3 Down

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Ever hear the saying, "They always die in Threes."? "They" being the rich and famous. This week three greats are gone. "Greats" of course is a matter of opinion, but from my viewpoint they really were greats, even if the world is divided on the opinion, they were often recognized as greats in their fields. The perpetual sidekick, the "king of pop" and a great actress, one the the original Angels. Yes, I am talking about Ed McMahon, Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett.

Ed McMahon, was the voice of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, I'm old enough to remember that, but what I really remember him from was the blooper show with Dick Clark, and Star Search. If your old enough to remember Star Search, you remember that it was THE thing to watch on Saturday nights. The new, up and coming comics and singers, acrobats, dancers and who can remember what else. The original version of American Idol. They performed head to head and the winner each week took on a new player the following week, and at the end the one who survived was the winner. Who can remember all of the future stars who crossed that stage? Just like Idol today, even most of the losers went on to great things. Sawyer Brown the great country band, a 5 year old LeAnne Rimes. What about Sinbad? These are the three that pop to the top of my own memory, and the TV says that Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake crossed the stage too, before they were Mousekateers. He gave so many people a start over the years of that show, that it is hard to believe that he is still best remembered as the perpetual sidekick to the class clown, and the Peter Pan of Bandsstand. One more thing that he was known for for many years was being the face of and integrity of Publishers Clearing House. He was the guy delivering the big check, when the winner was chosen and presented. You may already be a millionaire!

Michael Jackson, once one of the most amazing artists on the planet. I freely admit that I was a fan at one point, and I grew up on the sounds of Motown, and the Jackson 5 was part of that sound. "1-2-3", Was probably one of the songs that I remember best of the original family group, along with "Never can say good-bye". I also remember the Saturday morning cartoon of the Jackson 5. Like Scooby-Doo without the stoner and the dog! Yes, the man became the butt of jokes, but it was really a lot of his own doing. With his immense fame came some mind warpage. Who wouldn't get a little freaky when everywhere you went you were a riot waiting to happen. No privacy, no anonymity and never a chance to just walk down a sidewalk without the prying eyes of the tabloids and paparazzi scrutinizing your every move. The truth is that he got weirder and weirder as the years went on, but it seems that some of it was pushing to see when someone would stand up and call him on his stuff. It seems that nobody ever did, until he was arrested and charged with child molesting. It's too bad that this will be his legacy for more than a generation. It will take that long before his music once again becomes the focus of the country where he grew up and got his start, and gave him and his whole family a great career. He had real problems to be sure, but he actual work and contribution to the history of music will far outlast his freakazoid lifestyle.


Farrah Fawcett, just her name inspired the plumber jokes, but she was a great actress. She was a pin-up model, and another one noted for her strangeness. Who can forget the infamous Letterman interview when she seemed to be lost in the ozone and floating in her own little world? One of the original Charlie's Angels, she was the postergirl of the 70's. I can't think of a single one of my friends that didn't have that poster someplace where they could stare at it and her OH so perky nipples. We all longed for the day that we could see her nekkid, and then here comes the 90's and none other than Hugh Hefner gets her to show us them boobies! Not once, but twice! And even on a pay-per-view show where she used her nekkid body as a paint brush. Yeah, she lived up to her reputation. But she was also an actress who did things that were worth watching, the battered wife who sets fire to the house with here drunken husband passed out inside, The Burning Bed. She was the mother and wife who goes into stress induced breakdown in Dr. T and the women. A role that she seemed so perfect for that it was amazing. But she was also a mother to a son who wasn't perfect, and the one time wife of the Six Million Dollar Man,

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and the live in lover of Ryan O'Neal. The tumultuous relationship provided years of tabloid fodder for the voracious gossip appetites of the tabloid reading public. Beautiful and talented, but in some ways disturbed, she will be missed by many.

I have never figured out why they seem to go in threes, but if you think about it, it almost always seems that three big names always seem to die at close intervals.This time was less than a week, and 2 in the same day! Usually less than a month apart, but on rare occasions the interval can stretch out to 8 weeks, but as far as I remember you really have to dig to find a time in the last few decades when this wasn't the case. Sometimes the Fame Level is questionable, but it is generally they are on par with each other like this now gone trio. Even with the disparate ages, their level of fame remains on par.

Remember them for the great stuff that they did, and not for the jokes that were told about them. Their contributions were worth more than most of us will ever be able to accomplish, and what they did wrong, well, it doesn't really matter anymore does it?

Happy Mothers day!

