Uncle Warren's Attic

How does Sunday, Feb. 12 sound?

2012-01-30T06:43:00.001-06:00

[Rummage, rummage, rummage]

Where is that dang microphone, anyway? I have the mic stand, wouldn't you think I'd keep the microphones on the same shelf?

[Rummage, rummage, clunk]

Oh, here it is, on the - same shelf - as - the - mic stand. Oh.

Man, we moved five months ago, you'd think I'd have the Attic all unpacked again by now. Let's see what I can find in this box.

[Dig, dig, dig, shuffle]

Oh, my! I forgot about this thing. Whoa, that'll be great.

[Looks up]

Oh, hi! Nothing to see here, move along, move along ...

Are you ready for Uncle Warren's Attic podcasts to resume?

2012-01-27T08:22:00.000-06:00

Just askin'

Just sayin'

RESET.

2012-01-25T15:22:00.000-06:00

working . . . . .

Faulty time machine

2012-01-24T06:15:00.000-06:00

You may have noticed I didn't mention the call letters of that far away Buffalo, N.Y., radio station in my stroll down Memory Lane yesterday. That's because I couldn't remember. I knew it wasn't CKLW because that station was in Windsor, Ontario ...

In the middle of something else during the day, I remembered. WKBW. This concept of my brain as a time machine is a lot of fun, except when the synapses don't quite snap the way they once did.

Here's a bunch of info about that great Top 40 station.

Music from a half-century away

2012-01-23T06:25:00.000-06:00

One of the more amazing things about entering late middle age is the notion of my brain as a time machine, accessing events that happened 50 years and more ago. I still have a crisp memory of sitting in my brother's room listening to a far-away radio station in Buffalo, N.Y., one night in what must have been 1961, listening to a catchy new song called "Calendar Girl." I became a fan of this Neil Sedaka fella not long after.

Every Tuesday night during my teenage years, I'd tune in Cousin Bruce Morrow at WABC in New York City to find out the weekly Top 20 (which was the Top 40 at one time and was later reduced further to the Top 14). I must not have been the only one, because those surveys are a prominent part of the musicradio77.com site devoted to memories of the biggest hit radio station of the era. Here are this week's memories:

50 years ago (1962)
1. The Twist - Chubby Checker (which had spent five weeks at #1 - again)
2. Peppermint Twist, Pt 1 - Joey Dee and the Starliters
3. I Know (You Don't Love Me No More) - Barbara George
4. The Lion Sleeps Tonight - The Tokens
5. Baby It's You - The Shirelles

45 Years Ago (1967)
1. I'm a Believer - The Monkees (which had spent five week at #1 - a pattern?)
2. Snoopy vs. the Red Baron - The Royal Guardsmen
3. Georgy Girl - The Seekers
4. Tell It Like it Is - Aaron Neville
5. Standing in the Shadows of Love - The Four Tops

40 Years Ago (1972)
1. American Pie - Don McLean (3 weeks #1)
2. Let's Stay Together - Al Green
3. Brand New Key - Melanie
4. Clean-Up Woman - Betty Wright
5. You Are Everything - The Stylistics

35 Years Ago (1977)
1. Car Wash - Rose Royce
2. You Don't Have to Be a Star (To Be In My Show) - Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr.
3. You Make Me Feel Like Dancing - Leo Sayer
4. Enjoy Yourself - The Jacksons
5. I Wish - Stevie Wonder

I still like Ike (UW Attic #38)

2012-01-22T14:20:00.000-06:00

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

That's Dwight D. Eisenhower, the president who had been a leader of warriors and later said some of the most profound things about peace of any president before or since. Especially since.

Here are some other good things Ike had to say.

And to hear a talk he gave 51 years ago this week (Jan. 17, 1961) that is still mighty relevant, there's always the immortal Uncle Warren's Attic #38.

Launch: A new free monthly e-adventure

2012-01-15T19:01:00.004-06:00

Click here to download Myke Phoenix #1

The year was 1990, more or less. The cold war was over, people were still allowed to smoke on the job, 9/11 was still six years off, and local radio stations had local personalities on the air almost 24/7.

And I had this idea about reviving the dime novel. OK, not the dime novel per se. What I had in mind was something about the length of a comic book, but in text.

My hero’s name was Myke Phoenix.

You can read more about it by clicking "Read more" — or just click on the caption under the cover art for your free e-magazine.
Back in the early 1990s I completed the stories for Myke Phoenix Adventures #1, 2, 3 and 5. I partly finished issue #4, “The Decline and Fall of Alan Pinkstaff,” in which it would be made extremely clear how much the crime lord of Astor City was a big nobody compared to the power who controlled him.

But then other life events interfered, and for almost 18 years I set aside the unpublished Myke Phoenix Adventures, packing him into a box and forgetting him. One day I remembered. I hauled the box down from the attic and said to myself, “Self, you should share these stories.”

In 2008 I packaged the finished stories into a book called The Adventures of Myke Phoenix. The book has been moderately successful, but of late I found my imagination drifting back to that original concept. With modern technology I no longer need the printing press, the paper or anything else except the electronics to transfer these stories into your hands.

It's time, I figured, to complete the vision and launch the monthly adventures of Myke Phoenix, this time as a free emagazine. Of course, if you insist on paper there's also a purchase option.
Myke Phoenix #1 is available right this minute by clicking on the caption under the cover art above.

So here ya go.

Something dark and unreasonable is afoot, and all that stands against it is a mild-mannered reporter, a mythical bird and a misshapen vase. I like our odds.

Cross-posted to warrenbluhm.com

Great moments in cosmic dissonance

2012-01-11T19:01:00.000-06:00

I wish I had something clever to say about this clip, but it speaks for itself.

New Year's Rocking Attic Revisited

2011-12-28T04:00:00.002-06:00

I find this hard to believe, but it's been three years now since the last edition of the New Year's Rockin' Attic. In 2006, 2007 and 2008 I finished the "broadcast year" with the heavy metal "Auld Lang Syne" by Rockosaurus Rex and some other seasonal delights.

I've been poking around the Attic again and found those eventful podcasts tucked behind a strange looking vase that started talking to me about the Phoenix Islands. That's a tale for another day.

For now I offer this links/download opportunities with the whimsical thought that maybe I should start thinking about dusting off the microphone.

Uncle Warren's Attic #16: New Year's Rockin' Attic (Jan. 1, 2007)
Click here for the podcast

Uncle Warren's Attic #46: New Year's Rockin' Attic II (Dec. 30, 2007)
Click here for the podcast

Uncle Warren's Attic #56: New Year's Rockin' Attic III (Dec. 28, 2008)
Click here for the podcast

And then there's the closest thing to a lost episode of Uncle Warren's Attic - the seldom heard fourth New Year's Rockin' Attic! The reason it's seldom heard is that I wasn't satisfied with the results - and because it ends with a promise to return to regular podcasting - so I pulled it from circulation after just a couple of days. But now here it is - and it's not at all as bad as I remember.

Uncle Warren's Attic #59: New Year's Rockin' Attic IV (Dec. 29, 2009)
Click here for the podcast

Best covers of 2011

2011-12-27T06:55:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting site for people who enjoy varied interpretations of familiar tunes.

You can find a selection of the Best Cover Songs of 2011 and the Best Cover Albums of 2011, as well as full albums of covers.

Fun stuff.

Tis the season

2011-12-23T05:06:00.002-06:00

It's a most amazing and inspiring story, of overcoming hardship (no room at the inn) and government red tape (everyone return to their hometown to register? Really?) to bring a child into the world who from the first was a beacon of hope.

However you celebrate this time of year, or even if you don't, please accept this in the spirit of peace and joy it's intended:

Merry Christmas.

Cross posted to Inward and Indeed.

Best introduction of a character in TV history: Hoban "Wash" Washburne

2011-12-21T08:43:00.000-06:00

You never have a second chance to make a first impression. My first impression of Wash in Firefly is: I love this guy.

