impressed that Starlin's scripts came in on handwritten sheets of yellow legal paper, the same paper that I used for my writing. I thought professional comic scripting would be typed. I managed to get my hands on Dreadstar as well as many other Epic Comics before making my temporary move to New York City. I read all the published issues of Dreadstar, which at that time numbered about 20 or so issues. I would rank this reading experience as one of my top five comic book reading experiences of all time. There's nothing like reading a comic book novel, which at the time, 1984, had not yet really been invented (though Dave Sim was hard at work on one).

Like Clark Gregg, who may be about the same age as I am, I was obsessed with  Starlin's character Adam Warlock, while I was in junior high. Gregg's description of himself is an accurate description of me and my behaviour: "So obsessed, in fact, that when I recently dug up an old middle school notebook, the pages were so dominated by sketches of Adam Warlock that the school work was crammed into a few rumpled sheets in the back. Which is, of course, how one ends up with a career in the arts."


I want to delve into greater depth about Jim Starlin and his Warlock character on my blog, but I am going to have to find the right shirt. Believe it or not, but not only do I not own a Warlock shirt, I cannot find any shirts devoted to Starlin's Warlock character.

Nevertheless, Jim Starlin is one of the heavy hitters of comics past and present, and if you like comics and do not know this, then check out the link below of "Comics You Should Own," and at the very least find DREADSTAR. Yes, it is Star Wars inspired, surely, but it's so much more than a Star Wars knock off.

COMICS YOU SHOULD OWN - DREADSTAR

JIM STARLIN TEASES THANOS ON FACEBOOK

JIM STARLIN COMIC VINE

JIM STARLIN WIKIPEDIA

Starlin is hinting that he has completed a 100 page Marvel project due in 2014 featuring his rendition of Thanos. See the link above.

This is exciting news for several reasons. One is that Starlin invented Thanos. Another is that the big bad villain seen at the end of the Avengers movie is Thanos, though few but the most well read viewers (well read of comics) know this fact.

Also, Marvel just finished a huge crossover event that featured Thanos and left him in much the same state as Starlin did at the end of a major story arc in 1977 for Marvel Comics.

Here's a page from Starlin's Iron Man run.

TODAY'S T-SHIRT

But I feel I have strayed too far from the cool new T-shirt: Stark Industries Research and Development.

Yes, this is a NEW T-shirt, and so it brings my total new t-shirts since I started this blog to 30 shirts. I had four new shirts arrive in the mail Wednesday, and I have a stack of four other new shirts that have been aching to be photographed and featured, some since this summer. What a blessing to have such a long lead time! And yes, the shirts themselves ache. Have you never been around a shirt eager to be featured on my blog? Well, let me tell you. That's how they are. Practically jumping up and down of their own accord: "Pick me! Pick me!"

I like this shirt very much because it is one of those faux logos, the kind of shirt that employees of Stark Industries Research and Development would wear if Stark Industries Research and Development existed.


SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS: Bradbury, Asimov, and Dick????

Back to Clark Gregg and the subject of Science Fiction writers as promised. Why are these the three most often mentioned SF authors from the 1960s-1970s period? Were they really the most often read authors?

I balk because it seems to me that these three authors get named most often not because they were the most widely read SF authors or the best SF authors but because these are the three that one is supposed to name. They are the "name brand" authors.

Though Heinlein gets mentioned often, why not Arthur C. Clarke? By the time Gregg referenced (1972-73), Clarke's 2001, A Space Odyssey had come out to coincide with the Kubrick film. Or what of Frank Herbert? Dune came out in 1968, and though it was not immediately a best seller, if one wandered into a SF section of a bookstore progressive enough to have one in 1972 or just trolled the fiction racks, one would likely find a copy.

I had heard of Philip K. Dick because he was mentioned prominently in my copy of The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, one of my favorite and most often read and reread books of all time. This encyclopedia listed Dick among the progenitors of a New Wave of Science Fiction with psychologically rich stories by Dick, Alfred Bester, Fritz Leiber, Philip Jose Farmer, and even Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, all of whom were part of a 1950s bevy of writers that gave rise to the New Wave of the 1960s and 1970s, in which they continued to write, joined by JG Ballard, John Brunner, Ursula LeGuin. Harlan Ellison, Brian Aldiss, Poul Anderson, and Michael Moorcock.

Whew! Long damn sentence.

Though the passage does not mention them, I would add Larry Niven, Samuel R. Delaney, Gordon Dickson, Harry Harrison, Clifford Simak, Norman Spinrad, and Roger Zelazny. There are others I am leaving out. Those are just off the top of my head.

Sue me.