I happen to have 2 mothers. No, I am not the adopted son of lesbians, I have a biological mother who was married to my father, and I have a step-mother who was also married* to my father. I was raised by my step-mother. I have actually known her longer than my birth mother. Here is the story...

When I was 2 or 3 years old, or there abouts my mother and father split up, and my mother disappeared from my life. I knew that I had a mother, and I knew that she was out there somewhere, but I didn't know where.

When I was 4 I was riding on the back of my father's motorcycle and I managed to poke my heel into the spokes of a moving motorcycle and get my foot wedged between the shock absorber and the whizzing spokes. ( not a good thing to do!) and I managed to get a 3rd degree burn on my heel. After initial treatment my doctor decided that I would need a skin graft to repair the damage. So I got to spend a few days in the hospital, and there was this cute nurses aide working there that my dad liked. It worked out because I liked her too. Later that summer I had a new Mommy.

She was not perfect by any means, but she was a mom to me and I was very happy to have her in my life. She was all I expected from a mom, she spanked me and cooked for me and let me get away with crap. She gave me a sister and a brother and she helped me with my homework. She help me learn how to drive and she gave me the wish to learn how to cook. She loved me every day, even when I didn't deserve it, and she still does. I love her too. I always will. Her family became my family, when I speak of my aunts and uncles, it is usually her family I am talking about, because I barely know any of my aunts and uncles from my birth mothers family. I know they are out there, and I am even sure that I have probably partied with them on occasion, I just don't know it. My Step-moms Mom welcomed me into the family with open arms as did the rest of her extended family. So happy Mother's day to Mom, and to Grandma Hubler too!

MY natural mother, is once again a part of my life, and it means a lot to me that she is out there. Many people have asked my how I could forgive her after she left me when I was so young, and I tell them that first of all she didn't abandon me on a doorstep, she left my father and I happened to stay with him. I asked her about it once, and she was quite plain in her response, she didn't have the nurturing instinct and she knew it. Dogs and cats were ok. She figured that she was screwed up enough on her own, and she didn't want to warp me anymore than the genetics already would. ( I really appreciated that thoughfulness!) So 16 years later I went looking with some of the imformation that I already had, and I found her.

Turns out that she and I are quite alike in many ways. But I can't for the life of me understand her!! LOL It doesn't really matter though, we are friends now, and I am happy that she is in my life. She may not be "mommy" but she is my mother and she is truly a part of who I am and the way I am, it really is true the genetics plays a big role in who we are. I may not be a genius, but I am smart enough to know that. The great debate of nurture vs. nature, is one I love, because I think I am smart enough to know that I am a perfect mix of the 2. For good or for bad, both the one who raised me, and the one who birthed me, are a huge part of who I am.

So for you too, my "real" mom, Happy Mother's day! You were smart enough to give me up, rather than warp me out. Thank you!

*my father and natural mother were never divorced. My step-mother was a common-law wife. I never knew this until after my 18th birthday. Surprise!

Hometown Tourist

Have you ever been a tourist in your hometown? It's kinda fun and gives one a new perspective. Think about this, when you visit someplace new, what is the first thing you notice? Ok dumb question, because it it very subjective, if your from the cold into the tropics, you notice the heat and the smell. If your from the tropics into the cold you notice the cold and the smell. If you have never seen a Palm tree that's what you notice. But after a short time and the initial shock, you begin to notice the architecture. You see the buildings as different. If you are from the east coast and are visiting the west coast, you notice that the Buildings don't seem so old. But if your from the west coast and visit the east coast, you notice the Buildings look ancient in many places. If you have never seen a cobblestone street, you will take notice of them. I was in Odessa, Ukraine and saw this grand old Opera House. It is quite the Historic Building and it is a big piece of History in Odessa. It is a big source of pride.

What many people forget is that their own town has history and it is fun to explore sometimes. When you take a minute to wander around your own home town you start to see these old buildings that you have seen for years in a new light. Maybe you have been in and out of the door of this building many times, but have you ever really looked at the building? I don't mean Wal-Mart or the local strip mall. They are cookie cutter buildings and built with functionality in mind before beauty. (Unless they were designed to fit a zoning regulation such as in the city of Durango, CO. ) You never know where you're going to find something interesting. I have been in European cities that have ancient buildings that have seen half of recorded history, but they are still in use and still giving shelter and keeping the elements at bay.