1. It's a Wonderful Life

2011-12-19T08:44:00.000-06:00

I did this one already, in the blog post that started me thinking about my favorite movies in 25 words or less:
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On the brink of suicide, a man is introduced to the reality that every individual has immeasurable value and a purpose.
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Bert! What do you know about that? Merry Christmas!

2. Serenity

2011-12-19T08:41:00.000-06:00

Nine disparate characters make a life and a family together against all odds. With Firefly, simply the best science fiction saga of our time.

3. The Wizard of Oz

2011-12-19T08:37:00.000-06:00

A children's story for all ages; unforgettable songs, iconic images and joyous performances. (Only needed 13 words that time!)
---

Anyone who knows me has heard me quote from this film numerous times, most likely "Shucks folks, I'm speechless."

When I finally saw this film on a big screen (was it for the 60th anniversary in 1999?), my biggest surprise was noticing at last that Scarecrow is packing heat in the Haunted Forest. One could argue this is proof he really does have a brain!

4. Casablanca

2011-12-19T08:25:00.000-06:00

Everyone needs to believe in something bigger than themselves - even if it means making painful choices. No film illustrates this truth better than this one.
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(I had the pleasure of seeing this movie in a crowded college lecture hall in the early 1970s, before films were readily available, so most of us had never seen it before. The audience reaction to the line following "Major Strasser has been shot" is the best moment I've ever had in a movie theater. Delirium.)

5. E.T. the Extraterrestrial

2011-12-18T07:54:00.000-06:00

The most glorious symphonic score ever composed for a film (Yay, John Williams!), accompanying a timeless odyssey that touches the heart.

6. To Kill a Mockingbird

2011-12-17T09:35:00.000-06:00

Perhaps the best child performances ever; a heroic father figure; riveting courtroom drama and the tragedy of justice unserved; compelling mystery; what's not to love?

7. A Christmas Story

2011-12-17T09:32:00.000-06:00

Jean Shepherd's greatest tales portrayed nearly perfectly, capturing a time and place that is both vintage and universal. A complete delight any time of year.

8. Field of Dreams

2011-12-17T09:28:00.000-06:00

The full range of emotions and a fantastic mystery, followed by one of the great payoffs: "Hey - Dad? You wanna have a catch?" 'Nuff said.

9. Up

2011-12-16T12:48:00.000-06:00

A sweet and heartbreaking opening love story, followed by a wondrous mix of fantastic adventure, growing friendships and occasional uncontrollable laughter. Simply a pure delight.

10. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2011-12-15T14:58:00.000-06:00

In keeping with my post the other day, here (slowly but surely) come my favorite 10 movies, with the "why" in 25 words or less.

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#10 - Raiders of the Lost Ark. A game-changing thrill ride - quests, daring feats, heroic acts, a feisty beautiful heroine (Karen Allen!), mystery and intrigue, and Nazis - I hate these guys.
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I find that, although these are remarkable bits of film-making, the list is more about my emotional or intellectual reaction to the movies, and mostly the former. Give me a thrill and a lump in the throat, and you're one of my favorite films.

So, Citizen Kane and Gone With the Wind and other admittedly great films don't make this list, but - well, you'll see.

Christmas Hymns and Carols

2011-12-14T09:47:00.001-06:00

Update: Here's an updated link to hear/download Uncle Warren's Attic #14.

My favorite all-time music of this season is from the Robert Shaw Chorale: Christmas Hymns and Carols, Volumes I and II. On the day after Thanksgiving, Mom would break out the 33 1/3 rpm Robert Shaw records, slap them (OK, place them gingerly) on the turntable and it was Christmastime: "Joy to the world! The Lord is come ..." (You can hear that moment recollected in UWA #14.)

Of course, the day I discovered eBay I started looking for the 78 rpm version of those albums, which were recorded in the post-war 1940s, a cappella with gorgeous vocal arrangements. Here's a threesome of how good it sounded ...

Greatest movie - 25 words or less

2011-12-13T07:22:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine started a Facebook thread talking about the worst big-budget movie of all time. He said The Patriot. I said Titanic. Others made their case for Pearl Harbor and Waterworld. Others chimed in with their own moments when they walked out of the movie theater feeling cheated out of two or three hours of their lives.

Along the way he brought up why he'd mentioned the subject:

For admission essays Columbia University is now asking prospective students to state in 25 words of less the greatest movie of all time. Naturally, I turned the question on end and wondered what's the worst.

It's fun to think about movies that failed to deliver, but I also like the original premise: An elevator speech about what you think is the greatest movie of all time, and why. You have just 25 words to state your case – depending on the size of your words, that's essentially a Tweet.

It's A Wonderful Life: On the brink of suicide, a man is introduced to the reality that every individual has immeasurable value and a purpose.

There's 21 words, and if you make me include the title I still kept it to 25. Hey! This is fun. I think I'll do this with my whole top 10.

How about you? What's the greatest movie of all time, and why? You have 25 words. Go! (For fans of films like Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the 25 words doesn't have to include the title.)

Free album: Wanting to Live Forever (1986)

2011-12-08T07:20:00.001-06:00

On the morning of Jan. 27, 1986, I woke up with a powerful urge to create something, so I picked up the 12-string and started strumming chords. D - G -D - G - D - G ...

I liked the sound but I couldn't think of a new way to make a transition to a third chord - and then the words started coming out.

I sat down this cold morning to write myself a folk song;
I sat down this cold morning to right the world's eternal wrongs.

I wrote about getting "stuck on these two chords and a phrase," and the seeming inevitable doubts about why anyone would bother listening to advice from me, "a man of many failures and a man of many broken dreams."

Finally the message crashed through the white noise:

It's the failures of this world that you turn around and build to make success;
It's the broken dreams that force you to be more when you could settle for less;
It's the wanting to live forever that leads you to a goal that cannot die;
It's the wanting to see the stars that gives a simple soul the will to fly.

And there was my folk song, and the words about "wanting to see the stars" gained additional poignancy when, the next day, the Challenger explosion rocked us.

"Wanting to Live Forever" became the cornerstone of my 12th homemade album, which I offer here for your perusal. The project finds me waist-deep in my ballad era – it took only eight songs to fill a 45-minute cassette. One of my friends' favorite songs on Watershed had been "Sweet Sarah Wilde," about a childhood friend who marries another man and raises "three lovely children," and I began thinking about those three kids and came up with three more songs. "Suite: Sarah and Her Children" comprised Side 1. The second side leads with "Wanting to Live Forever" and continues with three more stories.

It turned out rather nicely, if I say so myself.

Click on the album art or here to download a .zip file of the whole album, or check out the individual songs below.

Side 1 - Suite: Sarah and Her Children
1. Sweet Sarah Wilde (5:10)
2. Peter's Journey (5:07)
3. Abigail Angel (6:10)
4. Daniel Shorting (4:29)

Side 2
5. Wanting to Live Forever (5:09)
6. Years of Our Lives (7:06)
7. Outside Lefty's (4:28)
8. No Guarantees (5:23)

Best and worst lines ever, in one song

2011-12-06T14:11:00.001-06:00

I liked Neil Diamond before he was Neil Diamond. I was a big fan from his very first single, "Solitary Man," on Bang Records in 1966. Always thought he got a little full of himself when he moved to Uni Records and especially after he landed at Columbia. Instead of nifty little pop-rock songs like "Cherry Cherry" and "I'm A Believer," he started writing bombastic epics. Some of them worked out, some of them didn't, and once he managed both in the same song.

It's "I Am I Said," which has some of his best lyrics and the very worst ever, within seconds of each other.

Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of being a king and then became one?
Well, except for the names and a few other changes, if you talk about me, the story's the same one.
But I've got an emptiness deep inside, and I've tried but it won't let me go,
And I'm not a man who likes to swear, but I've never cared for the sound of being alone.

Now, that's pretty good writing, evocative and lyrical. The problem is, those words are sandwiched between the weirdest image of all time.