Back in those old days of the 1970s, we learned about SF authors by word of mouth, by tracking authors published in SF magazines, and by looking through the shelves or racks of the book store or library. The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction was a rare and amazing animal and opened up my world of SF to many of the authors I listed simply because I read that book back to front multiple times and and wrote a research paper in high school (which I regurgitated in college) on the subject of Science Fiction. Sure those authors that Gregg named are all good, but Bradbury never won a Hugo (he has since won retroactively for Fahrenheit 451). Dick won in 1975. And Asimov won in 1973, for The Gods Themselves, which is around the time Gregg mentioned when Starlin's Iron Man comics came out. But still, there are plenty of other authors. Good God man!

I remember a guy named Jack that when I first met him worked at one of the three Tom Sawyer's Book Raft stores in Kalamazoo, later managing the one closest to Richland. He bought and renamed the Book Raft when the local owner sold the franchise. It stayed open until Jack got in trouble for not paying back his sales tax, and the store closed shortly before the East Towne Mall shut down around 1990. Jack introduced me to many authors, and though Dick was mentioned on occasion (and I owned a copy of Ubik, which I had not yet read), Jack introduced me to some of my favorite authors who are not on the list above, such as Keith Laumer and Edmund Cooper, whose books my father and I both read, and which I collected with religious fervor. In fact, family trips out of town meant that I could arrange to visit at least one store that specialized in Science Fiction and/or comic books, as such things did not exist in Kalamazoo. I once walked 18 blocks from wherever the Washington DC Metro train dumped to find a specialty SF bookstore while my family saw the Washington Monument and other sites. In London, I rode the tube into the city's West End for comics and SF books while my family saw the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace.

So, my point being: THERE ARE MORE AUTHORS IN SCIENCE FICTION THAN PHILIP K DICK, ASIMOV, AND BRADBURY!

It just makes me crazy when people don't know how many other great books are out there by other great authors without the "name" recognition.

This is a point I intend to circle back to regarding SF writers. I have a whole shirt to dedicate to the subject that I bought at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle. Stay Tuned.

I was going to review AVENGERS: ENDLESS WARTIME but after my little rant about Science Fiction writers, I think that's quite enough content for now. AVENGERS: ENDLESS WARTIME can wait. Isn't this supposed to be my light content week?

WEEKLY COMICS LIST

This list does not contain all the comics for the week. When I went to Fanfare Wednesday, a day earlier than usual, I found out that some of the shipment had been delayed. I may have an update this weekend. I am planning to review both Inhumanity and Velvet as those are the two I have read so far. Notice how the back log has shrunk.Catching up!  I will return to a discussion of these comics in a future entry when I also get around to reviewing AVENGERS: ENDLESS WARTIME.

COMICS FOR 1312.04

Inhumanity #001
Velvet #2
Green Arrow #26
Guardians of the Galaxy #009
The Superior Spider-Man #023
Young Avengers #013
Iron Man #019
Daredevil: Dark Knights #007
Fearless Defenders #012
Batman: Detective Comics #26
Green Lantern #26
Secret Avengers  #012
Indestructible Hulk Annual  #001
The Amazing Spider-Man #700.1

BACK LOG

Cataclysm: The Ultimates Last Stand  #002
God is Dead #4
Trillium #5

COVER GALLERY
I went a bit nuts with the Iron Man covers as this is my only Iron Man themed shirt as of now, though I may have to change this. Though I grabbed the first issue Gene Colan cover and the excellent Adi Granov art that I already had on file (from the Warren Ellis Extremis run), the assortment of other covers came up as I was searching for Starlin's Iron Man art and deliver an interesting variety of artists, including George Pérez, Starlin, George Tuska, Gil Kane, and the last being very early art of John Romita, Jr.

I did discuss Iron Man previously when I reviewed the Iron Man 3 film in T-shirt #99: Moby. Given that I wrote about Iron Man when I was sharing a shirt for Moby, all bets are off. I can write more about Iron Man at any time. Beware.

There's also this for future reference:

TOP FIVE MOST ICONIC IRON MAN COVERS

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 105 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.06 - 18:17

T-shirt #259 - The First Chicago Cubs Shirt

T-shirt #259 - The First Chicago Cubs Shirt

Cubs fandom. This may seem blasphemous for a Detroit Tigers fan. But I feel I am allowed to love more than one team, especially with two teams that compete in separate leagues and rarely play each other.

This is my first Cubs shirt, and it must be about 30 years old. As you can see it has seen better days. It is close to being either pajamas or a "dead" t-shirt. Not quite yet, though I had to unearth from the back of a secondary closet.

Though I own several Chicago Cubs shirts, so far I have only featured one, T-shirt #115, in which I created a loving tribute to Ron Santo. Expect more Cubs and Baseball content to come, though I was hoping to forestall much of it until February and March.

I am still rolling a bit content light for the week as I try to work ahead.