In America an "Old" building is pushing credulity over 200 years. In parts of Europe there are building that are seeing their 7th 0r 8th century. Castles build back when the year only had 3 digits!
It's funny how something is a part of your life,loses it's mystique, but when somebody sees it for the very first time they are enthralled. I remember as a child, seeing that great dome on the top of our courthouse strung with Christmas lights and thinking that it was the coolest sight ever. Way better than a puny Christmas tree in the living room. But now I can't even tell you if they still string the lights on that dome, because I barely notice it anymore. Today I noticed it again for the first time in many years. I have been in this building a few time. ( never in cuffs, thank you very much!) I have been there for permits, for jury duty, and even as a witness for the prosecution. I have sat in the witness chair and given testimony. I have been there as a student on a field trip. But it is very rare that I look at this building with "new eyes" like I did today. My home town really has some interesting buildings if you would like to find out about them.

Our local paper runs a little history lesson once a week, where there is some old picture and the county or village historian describes the scene and tells about the time that it was taken and who is in the picture and where the scene is located in relation to today's buildings and landmarks. Occasionally the picture will include a building that is still standing today. That is always interesting. One of those buildings that surfaces in the historic pics now and then is what is now our local Public Library. I can't tell you when it was built or how much it cost when it was doen, but I do know this much, once upon a time it was a private residence, and the family that owned it was rich. The family name was "Swan" and thus it is now the Swan Library. It is three floors and the top floor is a little bit of a local natural history museum. Lots of people have been in and out of this building for years and they have never walked up the grand staircase in the middle of the building and seen the collection of eggs. From an Ostrich egg all the way down to a hummingbird egg. I have been they a few times just to identify something that I have found out in the field! LOL It's funny though, because as far as mansions go, I would consider this one to be kinda small. I don't know who much renovation was done when it was turned into a library, but it seems that the kitchen is long gone and I have no idea where it was. I guess if I ask sometime they would show me the original blueprints of the house so I could get a better idea of what it was like as a family residence. I have never asked.

Our town has some interesting history. Ever hear of a Pullman car? You know the sleeping cars that used to be part of the old railroads.... We Mr. Pullman, they guy who "invented" them, He was from Albion, NY and he used his money to build a Church, so now we have the Pullman Universalist Church in our town. There is a legend that The Dalton boys had family here when they died and they were brought here and buried in our cemetary. I haven't been able to prove that so I still consider that to be simply myth.


But all history is in the past, and as they say, "Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." It is great to read and to learn from and in some cases to enjoy for the shear beauty and wonderment of a more innocent time when people didn't shower as often and barely knew what deoderant was. ;-)) but the modern has come to us and we must embrace it, or it will run us over. What was once a corn field is now a Wal-Mart Supercenter.


The damn things seem to grow everywhere! They are pervasive. I asked a friend of mine who works there once, how many they are going to build, and he told me that the plan is to put a Wal-Mart in every county in the United States that has a population of over 400 people. That's a lot of stores. Not all supercenters are created equal though, it seems that our is a medium-sized supercenter, but the one in the college town down the road? That is a supersized supercenter. The aisles are wide enough for 3 average Wal-Mart customers to pass by each other!

Odd friends...

Not really "odd" As in Strange, but rather, odd as in Odds and ends. This is not to say that they are by any means the last friends or the ones that you don't know what to do with, but more the ones that seem to have the most interesting stories either in the meeting or the living with.

There are all kinds of friends in our worlds, we have Old friends that we have known since childhood, the ones who know some of our deep dark secrets, the ones that we may not want knocking on the door if we run for political office, the ones who know what we looked like before the Nose Job! We have Work friends, whom we only know from work, it is lucky if we actually know their last name let alone how to reach them outside of the workplace. Yet we seem to know everything else about them, family's troubles, vacation plans, how much they pay or receive in child support, way more than we really should for someone we only know in one sphere of our lives. There are our Bar friends and our Team friends, and College friends, Military friends and even the Friend of a Friend friends, but then there are those rare people that we meet in some unexpected and often odd way, perhaps you shared a room in a hospital, or your children did. Maybe you met by accident, literally, when you backed into each other at the super market. But the ones that I am actually referring to are probably the newest odd friend out there, the Online Friends. These are people that you have met through no particular effort to make friends but rather through a shared interest in something that you found online. Many people will go the rest of their lives only ever knowing these friends by their avatars and their Messenger Id's or AIM names, or Skype, Google, ICQ or who knows what else. You may know their email address and never know their home address, or perhaps you have exchange paper christmas cards and not just ecards. Maybe you have been brave and sent them actual pictures, or if they were local you met at a bar or a restaurant. You find out that not only do you share the interest that you have already shared, but a whole slew of others too. We never know what will bring us together whether it will be a common singer, and interest in a particular artist, A comic strip, or knitting with hand-spun angora yarn. Who knows what you have in common with your online friends, but they are your friends and they are often only your friends, not anyone else in your family, or for that matter anyone else you know. They are better than an imaginary friend, but just as much yours alone.