I am, I said, to no one there,
And no one heard at all, not even the chair.

What? The chair?

Really?

Has a chair ever heard anything? Where are the ears on a chair, anyway?

Diamond wrote that song in 1971, and 40 years later, I still don't get it. Of all the words that rhyme with there, why chair? There must be a better line that ends with bear, bare, care, dare, fair, fare, glare, hair, hare, lair, mare, ne'er, pair, pare, rare, stare, scare, swear, tear, tare, wear ... understand?

Not even the chair?

Why? What does that mean?

Has there ever been a line in an otherwise serious song that made less sense?

Free album: Purring Like A Lamb (1975)

2011-11-30T07:38:00.002-06:00

Today's free album finds a twentysomething w.p. bluhm working his first day job in Waupaca, Wis., and spending weekends playing in the radio station's recording studio, tracking back and forth between the two big monoraul reel-to-reel machines.

It was also my first experience outside the realm of nylon six-strong guitar plucking, as the newly earned money in my pocket allowed me to buy the 12-string guitar that I still favor today. These tunes were my first experiments with the new, fuller sounding instrument.

I redid three songs from my college years – the love song "Emerald," the faux English ballad "Hi Horse Tweedledum Ladies," and "Priscilla," which began life as one of the segments in my legendary 15-minute opus "Artichoke Pie," which will see the light of day again one of these days. I lead off with "Lonely People," which was popular on the radio at the time. The other seven songs were composed that summer.

"Syd They Never Knew You" is a tribute to the Madcap Mr. Barrett and draws its inspiration from the immortal "Effervescing Elephant." The epic-length "Mandreams" has at least two unique features - a saga about lost innocence, the melody of the first lines echoes the "nyah-na-na-na-na-na" singsong that kids have taunted friends with since the beginning of time; and in the Big Finish, lacking either the chops to do a soaring guitar solo or a library of psychedelic sounds and effects, I picked up the phone and dialed my apartment, knowing the phone would just keep ringing in those days before answering machines or voicemail. As a result the song preserves the sound of a Waupaca telephone call in the summer of 1975.

Without further ado, here is my first homemade album after graduating from college into the real world ... click the cover art or this link to download Purring Like A Lamb.

Side One
1. Lonely People (2:42)
2. Emerald (3:20)
3. Priscilla (3:33)
4. Syd They Never Knew You (2:34)
5. Hard to Get Used To (2:35)
6. As I Get To Know You (2:36)
7. Ballad of Me and Him and She and Her (3:14)

Side Two
8. Maybe You Could Spend the Night (4:26)
9. Hi Horse Tweedledum Ladies (4:33)
10. Letting Go (2:45)
11. Mandreams (8:45)

Free album: 'Watershed' by w.p. bluhm (1985)

2011-11-23T15:31:00.005-06:00

The fall of 1984 through early 1986 was the most prolific period of my life as an amateur songwriter so far. In the summer of '85, enamored of Springsteen's Nebraska, I recorded Watershed with just my voice on solo guitar. The results were so-so. After recording a multitracked album, Folks Songs, that December, I had second thoughts about the Springsteenesque approach and, in a blaze of work Dec. 21-22, 1985, I recorded this "official," multitracked version of Watershed.

To me, these 14 songs fit together as well as any group of songs I've ever assembled among the 20 albums I've inflicted on friends and family. I handed out C-45 cassette copies to anyone willing to listen.
By the way, there was only room for 13 songs on the 45-minute tape, which is why "Anybody Here" is unfinished here; part of my original vision for the project, it was the song I decided was expendable.

Why the name Watershed? I learned the word refers to the point where water finds its direction. Turn one way, and the water flows into a great river; another, and it meanders into a completely different body. Every moment is a time of watershed, some perhaps more so than others. These songs came to me as such a time.

I thought it might be fun to put those 20 albums out there for the world to hear, and this is one I thought turned out pretty well, so it's the first one I offer you. Click here or on the cover art to download. Thanks for giving it a listen, and let me know what you think.

Side 1
1. Christine (3:27)
2. Sweet Sarah Wilde (5:08)
3. My Baby's Gone (Two Women) (4:20)
4. You Can Tighten My Belt (3:19)
5. Love Can Be (1:45)
6. Anybody Here ("bonus track") (2:39)
7. Almost Every Love Goes Bad (2:43)

Side 2
8. Seems Like Old Times (2:27)
9. Blood Friends (4:23)
10. Sha-la-la-la-la-la (1:51)
11. Margie and Weasel (2:39)
12. Mama Come Out (2:34)
13. Teach Me to Lean O'er Again (4:53)
14. Just Today (2:43)

If you want to sing out, sing out

2011-11-23T07:54:00.000-06:00

I got nothing to add to these sentiments.

Nostalgia for the revolution, and the new revolution

2011-11-16T18:24:00.002-06:00

Scott Alexander posted this video on Facebook on Wednesday with the comment, "Why does this song still sound great after 47 years? I never get tired of it!"

It's true. This song exploded out of the radio lo, these 46 years ago. My response to his question was, "Like the Beatles' stuff, it sounded like nothing we ever heard before. It was just the Beatles Invasion before this song; after that it was called the British Invasion."

To you youngsters (I can't believe I just said that) who weren't alive yet, it's hard to describe what rock 'n' roll radio was like in 1965. Every few days, it seemed, we heard something completely new and different. The atmosphere was electric.

It's easy for us older folks to pine for those times, but I suspect in some ways that these are the good old days. The walls that musicians like the Beatles and Stones had to clear before their work could be heard by a large audience have crumbled. The equivalent innovators of 2011 need only post their tunes for download. They have to work as hard as ever to find that audience, if not harder.

There are no more gatekeepers – you don't have to convince a disk jockey or program director to play your tunes, and you don't have to convince a producer or record company to release your music in the first place. The job that used to be done by the gatekeepers is now in the hands of each individual music lover, so the chances of finding millions of fans around the world are reduced. But the chance of finding one fan around the world, and then another, are infinitely increased.

Shrinking the aural stash

2011-11-02T12:26:00.002-05:00

I've been putting some of my vinyl collection up on eBay, motivated by a couple of things - mostly that sometime in the next year we'll be moving a second time (sold the old house, planning to build new, and currently living in an interim place) and moving 30 boxes of LPs was not fun. But it's also to pay down my personal debt a bit - no album sounds as beautiful as the sound of "Goodbye, MasterCard!"

This week I'm parting with my more recent Bruce Springsteen albums, and I'm using this blog to direct your attention there - and sharing some of the product descriptions, because I had a little fun writing 'em ...

Such as the Bruce Springsteen in Concert (Plugged) import album ...

Made in England. Sticker identifies it as "Limited Edition 1993 European Tour Double Album," and the itinerary is printed on the back cover, from Glasgow, Scotland on March 31 through June 1 in Oslo, Norway. The actual recordings are from the MTV "Unplugged" appearance with the "Un" crossed out, because, as we all know, he came out and performed one new acoustic song and then plugged in for a set with his tour band of the time.

The group includes E-Streeters Roy Bittan and Patti Scialfa along with Zack Alford (drums), Shane Fontayne (guitar), Tommy Sims (bass), Crystal Taliefero (guitar) and several other singers. Highlights include a stripped-down version of "Thunder Road" and a blistering eight-minute version of "Light of Day."

Or the Live in New York triple set ...

This three-record set captures the music featured in an HBO concert and DVD release from the last two nights of the Springsteen & E Street Band Reunion Tour that began in 1999, on vinyl, the format on which all great music deserves to be heard.

There is nothing like a concert by this band, and this album does probably the best job of catching that experience in a recording.

Or Human Touch and Lucky Town ...

In the dark days of the early 1990s, when vinyl all but disappeared from music store shelves full of cassettes and CDs, I had to special-order this album to keep my collection of Bruce Springsteen LPs complete. Thanks to the Internet it's not THAT hard to find anymore, but this one still doesn't grow on vinyl trees. I'm not sure if it's still in print, but I can tell you this was purchased in 1992 so it's an authentic early copy.

