Music For Life

I need to get something out of the way before I post anything else. Our son Jake was born with a congenital heart defect. You can read the whole story here. The name of the page is baby casden. You may have to log in to view, it won't kill you. Now I can just report on things as they come instead of going into a long-winded discussion of what's happened to us in the last few months.

Just so you know, this blog will not be about congenital heart defects and all the namby pamby crap that goes along with that. Our kid is tough, he's going to rise above his condition.

Moving on... Since we're allowed to bring our own forms of entertainment into the ICU room, I've been introducing Jake to some music I thought he might like. So far he's enjoyed the sounds of The Lively Ones, Charlie Feathers, T-Bone Walker, some Studio One reggae tracks and Las Vegas Grind Vol. 1. Amy nixed the Bad Brains and I actually exercised some restraint - I thought the CICU was probably not the place for Slayer. Hopefully he turns out to have good taste in music. It's never too early to start.

In other music news, I bought a Fender Champ II off the 'bay the other day. I've sworn by my Marshall JCM 800 for over 15 years, but now that we have a small person in the house, I needed a smaller amp to play through. Neat little amps, only made briefly in the early '80s. They were designed by noted amp guy Paul Rivera. It's the little cousin of The Super Champ which goes for BIG bucks.

The Yankees suck. They can be really hard to watch. They never seem to get clutch hitting when they need to and the pitching just never lives up to the hype. But that's OK cause The Rangers are in the playoffs and thankfully, the Isles are not.

And lastly, from the "If I was king of the world dept." Paper. Why is there so much wasted paper in the world? Do I need 75 napkins when I get a piece of pizza or a cup of coffee? Am I that much of a slob? I can see getting one napkin, perhaps two for messier fare, but come on. People need to engage their brain and say, I don't need all this since I'm just going to throw it out unused or worse, leave it or dump it on the ground. Paper bags for everything - do you need a bag if you're going to eat your Big Mac in the restaurant? I almost always say, "I don't need a bag." I also find myself pushing the stack of napkins shoved at me back across the counter in hopes they will be saved for someone else. People are just unconscious, man. If I was king of the world, people would not be allowed to be so wasteful. Less paper=more trees. Case closed.