Life can give you some interesting twists if you are willing to explore beyond the end of your front porch. A little over 11 years ago, not too long after I began in earnest to look around the internet and discover the new world that was there for me, I began to make some of my very first online friends. It happened quite by accident, I was looking for information in the best way available at the time, I was posting to an online message board looking for tour information for my then current favorite singer/songwriter Fiona Apple. After I posted my question, I came back the next day and found this laundry list of subjects under discussion and some I felt the need to enter my own opinion about, so I did. Well, I never did get the information I was originally looking for, but I ended up with this core group of people who all basically felt the same way about most subjects and had a lot of interesting things to say. The funny thing was that at the time this group ranged in age from 16 to 53 ( I'm guessing here at the 53, but the neighborhood is close!). It was about 10 people and there was at least one family connection in the group. We were scattered across the country from Maine to California, Oregon to Florida, as well as a few scattered through the midwest. Over a couple of years we kept in contact and had lots of interesting discussions and arguments. We always defended each other and had a blast learning new and interesting things about who we were, where we lived and what we did. When the youngest of the crew were old enough to do so we planned a meeting. We decided that a cool summer vacation would be the best way to do this and since the biggest concentration were on the west coast, that was where we would meet. And we did just that, we traveled across the country in our chosen chariots and we congregated in Los Angeles, California in July of 2000.

Of that core group I still have contact with three of them regularly and one or two sporadically. One of them turned out to be my mental twin. we have the same ideas at the same time from the same stimulis. It' is rather disconcerting at the beginning , because you are never ready for someone to throw your own thoughts at you as fast as they are coming into your own head!! Thanks Johnny! We stayed mainly at the apartment of one member all congregated in a four room two bedroom, two bath apartment on Shenandoah. But we also invaded the home of another set of friends too. These were Johnny's Mom and Step-dad, Mummy and Scotty. Two of the coolest people on the planet. Knowing us from only the internet and our words on the screen, they opened their house to us (and especially me, I will elaborate later) and we had a great time. And these three people are still in my life to this day. Why do I say they opened there house especially to me? Because they decided to take some long deserved vacation time from their jobs and show me California on a motorcycle!

It had long been my dream to ride the Pacific Coast Highway. Now I would truly like to ride it from San Diego to Vancouver, but I knew that this would be way more than I could do in one little vacation, so I decided to follow the advice of the natives that I knew and they showed me The best part of the road. We took a 5 day 1300 mile journey through California. On the first day we left Orange County and headed north, getting on PCH in San Luis Obispo and riding that twisting, turning, beautiful two lane blacktop all the way to Monterrey. The next day we looked around and eventually headed inland to visit Yosemite National park. 2 days later we toured through Kings Canyon and Sequoia National parks. Then we did some real highway riding and I got to travel through the Grapevine. I saw Bakersfield, and Big Sur, Carmel, and Hurst Castle, Morrow Bay, Whales and Dolphins. Grants Grove, Old Dome, Bald Dome, Tioga trail, and who knows what else. The journey itself would make a nice book, but there are loads of pictures to prove it!! And two of my favorite people in the world as accomplices and witnesses! LOL I rode a motorcycle through rush hour traffic in Los Angeles, California and survived! It was cool.