The Boss released two albums simultaneously, the first representing years of meticulous and painstaking work in the studio and the other representing the two-week burst of creativity that followed the completion of the first. Of course the latter album was better, but the carefully crafted one (this one) is pretty darn great, too.

Now, you may suspect I'm blogging about this to get you to head over to eBay and bid early and often. Who, me?

Woo-hoo

2011-07-29T06:56:00.001-05:00

Like Major Bowes' Amateur Hour and Star Search before it, American Idol appeals to the idea that there's a lot of talent out there just waiting for the opportunity, and every year some people seize the opportunity more than others.

I had never heard "Black Horse and a Cherry Tree" before Katharine McPhee sang it in a memorable Season 5 finale against Taylor Hicks – you know, the year Chris Daughtry really won. I had been rooting for Hicks all along and believed he was a shoo-in with Daughtry out, but this performance by Ms. McPhee rattled my smug cage.

I heard the "real" version in a store the other day and thought, "Hey, that's the Katharine McPhee song." Still one of the show's most memorable moments.

Artie Shaw's pocket symphony

2011-07-21T07:39:00.001-05:00

Brian Wilson has famously used the phrase "pocket symphony" to describe the Beach Boys classic recording "Good Vibrations." If what he means is that a lot of interesting themes are colliding in the space of three minutes as opposed to the more luxurious time span of a symphony, then here's a pocket symphony that was a big hit in 1940: "Frenesi" by Artie Shaw and his orchestra.

One of the premier band leaders and jazz clarinetists of the swing era, Shaw packed a little ballroom dancing, some classical elements and international flair and of course big band jazz into three perfect and infectious minutes. Like "Good Vibrations," when you dissect the song in your mind it's hard to believe so many music delights can occur in such a short time span. Shaw was an innovative musician and this, to me, is his masterpiece.

Made for these times

2011-07-19T06:38:00.000-05:00

"I keep looking for a place to fit where I can speak my mind..."

The mark of a great artist is that she puts words or images to a thought or feeling that is inside many people but hasn't been expressed in a way that most of us will understand. Brian Wilson is a great artist.

In the song "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times," Wilson puts words and music to the awkward feeling that each and every one of us feels when we recognize there is no one else in the world quite like "me."

"I've been trying hard to find the people That I won't leave behind ..."

The search for friendship, the search for meaning, the search for "fitting in." Ultimately we won't find complete fulfillment from other people. John Maxwell writes about being in the audience when someone asked his wife if "John makes you happy" and getting surprised when she responded, "No." Then she explained that true happiness is something you find inside yourself and not the responsibility of other people - and he realized she was right.

"They say I got brains, but they ain't doing me no good; I wish they would ..."

As a result of that realization, Wilson sings, "Sometimes I feel very sad," and he gets frustrated when his hopes and expectations don't quite come true ...

"Each time things start to happen again, I think I got something good goin' for myself, but what goes wrong ..."

The sadness makes Wilson wonder if "I guess I just wasn't made for these times," but in giving voice to the sadness, he touches something in every heart, the sense of uniqueness that is both the joy and curse of our existence. He sings about the loneliness of being unlike any other living soul on Earth.

"Every time I get the inspiration to go change things around, no one wants to help me look for places where new things might be found - Where can I turn when my fair weather friends cop out? What's it all about?"

But there is also the joy in realization - If Brian Wilson can give voice to my loneliness, I'm not alone.

And if each of us is a unique being, how precious that is: How important it is that we treat each other with the respect and care that something precious and unique deserves.

None of us will ever quite fit in precisely, because we were designed to be different. That can make us sad and lonely, but it can also give us strength and inspiration, voiced in such motivational clichés as "If it's going to be, it's up to me."

Looking for a place to fit where you can speak your mind? So is everyone else - so gain power from that fact and speak your mind anyway.

Do the thing you fear, and you will find, like Brian Wilson did, that you have something to say that people need to hear.

Sing Sing Sing/Christopher Columbus

2011-07-18T07:16:00.000-05:00

Long before Iron Butterfly, there was Gene Krupa. Long before "McArthur Park" and "Hey Jude," there was this nine-minute top 40 hit. Oh, you had to flip the record halfway through to hear the whole thing, but there it was.

And the live version from Carnegie Hall, from the live album that is still in print decades later, is still one of the greatest performances ever recorded in person.

This is the original record from the mid 1930s, still packing all the punch it had from the start. I can imagine folks hearing it for the first time and wondering "What is THAT?!" And buying it and playing it over and over again, like my dad when he was a teenager, and his son who wore it out the rest of the way ...

Still crazee for Slade after all theeze yeerz

2011-07-15T00:01:00.001-05:00

I have always loved sharing music, and time has been kind to many of the obscure artists I foisted on friends many years ago. I remember telling people they had to listen to this album by Judee Sill, John Kongos, Linda Perhacs, Emmitt Rhodes, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Tufano & Giammarese. In many cases it took years, but my faith in those artists was rewarded, often with a remastered re-release replete with essays about overlooked genius and the like.

But I'm still waiting on Slade. Oh, Slade is a legendary band in most of the world, but in the U.S. of A. they're kind of an afterthought. They're the band that made the original version of Quiet Riot's big hit "Cum On Feel the Noize" and had a couple minor hits in the 1980s - "Run Run Away" and that other one ...

I remember listening to Slade in my college radio station and reading about how they had seven or eight No. 1 songs in a row in their home country of Britain. I remember telling my friends they really should check these guys out, because they're the next big British invasion. Every song they performed had so much energy it would be another band's big concert finale: "Mama Weer All Crazee Now," "Gudbuy T'Jane," "Coz I Love You," "Skweeze Me Pleeze Me" and, of course, "Cum On Feel the Noize." Which, I guess, is what Quiet Riot finally figured out.

But they never really caught on in America the way I figured they would. Don't know why. I remember playing Slade's version of "Noize" for the teenager in my life at the time, and she said it's OK but not as good as the note-for-note copy that was Quiet Riot's rendition. It drove me, um, crazee. I listen to their album "Sladest," the greatest-hits collection, and wonder how none of those songs sparked America's imagination. I listen to "How Does It Feel," one of the loveliest and most melodic rock anthems ever recorded, and am frustrated not to hear it mentioned in the same breath as many less worthy songs.

It's fun to have a little band that only you appreciate suddenly find its way to mainstream acceptance. That's never really happened with Slade, and that amazes me. This is one incredibly great band.

In the cool of the evening light

2011-07-14T00:01:00.003-05:00

When the temperatures start to rise every year, and the girls start wearing their summer clothes again, the world just seems a more pleasant place, even though I've reached the age where they just pass me by. The best song Bruce Springsteen has released in the last 20 years.

Did you ever take a ride take a ride on a roller coaster ...

2011-07-13T00:01:00.004-05:00

Four years before the Ides of March had their one big hit, "Vehicle" (you know, "I'm your vehicle, baby, I'll take you anywhere you wanna go ..."), the Chicago-area band put out a little single called "Roller Coaster" on Parrot Records.

I thought it was great, bought the record new in 1966 and have played it over and over over the years. Alas, the world was not ready for the Ides of March, and I had to wait four more years to see them on the charts.

By then, my first reaction to "Vehicle" was, "The Ides of March? Can't be the same band, can it?" The horns, nowhere to be heard on "Roller Coaster," and the clearly different vocal style made me suspicious. But there was the name "Peterik" on the label - writer Jim Peterik to be precise. Yep, same band.

The record (pun intended) will show that "Vehicle" was a much more commercially successful song than "Roller Coaster." But me, I like this one better. A girl in love is the greatest thrill the world has ever known ...

Our troubles were torn in half

2011-07-12T05:42:00.000-05:00

Aunt Fritzi salutes The Coasters.