And at the moment, I do not have any pressing news or content to share about the Chicago Cubs. So far, their off season activity has been very quiet.

Unlike the Detroit Tigers, who traded Price Fielder to Texas for Ian Kinsler, traded Doug Fister to Washington for two bullpen arms and a utility man, and are close to singing free agent closer Joe Nathan. But is it right for me to discuss Detroit Tigers content in a post dedicated to the Chicago Cubs?

FIELDER-KINSLER TRADE

TIGERS FANS PANICKING ABOUT FISTER TRADE

TIGERS SIGN JOE NATHAN

I like what the Tigers are doing. In other news, I am shocked that Jacoby Ellsbury is a Yankee.

In an instance of pure serendipity, there is Chicago Cubs content in the Sports Weekly, which arrived in my in box yesterday, after I had written the previous text (I am working a day ahead right now and hoping to expand the lead). Sports Weekly discussed major prospects on the horizon for the Cubs in top outfielder Albert Almora, shortstop Javier Baez, third baseman Kris Bryant, and another outfielder Jorge Soler. Bryant had the best overall season last year and was MVP of the Arizona Fall League. Baez who might move to outfield or third hit for power but needs work on plate discipline.

A nice article on the team makes the case that the Cubs will not seek a quick fix via free agency but will instead rely on the farm system and prospects to pay off starting in 2015 and thereafter. So, though the Cubs may improve marginally from a dreadful 2013 season, I would not bet money on too much improvement. New manager Rick Renteria hopes to turn around the trend as the Cubs have 90+ losses in the last three seasons, but is it realistic that the Cubs even break even let alone contend? Not yet.

So what else is there to say right now?

Besides, this is my content light week of semi-hiatus.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 106 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.05 - 9:28

T-shirt #258 - Kalamazoo College Grey Under Armor

T-shirt #258 - Kalamazoo College Grey Under Armor

Obviously, this is not an Ultimate shirt, but since the photos feature an Ultimate Championship Medal, I decided to show the photos and include this one in the Ultimate category. This may be the first shirt in my Ultimate category that is not in some way an Ultimate shirt.

I featured Team Venom in T-shirt #60 in commemoration of our winning the MUSL league in 2007. Here are the pictures taken later that night with my Championship medal. I had switched into my Kalamazoo College shirt after the tournament and still had it on when I arrived home and wanted my picture taken.

As reported over the last few days, I am still in content light, hiatus mode. I have a smidgen more content to share about Kalamazoo College and then off I go to cobble together future blogs with more substance!

Toodles, Noodles.

Though there are eleven posts in my college category, I have only featured Kalamazoo College and a Kalamazoo College shirt once so far. I have at least four more shirts to feature and may own a couple more before this blog year is over.

I originally featured Kalamazoo College content as well as ruminations on identity in T-shirt #100. I delivered a great deal of Kalamazoo College content in that post. Surely, there is more to come.

This time of year as I counsel my WMU students through the completion of their semester, hammering them with academic rigor, though never as rigorous as what I went through at Kalamazoo College, I think of my own academic experiences, and sometimes I share these stories.

I tell my students that a college semester is like running a marathon. It's all about pacing, but it's a long, long distance, and if they do not pace well, they may have to speed up near the end.

I share about my first college research paper in my Introduction to Religion course, in which I investigated creation myths of different religions and discovered that if I built a paper from the inside out, starting in the middle, a thesis and an illustrative introduction would eventually come to me. I remember long hours in the Trowbridge Lounge with all my research and my electric typewriter.

With great pride, I share my long journey through Moby Dick. In the year of the studies of the great white whale, I stayed at school on Thanksgiving Day. I got up at 5 a.m. to read Moby Dick. Huddled in my single in Crissey, I read all day. I went to the President's Lounge for pizza, which is what the college served to those with nowhere to go for Thanksgiving. Sometime before that day, I read Moby Dick for two hours at the Rolling Stone concert at the Pontiac Silverdome. In the two hour stage reset between Carlos Santana and the Stones, I sat there an read while everyone else hooted and hollered and spilled beer all around me.

Then there was my 72-hour novel writing marathon, in which I slept very little, and wrote a 125-ish page postmodern novel called The Next Best Thing To Being There. I perfected the 45-minute power meditation nap to various Pink Floyd albums. I walked through the Burger King drive through at 1 a.m. because we had no car but were starving. I experimented, as did my girlfriend of the time, with Vivarin.

These are the academic experiences that stick out in my mind, the ones I cherish the most.

More stories to come. Stay Tuned.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR: 107 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.04 - time

T-shirt #257 - 10,000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo

T-shirt #257 - 10,000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo - Eat for Two

I have been a huge 10,000 Maniacs fan since the mid-1980s. I heard that the band played Club Soda around 1985, before I discovered this great band.