Then there are the Surprise friends that you meet online. Maybe you meet them in a chat room, or a a discussion group, but it is a place where you truly don't expect to find them. I have one of those too, and I met her in person that same summer. As I recall it all started over a discussion of firearms and who should and shouldn't have them. Being the radical that I am, I truly believe that all law abiding citizens should have and be trained in the use of weapons. Since the criminals have them it's only right that we do to. Anyway she agreed with me. And it turned out that she even backed up this statement by being married to a Police! Imagine that!! So we double teamed the opposition and beat them into submission that day. And as we laughed about it afterward we talked about other things too. A few days later I found her in the chats again and we talked some more, finding commonalities in tastes and humor, we discussed anything and everything that could possibly come up between two adults. The anonymity of the chat persona probably made us both bolder than we might normally be, but it became a regular thing that we would get together online and share the daily stories and the trials of our lives. She with her 2 kids and her awesomely cool, Policeman Husband, me with my big dreams and always trying to do something that I probably should but always manage to survive and thrive from. She was going to Paramedic school I was working nights in a factory, but while our worlds were a million miles apart, our minds were running parallel rails, we had tons to talk about and laugh about. She was cool out there in the Midwest, telling me about her great weather, while I was freezing my butt off here in western NY. She was looking out for Tornadoes while I was enjoying spring breezes. She was suffering through a drought while I was wishing it would stop raining. She went to school and raised her kids, I went to work and tried my hand at new things all the time, looking for my passion so that I could eventually pursue it for profit, and not feel trapped in a job I hated. Pretty soon I was planning a trip that could easily take me through her city, would it be okay if I stopped in and met her in person? Sure why not! So when the big day finally arrived, it was funny, after all the talking and discussion online, when we were actually together in the same room it took a little while for the words to start flowing the same as they did online. But eventually they did flow and the laughter and smiles came out free and easy, and I found out that I had met a person who was also just like me, but not me . I had me a second twin that made us triplets!!

So all of this leads me to this, Sometimes it is these odd friends that give us the most pleasure, even though it is rare that we get to actually see them, and we may go weeks and months with nary a word, but when we connect, we seem to fill in the blanks quickly and succinctly. Sometimes we stay in touch constantly, with big letters and awesome pictures and video. But it seems that these Odd friends are truly the best friends that we end up with, because we don't have the opportunities to screw it up, by getting drunk and doing something stupid and irredeemable, or borrowing money and never paying it back. There are a million things that break up friendships, but the Odd friends have some insulation from us and our wanton ways, and so they can last, and because they have been so much like us for so long it is pretty much a given that they will remain on our wavelength barring electro-shock therapy.

So heres to my Odd friends, some of my best friends in the world: Lynn, Renny, Mummy and Scotty. I love you guys and hope that you are my Odd Friends for many years to come!!

How much do you like music?

Music is one of those things in life that everyone has some saome opinion about, what is good and what is bad and what even constitutes "music" To a Mongolian Throat Singer, they make music, but to just about everyone else they make noise. Rock music is broken down into categories and someone can love one and hate another, there is glam rock, hair band, hard rock, classic rock, heavy metal, and accoustic. How many other categories depends on the strict definition you choose, but they are all a form of "Rock n Roll" Sometimes we lke a genre but dislike a particular performer in that genre, Me I can barely stand Guns and Roses and Kid Rock. My little brother on the other hand loves them both to death and loves to argue with me about their merits. Now Don't get me wrong, I don't say that they are not quite accomplished at what they do and how well they do it, I just don't like them. From both a personal and professional stand I have my reasons. THe funny thing is that I like such a wide variety of music that some people consider me to be an authority on the stuff, but truthfully I am only a barely conversant dilettante compared to some people. The more I learn about music the more I realize that I don't know, but I do know what I like.

In recent years I have found that I like to hear new versions of old songs. On Saturday mornings in Rochester there is a radio show, ( actually 2 of them!) that play truly different music, and I have really come to look forward to these shows. The one show opens every week with a different artists version of the song "Good Morning Little School Girl" I have been listening to these shows for a couple years and I can't say that I have heard the same version of this song twice. I have heard faithful blues renditions, rocking ,rockabilly versions, some that sounded like a lullaby, reggae, hiphop, one was even an instrumental played only on piano. And what I have found is that they are all cool. No matter how different it sounds from the first version I ever heard, they are all the same song from somebody else's perspective. So with this in mind I have kept my ears open to find different and cool versions of old familiar songs. Jewel doing "Sweet Home Alabama", amazing cover of a song that she can't even sing live because she doesn't know the words!! Funny isn't it? Billo Kirchen and "Hot Rod Lincoln Live" an 8 minute rendition of a 2 minute song, well worth it! Commander Codi's, Live version of "Hot Rod Lincoln" , it is his song after all! One that most people know, Eric Clapton's Accoustic version of "Layla" the great Derrick and the Dominos song that was originally a screaming guitar anthem. Accoustic versions of lots of songs, covers by well known artists, tributes, lots of variety. I have been working on a small collection of covers of Hall of Fame songs by Hall of Fame Artists. It's pretty cool to do the research and find out the origins of the songs and how they got to where they are. I have also found out that some artists put their songs out and then get tired of doing them that way, so they rewrite them and make them totally different songs. Not always better, but usually way better.

Music is what we want it to be, and some of us can make it. It's all about what you want to hear, and what you let yourself hear. Change can be good, and it may even open your mind.