"Play Those Oldies Mr. Dee Jay"

2011-07-12T00:01:00.004-05:00

<br>,

The odd thing about "Play Those Oldies Mr. Dee Jay" is that the songs it salutes weren't especially old when Anthony and the Sophomores released it. I am almost certain I owned this record before The Beatles invaded America, which makes it an early-1960s tune. The person who posted this YouTube video suggests it came out in 1963.

I purchased my copy in a cutout bin, on Mercury Records, probably for a dime. I had never heard the song on the radio, I think I confused the band with Little Anthony and the Imperials, and when I played it at home I asked myself, "Why wasn't this song a hit?" It reminds me very much of the Barry Mann tune, "Mister Bass Man," and perhaps it was written and released to grab a little of the reflected glory of that big hit.

It's almost 50 years since this song came out and failed to chart, and I remain convinced that "Play Those Oldies Mr. Dee Jay" deserved (and deserves) to be recognized. It's pretty much the perfect Doo Wop music anthem. And that note Anthony belts out on "Til Theeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnn" – Whew!

Yellow Balloon weather

2011-07-10T12:10:00.000-05:00

Hot, sunny days like we've had this weekend inevitably bring my mind back to the summer of 1967, when Dad and Mom took us to Disneyland for the second time. (Unlike six years earlier, when Dad drove the whole way from New Jersey to Anaheim, Calif., including a wretched journey across the Mojave Desert, this time we stopped in Salt Lake City and flew the rest of the way.)

Somewhere in the middle of Nebraska (I want to say Kearney), we started hearing a wonderful little tune on the radio - "Yellow Balloon" by The Yellow Balloon. These 41 years later, it still give me an inner smile. I learned years later that The Yellow Balloon was formed by Don Grady, who played one of My Three Sons on television. It's an interesting factoid, but the main reason I like "Yellow Balloon" is because it sounds so much like the sixties.

I was deep into the Top 40 charts at the time, and I'd listen with pencil and paper poised for the weekly countdowns on WABC and WMCA in New York. When we returned to the East, I told my friends to listen for a song called "Yellow Balloon," because it was going to be a huge summer hit. But it never migrated to New York radio. Wait, maybe it was a "Long Shot" on WMCA, but the rest of the dour East Coast did not delight in the song the way I did.

Maybe that's another reason I moved to the Midwest when I turned 18 and never looked back.

The Haley Reinhart Album

2011-05-26T07:58:00.002-05:00

OK, congratulations to Scotty McCreery, winner of this year’s American Idol competition, and Lauren Alaina, the sweet young thing who finished in second place. I come to sing the praises of the third-place finisher, a bright jazz-blues-rock singer from Wheeling, Ill., who has the power to make this middle-aged music aficionado download the studio versions of all of her performances at $1.29 a pop.

Haley Reinhart took her time figuring out what she wanted to do with her gifts, with near-disastrous results – she landed in the at-risk Bottom Three no less than four times. But beginning with a memorably sultry performance of (of all things) Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” Reinhart emerged as the most talented and creative of this year’s crop of would-be Idols.

And the professionals took notice. Producer Jimmy Iovine arranged for Reinhart to cover a then-unreleased tune from Lady Gaga’s new album – sure, it was a shameless promotional gimmick for Gaga, but Reinhart is the one who was offered the gig and (despite the disparaging remarks of the Idol judges) she knocked it out of the park. Then the members of Led Zeppelin gave her the right to do one of their songs – after 10 years of telling Idol “no way.” The result, “What Is and What Should Never Be,” was the single best performance by any contestant this season.

There are 13 Reinhart solo tracks available at iTunes. Putting on my record producer’s hat, this is how I arranged them and have been enjoying during the commute:

1. “Yoü and I” - the aforementioned Lady Gaga cut is an infectious power ballad that builds to a crescendo built on the chord structure to the “Hey Jude” coda. Betcha can’t listen to it just once. The judge’s criticism of her song choice was inexplicable, although it had the side benefit of focusing Reinhart’s energy to come back with the searing version of Song #4 later in that show. “Yoü and I” serves as an energetic opening tune for the album. (Video below)

2. “Rolling in the Deep” - In an episode called “21st Century Songs,” Haley went for with the current #1 song in the country. Smart thinking - and an effective and catchy rendition.

3. “What Is And What Should Never Be” - The song begins with a jazzy bluesy vibe and ends with an psychotic hard rock explosion, and Reinhart negotiates those genres seamlessly. The studio track has the added benefit of no awkward pause in the vocals where she tripped on the stage during the live performance - although it also lacks the marvelous guitar licks that her dad, Harry Reinhart, added live. A track that demands to be played very loud.

4. “House of the Rising Sun” - The song requires raw power and aching vulnerability; in other words, it’s right in the middle of Haley Reinhart’s wheelhouse, and she delivers bigtime. After the unexpected and unjustified criticism of her first song that night, she blistered this one in what (until the Led Zep track) was the most memorable moment of the year.

5. “Call Me” - a competently delivered cover of the energetic Blondie anthem. Hey, after the power of the last two songs we need a party tune.

6. “Piece of My Heart” - In the early rounds where she was still searching for her identity, the judges heard her growl and said she could be the next Janis Joplin. Although this proved there was only one Joplin, it also proved Reinhart might be the next best thing. It’s a good performance that suffers only in comparison with the original. The “We Will Rock You” style drum set adds a dimension.

7. “Bennie and the Jets” - the turning point that turned her star power on. Reinhart weaves slinky jazz vocal elements around the clunky Elton John classic and turns it into something smooth and sexy. How did she find that in this song?! “B-B-B-Bennie and the Jetsssss,” indeed.

8. “Beautiful” - This Carole King gem has always been one of my favorites from “Tapestry,” and Reinhart does it justice. “You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in your heart.” Yep!

9. “I (Who Have Nothing)” - Raw power, aching vulnerability - did I mention Reinhart’s wheelhouse?

10. “Blue” - On country week Haley unleashed her yodel and turned this LeeAnn Rimes nugget into something memorable.

11. “You Really Got a Hold On Me” - Motown week brought this rollicking cover of the Smokey Robinson classic.

12. “Earth Song” - The judges criticized her for picking this Michael Jackson tune as the “song that inspired her,” but in its context as part of this Haley Reinhart album, this fits right in as the dramatic penultimate song.

13. “I’m Your Baby Tonight” - And to conclude our 43-minute jaunt, a Whitney Houston hit. Judges over the years have warned these young singers not to attempt songs by the really really big stars, lest they be overshadowed by the memory of the original. There was no such criticism here. And this rendition ends with a quick little jazzy "I'm your baby, baby beee tonight ..." Perfect way to end the set.

And there you have it, folks, a really nice album by one of the best vocalists American Idol has ever unearthed. The folks behind the show told her to try being Janis Joplin, Stevie Nicks or Alanis Morrisette - their suggestions showed they didn’t really know who she could be. The ease with which she melded with Tony Bennett on “Steppin’ Out With My Baby” in the final show of the season, and her duet with Casey Abrams on Art Blakey’s “Moanin’,” gave the strongest hint of the heights of Haley Reinhart’s talent. More, please!

Brushing away the cobwebs ...

2011-05-24T19:51:00.000-05:00

No, really.

What is happening here is being caused by a force that, up until a few days ago, was entirely beyond the scope of man's imagination.

Crickets chirp when they're feeling, um, creative

2011-03-27T08:48:00.000-05:00

The lack of entries in this blog, and the lack of new podcasts since Christmas, should not be construed as the end of anything.

Astute followers of the Attic have no doubt noticed the recent uptick of activity at WarrenBluhm.com, where I am offering words of encouragement and reflection. This site is my place for aural delights, of which there ought to be more in the foreseeable future.

Just checking in to say "hey" and apologize for what may sound like crickets chirping. Well, note the subject line ...

Putzing around the Attic

2011-01-12T07:23:00.001-06:00

Uncle Warren's Attic is a continual work in progress. I'm fiddling with some ideas on where to take the podcast next, and meanwhile I've decided to revert to the original purpose of this site, which was and is to supplement the podcast and talk about music and the other eclectic stuff that makes it onto the podcast.