The story of my discovery is brief, but it's one of my favorite stories of discoveries of a band or musical artist.

WIDR, the WMU student radio station, used to host a featured album show and another show in which a DJ would play a collection of music from one band or artist. I threw a cassette in one day for one of these shows as I was called down for dinner because I liked the music. The show had already started, so I had missed the name of the artist. For several months after, I had this cassette of music that was beautiful and mesmerizing. But I did not know the name of the album and the artists. One song in particular became an instant favorite of mine, though I did not know the name of the song and couldn't make out the all the lyrics. The song is featured in a video below. It is still my favorite 10,000 Maniacs song. When I heard them play it in concert, I cried. (And I waited through several concerts before they did play it, so that moved me even more emotionally as between each song I would have my fingers crossed and be sending the band the mental message: "Lily Dale. Lily Dale. Lily Dale.")

Months after recording that cassette and playing it over and over and falling completely in love with the music, the precise, tight guitar, and the rich and hearty vocals, I borrowed an intriguing looking album from a friend of mine, a local musician, Jeff Krebs, called The Wishing Chair by a band named 10,000 Maniacs. It was the music on my cassette! And there was the song: "Lily Dale," named for a cemetery in New York near the band's home town of Jamestown.

I have several 10,000 Maniacs shirts, so I am going to leave off at this content for now and let several videos speak for the band's brilliance. These are not all of my favorite 10,000 Maniacs songs. I feel that I need to share "Eat For Two" because it's on the shirt as a promo for the 10,000 Maniacs album Blind Man's Zoo. I selected six songs just from You Tube searching. Some are favorites, like "Lilly Dale," and another, like "Headstrong," was chosen simply because it's on Blind Man's Zoo.

More 10,000 Maniacs content to come in future blogs so stay tuned.

But first some images of ticket stubs. These are not all my ticket stubs and one is not mine. It was given to me by my friend "Billy" Walt Curley, He who is!

10,000 Maniacs- Eat for Two/Live/HD

10,000 Maniacs - Can't Ignore The Train

Natalie Merchant - Verdi Cries

Lilydale 10,000 Maniacs

I can't embed these some for some reason. But click the links. They work.

10,000 Maniacs - Grey Victory

10,000 Maniacs - Headstrong

Okay, wait a minute. I can't go without sharing the amazing lyrics to "Lilydale."

"LilyDale" - 10,000 Maniacs from the Wishing Chair

Come as we go far away
From the noise of the street
Walk a path so narrow
To a place where we feel at ease

Some think it is haunting
To be drawn to the
Cemetery ground, as we
There's a stillness here
Thankful found

Child's pose angelic
A stone lamb at her feet
Part the matted overgrowth
To read the craven elegy

Some think it is haunting
To be drawn to the
Cemetery ground, as we
There's a stillness here
Thankful found

Born in New Albion
Of Rice family elite
Wed to Myron Bilowe
Thrice with sons
Blessed was she

Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the
Cemetery ground, as we
God's acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground

Here soon to rise up
Amelia, tender and sweet
Her last words spoke
All is well, all is peace

Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the
Cemetery ground, as we
God's acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground

Songwriters
Natalie Merchant;Robert Buck

Published by
CHRISTIAN BURIAL MUSIC

As always, I am back again tomorrow.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 108 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.03 - 7:50

T-shirt # 256 - Mad Dog Ultimate Tournament - Scooby Doo

T-shirt # 256 - Mad Dog Ultimate Tournament - Scooby Doo

As I wrote yesterday, I am taking a shirt hiatus.... ha ha, that's a typo. I meant "short" hiatus. It's not really a shirt hiatus as there are still shirts.

So light on content for a few days.

Yesterday was the necessary day of rest for "self-care" though after I graded two sets of assignments and did a bunch of daily work. Also, though I had some good picks (Vikings! Cardinals!), I am 6-9 total for the week and only because I went 2-1 with my picks for Thanksgiving Day. But I am sweeping fantasy basketball (except for the team I let Yahoo draft).

Oh and the Pistons won big. So between reading a bunch of comics, quality time with my wife, loving times with the puppy, I am happy. Though now it's back to work, hence the content-light hiatus.




















Mad Dog was one of the most fun tournaments in which I ever played. I miss it. But I especially liked teaming up with Midland folks in 2002. It's one of my best Ultimate tournament memories. Plus, I have this nifty shirt. In fact, I may have TWO. I like that I have an Ultimate shirt that features Scooby Doo. Great people!

I have always been a big Scooby Doo fan. Check out these two nifty clips. One is Christmas themed!

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) - Intro (Opening) - Version 2

A Scooby-Doo Christmas

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 109 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.02 - 8:40