Meanwhile, I've been posting my more philosophical or political thoughts over at a place I'm pretentiously calling WarrenBluhm.com. Check it out if you'd like a piece of my mind, or to share a piece of yours in the proverbial comment section.

UWA will be back soon!

Opening the book on a new year

2011-01-01T16:23:00.000-06:00

Lyrics to a little ditty I wrote back in the day ...

Live Till You Die

Nobody said that it would be easy,
Everyone said it could not be done,
But nobody said it would not be worth it,
So go for it now — you've only just begun.

There's no shame in failing before the end comes.
While there's life, there is hope, there's a seed.
It's better to try, give it all that you have,
Than attempt to do nothing and succeed.

There's just too many people out there
Not caring if they live or die
There's just so much to find out there —
You can't laugh if you're afraid to cry.

So this is my plea: Live till you die.
There's no reason you should give up now.
Tomorrow's a blank page to write what you wish —
The rising sun will show you how.

Cross posted to WarrenBluhm.com

Uncle Warren's Attic 106: Ten Thousand Days

2010-12-26T13:46:00.005-06:00

Here's the whole album and a soft sell. If you like a song or two, or the whole thing, you can buy it to download at www.wpbluhm.com. Merry Christmas! Click or right-click on the pod icon or right here to download/listen.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T10:59:00.002-06:00

Uncle Warren's Attic 105: Merry Christmas 2010

2010-12-21T17:24:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas and God bless us, every one! Listen/download this festive episode by clicking on the pod icon or right here.

Links to stuff that you'll find while listening ...
"Hooray for Santa Claus" from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
"The Lord's Bright Blessing" from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
"Chiron Beta Prime" by Jonathan Coulton
"Stuck in the Smoke Hole of our Tipi" by Grandfather Old Hands
"Allons, gay, gay Bergeres" and "Joy to the World" by Robert Shaw Chorale
Scrooge by Jim Dale
"O Come All Ye Faithful" by Pomplamoose and Wade Johnston

Last but not least, I promised the video to "Stuck in the Smoke Hole of our Tipi" - see below.

Have a great Christmas - keep subscribing and see you in a few days!

Uncle Warren's Attic 104: Cat Man/All That's Left You

2010-11-30T06:45:00.000-06:00

More from Refuse to be Afraid, two more songs from Ten Thousand Days, and a small handful of other aural delights await if you'll click on the "pod" icon or click here.

This week's chapter is "What this book is, and is not."

This book does not contain a system, merely an exhortation.
I believe that every human being is an individual, and it is dangerous to group individuals into a collective or make generalizations based on apparent similarities between individuals.
We are snowflakes, not assembly-line products. No two snowflakes are alike, they say, and assembly lines were invented in order to churn out items that are identical in every possible way. Keep in mind, though, that even two products that come off an assembly line are not exactly alike.
What works for me in overcoming fear may not work for you.

To buy a hard copy or download the book, click here.

And two songs from Ten Thousand Days this week, in part because "Cat Man" is a mere 61 seconds long. "All That's Left You (The Judy Garland Song)" also included. If you like that tune or think it's time to buy this whole groundbreaking album, click here.

Other goodies this Tuesday morning:
"Sufficiently Breathless" - Captain Beyond
"Just Always" - Glass Harp
"Penitentiary Blues" - Charlie Monroe
And vintage ads for Mountain Dew and K-TEL! Also, Sha Na Na exhorts listeners to not do drugs. All told, it's another lovely and entertaining podcast. Here's another chance to hear/download it: Click here.

UW Attic 103: I Picked You

2010-11-23T06:13:00.001-06:00

Another tune from my homemade album Ten Thousand Days, another chapter from my book Refuse to be Afraid, and contributions from Bob Gibson and Hamilton Camp, John Sebastian, Nancy Sinatra and Rocky Votolato.

Click on the Pod icon or this link here to download and/or hear the show!

The lineup:
Theme: Not to Return - Randy Bachman
I Picked You - w.p. bluhm
(Vintage Shaeffer Pens commercial)
Well, Well, Well - Bob Gibson and Hamilton Camp
Well, Well, Well - John Sebastian
(Nancy Sinatra for Coca-Cola)
Refuse to be Afraid: "It Starts When You're Always Afraid"
White Daisy Passing - Rocky Votolato

UW Attic 102: A Little Thing We Used to Call Freedom

2010-11-16T01:27:00.000-06:00

A little tune that could have been ripped from today's headlines is the second song in my album Ten Thousand Days. "There's just this little thing we used to call trust ... you can't treat everyone as if they're a crook ... It seems every day we're told to give a little bit more, and liberty's the biggest thing that they took ..."

Buy Ten Thousand Days or "A Little Thing We Used to Call Freedom" here ... and you can find the book Refuse to be Afraid here.

For the free podcast, click on the "Pod" icon or right here for Uncle Warren's Attic #102.

Featured in this show:
Theme - "Not to Return" - Randy Bachman
"A Little Thing We Used to Call Freedom" - w.p. bluhm
(Vintage McDonald's ad)
"Are My Ears On Straight" - Gayla Peevey
Mystery tune - "Sometimes (When I'm Alone)"
(Vintage Pepsi ad)
"The Cliff" and "The Symptoms" from Refuse to be Afraid
"Shenandoah" - Jennifer Avalon

UW Attic 101: Back Where I Belong

2010-11-09T07:54:00.001-06:00

Introducing "Back Where I Belong" from my new music project Ten Thousand Days and beginning a reading of my book Refuse to be Afraid. This begins a 10-week (ish) series that will feature a song from the album and an excerpt of the book. You can collect all 10 podcasts to get the picture slowly but surely, or you can go to my bookstore or CD Baby or iTunes to buy and/or download the book and album in their entirety today.

Here's your handy guide to today's episode:
Intro/Not to Return - Randy Bachman
Back Where I Belong - w.p. bluhm
(Robert Palmer concert ad)
Buy For Me The Rain - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Cheese Curds, Booyah and Beer - Fred Alley
(Roy Orbison for Coca-Cola)
Refuse to be Afraid - Introduction - Warren Bluhm
The Banana Boat Song - The Tarriers

Click on the Pod icon or here to listen/download UW Attic 101 - Here are your links to the album and the book. Have fun!!!

Ten Thousand Days preview: You Can't Be Trusted

2010-11-01T20:56:00.001-05:00

Hi folks! Happy Election Day. Here's a tune for the day from my upcoming album Ten Thousand Days, releasing Nov. 9. Also watch for Uncle Warren's Attic #101. Click on the pod icon or right here to listen!

A conversation about fear, friendship and fun - oh, and the book too

2010-10-24T15:38:00.000-05:00

Wally Conger and I chat about Refuse to be Afraid and ... well, I'll let Wally explain here.

Oh, and during the conversation, I mention putting up a way to e-mail me. There!

'Mr. Worf, Fire!' and other great cliffhangers

2010-10-01T05:58:00.000-05:00

A recent discussion of The Amazing Spider-Man #33 got me thinking about great cliffhangers.

Wally Conger reminded his readers that this month is the 45th anniversary of the great three-part webslinger story about a mysterious villain named the Master Planner and his gang trying to take over New York.

Issue #32 ended with the Master Planner being revealed as none other than Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis Doctor Octopus, who during the inevitable slugfest drops an enormous piece of machinery on the webbed one’s back, pinning him to the floor helpless.

Oh, did I mention the room under the Hudson River is about to collapse? He’ll probably drown when it does.

Oh, did I mention Aunt May is dying and the serum that could save her life is on the floor just out of Spider-Man’s reach, losing its potency minute by minute?

Wally wrote about how the opening pages of the next issue are probably the most inspirational moments in comic-book history, and they are. Spidey has no choice but to dig deep and find the strength to push the weight off his shoulders, save himself and rescue Aunt May, and he - just - keeps pushing - until - he - DOES IT!

I still get goosebumps.

But step back a month. One reason the opening pages of Issue #33 work so well is that creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko did such a masterful job of building the suspense, and then cut the story off at the end of #32 just as we readers were the most involved.

They had spent nearly three years making us care about the characters, and most of two issues putting first Aunt May, then Spider-Man and of course the city of New York in jeopardy. I couldn’t wait to grab #33 off the newsstand and see how it ended — and the payoff was simply awesome.
I’m sure there are more, but I could only think of two other cliffhangers that made me sweat that much.

“Mr. Worf, fire!” The third-season finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation was one of that series’ finest moments. A new character arrives — ambitious Commander Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy) who wants Will Riker’s job, the Enterprise’s first officer having been offered a captainship of his own. But Riker’s not sure he wants to leave the side of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard just yet.

Then Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg, the half-human, half-machine collective that cannot (as far as anyone knows) be stopped. With his half-mechanized captain staring at him through the view screen and demanding his surrender. Instead, having modified the Enterprise’s technology to create a powerful makeshift weapon, Riker orders the crew to fire on the Borg and his beloved captain.

The screen fades to the words “To Be Continued.” Are you kidding me! I can’t recall ever looking forward to a television season premiere as much as I did for “Best of Both Worlds, Part II.”

“Frodo was alive but taken by the Enemy.” At the end of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers, Samwise Gamgee discovers that his friend Frodo Baggins was not actually killed by the giant spider Shelob but is indeed a captive of the evil orcs.

The book, second in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was published in November 1954, and 11 months would pass before publication of the third installment, Return of the King.

I had the luxury, as a geeky teenager about 15 years later, of shrieking in panic at 2 a.m. and grabbing immediately for the third book. I can’t fathom what the wait until October 1955 was like for the original Tolkien fanatics.

What these legendary cliffhangers had in common was the care that the writers took to invest us in the characters. By the time they reached the edge of the cliff, we loved Spider-Man and Aunt May; we loved Riker and Picard; and we loved Frodo and Sam. We wanted them to overcome, and we cared about how they would do so.

And in these three examples, the payoff also is memorable. Many’s the cliffhanger that promises a terrific escape and conclusion but falls short. What makes these stories legendary is the delightfully excruciating buildup, the promise of something terrific and, in the final chapter, a climax even more terrific than we expected.

Deliver even more than you promise — always a good policy in any business, and especially so in good writing.

Refuse to be Afraid: The Book

2010-09-29T05:19:00.001-05:00

We all live with fear, ranging from little anxieties to sheer, stark-raving-mad, paralyzing terror, and everything in between. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of getting started, fear of being stopped before we’re finished, fear of what to do next after we’re finished. Fear of hate, fear of love, fear of hating, fear of being loved. Fear of sickness, fear of health, fear of other people’s habits, fear of our own.

Fear of death.

Life is scary. But you don’t have to let your fears control your actions.

As I've been blogging these themes have come up time and again, and I've long been tinkering with compiling them into a book. The book is here. Thanks for your encouragement.

Veterans in Upper Michigan fight for the right to smoke

2010-08-25T07:20:00.000-05:00

Frankly, I see this as a healthy sign for liberty.

Now Foucault-Funke Post 444, where the ashtrays never came off the tables and smokers line the bar each afternoon and evening, is at the center of what could be a decisive showdown for the new state law and — as the vets see it — for the individual liberty and self-government they fought to defend ...

The new state smoking ban, Shepard said, is just one more encroachment on personal freedom, a decision handed down by out-of-touch politicians 500 miles away. She likens it to restrictions on gun rights and creeping government intrusion generally.

"We're not a communist country yet, but we're only one step away from it," she said.

The leaders of the Baraga post said they didn't go looking for a confrontation with the state or local health authorities. But when the new law was signed, they decided it was time to take a stand.

Out-give the government

2010-08-24T05:13:00.000-05:00

Dave Ramsey has a revolutionary idea in the podcast of his Aug. 19 show, as he talked about the power of giving:

We gripe in this country a lot about the taxes and the government taking all of our money, and we should, because they do, but the truth is, I think that if people of faith gathered together and for about a decade out-gave the government, we could make the government irrelevant as a social organization. They could be irrelevant; no one would care that they’re there, if we the people start doing a better job of taking care of we the people. You could out-give the government and put them out of business, and then the taxes would go down because you wouldn’t tolerate taxation at this level if people who were hurting were all being helped by outside organizations and other people.

Worth a shot? Worth discussing amongst ourselves - as long as we don't talk so long we forget to act.

Ten Thousand Days minus 150 equals ...

2010-08-20T07:02:00.000-05:00

I DID write "coming soon" in this post, didn't I?

Well, in that "we are just a blip in the timeline of eternity" sense, my set of new songs Ten Thousand Days is indeed coming soon.

And so is Refuse to Be Afraid.

And so is The Imaginary Revolution.

And so are podcasts with the "Uncle Warren's Attic Productions" imprint on them.

All in their time, my friends. All in their time. It's been a busy year away from cyberspace. Much has changed. And much has not.

Thank you, so much, for checking in to see.

Self Help: Words that could have been written this morning

2010-07-13T22:39:00.000-05:00

I am still amazed that the opening paragraphs of Samuel Smiles' book Self Help were published in 1859. Except that he uses an occasional word or turn of phrase that people don't use anymore, Smiles could be writing about the contemporary debate about government bailouts versus the power of the individual and the private sector.

Smiles' book is packed with examples of real-life (19th century) success and encouragement. No wonder it created an entire new genre. I'm tickled to be in a position to re-introduce this classic to modern audiences. Check this out (and click on the book cover to find out how to buy or download it):

+ + + + +

“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.

Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps the most they can do is, to leave him free to develop himself and improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct. Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human advancement has usually been much over-estimated. To constitute the millionth part of a Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can exercise but little active influence upon any man’s life and character. Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly understood, that the function of Government is negative and restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable principally into protection — protection of life, liberty, and property. Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.

The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
Indeed all experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the outgrowth of man’s own perverted life; and though we may endeavour to cut them down and extirpate them by means of Law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of personal life and character are radically improved. If this view be correct, then it follows that the highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much in altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by their own free and independent individual action.

It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself from within ...

Good stuff, huh? To access more of it, click here.

W.B. presents: The Poison Belt

2010-06-28T05:56:00.001-05:00

There is a message for us in the creative life of Arthur Conan Doyle, who tried to kill off his most immortal creation.

Doyle got tired of writing the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and wrote a stirring final episode in which the famed detective dies. The public outcry was such that he had to bring Sherlock back.

As an alternative to Holmes' death, Doyle instead breathed life into new characters, notably the bombastic but brilliant Professor George E. Challenger and the three friends with whom he discovers The Lost World. Instead of destruction (killing Holmes), Doyle chose the creative act of assembling an entirely different iconic character.

While the world largely knows Challenger through The Lost World, there are four other tales, three of which are collected in The Poison Belt, my latest little product under the Richardson Press emblem. In the title novella, the four adventurers reunite to face a graver threat than dinosaurs: a section of outer space the Earth is passing through that may result in the death of the human race itself. In "The Disintegration Machine," Challenger investigates an inventor who claims to have created a device that can scramble a person's atoms and then bring him back — sort of an early version of Star Trek's transporter. And "When The World Screamed," the professor theorizes that Earth is one giant living being, and he proposes to get that being's attention. Still to come to complete my little Challenger trilogy: The Land of Mist, a novel steeped in the spiritualism that marked Doyle's later years.

The lesson from Doyle's work: Don't dismiss the good you've done before. Do keep finding new ways to exercise your creative chops.

Challenger is not as immortal as Holmes — but The Lost World and its sequels are still something special nearly 100 years later.

W.B.'s Book Report: Thou Shall Prosper

2010-06-26T14:33:00.000-05:00

Rabbi Daniel Lapin's book is one of those eye-opening, game-changing books. He purports to explain what money is and how money works.

The laws of the marketplace don't change — you can try changing the rules as governments often do, but it won't work. Lapin explains the rules as clearly as I've ever seen, drawing on the ancient teachings of the Torah itself.

Business and money itself, Lapin says, are products of humanity's spiritual nature. As such they only work well when values like trust and integrity are at play. Again, some folks find temporary success with business and money without trust or integrity — but the emphasis there is on temporary.

This is one of those rare books that needs to be read more than once — studied and absorbed. I would be doing a disservice by trying to relate its concepts based on my still-growing understanding.

This much I can and will say: The attitude of our nation's leaders and most entertainment venues toward business and business people is based on falsehoods and a complete misunderstanding of the free market. I knew that much instinctively before I picked up this book, and Lapin does a nice job of explaining why it's true.

W.B. presents: A Little Volume of Secrets

2010-06-16T10:24:00.004-05:00

In the past year I've encountered three remarkable little books that have changed the way I think and approach this interesting experience called life. As A Man Thinketh, Acres of Diamonds and The Science of Getting Rich are all in the public domain and readily available online and in ebooks. In fact, I've downloaded them all and printed them out so that I can read them either on screen or in the old-fashioned way.

But I kept thinking it would be nice to have in one place, in traditional book form. In this marvelous print-on-demand era, that's entirely possible. And in this wonderful print-on-demand world, I don't have to keep this convenient little product to myself.

So here is A Little Volume of Secrets, which compiles these gems by James Allen, Russell Conwell and Wallace Wattles between two covers with a brief introduction by a lesser talent named Bluhm. The title I chose is a not-too-subtle allusion to a more recent book that purports to have uncovered something new about human nature and the universe. As you'll find in these pages, the principles have been there for at least a century and indeed much longer — as ancient as the saying, "As a man thinketh, so is he."

A taste:

Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself.

— James Allen, “As A Man Thinketh”

Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and what you are ...

— Russell H. Conwell, “Acres of Diamonds”

You are to become a creator, not a competitor; you are going to get what you want, but in such a way that when you get it every other man will have more than he has now.

— Wallace D. Wattles, “The Science of Getting Rich”

Warning! Don't expose yourself to these guys if you are perfectly content to live your life the way you've been living it. They definitely will turn your perceptions in interesting ways.

Click here to get a look at A Little Volume of Secrets.

Freedom from fear

2010-05-30T08:09:00.002-05:00

What is freedom?

Freedom is a place that seems to be the opposite of fear. And by definition, of course, freedom will mean different things to different people.

Freedom is often described in terms of absence: Freedom is the absence of present tyranny, barriers, threats, debt or other restrictions, or it is moving beyond the past to a promising future.

But freedom is more than a void; it is what fills the void: The actions, the peace of mind, enabled by the removal of those barriers.

Freedom is also, joyfully, an absence of fear — more accurately, of course, a willingness not to allow fear to be yet another barrier.

Make no mistake, fear is real — but you can decide not to be controlled by your fear. You can refuse to be afraid. It’s a little scary — but it’s a sound decision.

I am inspired by the attitude of our golden retriever puppy. When she is unfettered, Willow is a thing of beauty as she runs. She will run as fast and as far and as long as she can, or until I call her name and she comes running back.

Ideally we are limited only by others; ideally the only limit to our freedom is that nothing we do will limit others’ freedom.

“Fear not” and “be free” are nearly the same command. Refuse to be afraid — dare to be free — these are bold decisions.

W.B. At The Movies: Iron Man 2

2010-05-16T22:01:00.003-05:00

Who's better, um, suited to achieve world peace — the private sector or the U.S. Senate? That's among the questions raised by the amazing new film Iron Man 2, now playing at your friendly neighborhood movie theater.

When we rejoin Tony Stark, last seen admitting that he is the man inside the Iron Man armor, he is fending off an unctuous senator (played with astonishing realism by Gary Shandling) who believes those high-tech secrets would be safest in the hands of the public sector. Stark has the temerity to assert that his property belongs to him, setting up one of the film's central conflicts.

After the first Iron Man unexpectedly was one of the best comic-book movies ever made, I had my expectations lowered sufficiently by several reviews that concluded the first sequel wasn't up to the standards of the 2008 original. By the time Captain America's shield makes an unexpected appearance, I was totally immersed and well on my way to concluding the relatively downer reviews were hooey.

Robert Downey Jr. continues to be a dream bit of casting as Tony Stark. Mickey Rourke is wonderful as the villanous Ivan Vanko (Whiplash), and Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer is the actor's most entertaining performance since he nearly stole Galaxy Quest as Guy Fleegman. Gwyneth Paltrow is appealing again as Pepper Potts, although she isn't given as much to do as in the first flick.

Scarlet Johansson is marvelous as the mysterious new lady from Legal, and the scene near the climax where we get the full reveal of her capabilities is right up there with Yoda's light-saber battle in the annals of action-flick treasures. Don Cheadle as Rhodey/War Machine is fine, although I still don't know why it was necessary to replace Terrence Howard, who handled the role in the first installment.

After two hours that flew by in a flash, director Jon Favreau (born to direct Iron Man and to play Happy Hogan) has answered my opening question definitively — What has government ever done better than the private sector, after all? — and pretty much cleared the enormously high bar he raised in chapter one.

The main reason Iron Man 2 is not quite the special ride that Iron Man was is simply that it doesn't have the element of surprise: Few people really thought that a film based on one of Marvel Comics' second-tier heroes would be that great. The second film proves it wasn't a fluke.

And the now-routine teaser scene after the closing credits is one of Marvel's best yet. Is it 2011 yet? Please?!

W.B.'s Book Report: The Total Money Makeover

2010-05-03T05:07:00.006-05:00

Hi, my name is Warren and I like stuff.

The pursuit of stuff has gotten me in trouble three times in my life. Credit cards maxed out, living paycheck to paycheck, fear that the next time the phone rings it'd be some lower life form wondering why the check I promised to mail this morning hadn't arrived by afternoon.

Actually, this third time the situation hasn't gotten nearly that bad yet. The first two times were enough to educate me to the warning signs, but not enough to get me to quit pulling out the plastic. Intellectually I knew debt is dumb — the borrower is slave to the lender — but like a drunken congressman, I couldn't stop.

Dave Ramsey has built a small business empire teaching people to stop and start using money properly. The Total Money Makeover is the distillation of his lesson plan. It's as simple as getting out of debt, writing a budget, saving money and not buying anything you don't have the cash for — but in a world built on instant gratification, simple can be revolutionary.

The key is behavior modification. As Ramsey states, being a recovering stuff addict himself, figuring out how to get out of debt is mathematics, but if everyone who can do the math could do it, we wouldn't be a nation of debtors. His "Total Money Makeover" is training yourself to change your behavior in a series of seven "baby steps." Completing each step gives you a little taste of victory, which builds encouragement and momentum.

Armed with Ramsey's book and his daily podcast (which is one hour of his three-hour syndicated radio show), for the first time in my life I have a small emergency savings fund, I have cut all of my credit cards into pieces and started paying them off — paid the first one down to zero at the end of March, and the second monthly payment should disappear this month. I can see a future where I am earning interest, not paying it, and that makes me eager. And if I can do it — a guy once hopelessly addicted to pulling out the card and buying stuff without thinking — you can manage it, too.

This isn't just a book, it's a lifestyle change and a path to freedom. Find the podcast, find the book, and start your own journey.

Every one of us has all we need

2010-04-23T08:12:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking of eighth grade lately. That was the fall when The Beatles released the immortal single with "Yellow Submarine" on one side and "Eleanor Rigby" on the other.

What an amazing record. A simple giddy romp, almost a children's song, backed by the gorgeously mournful portraits of the isolated Miss Rigby and Father MacKenzie. All the lonely people, where do they all come from? And the band begins to play.

I confess to being a weird kid, but those who knew me then are already aware of this. I would walk down the halls of the school singing "Yellow Submarine" at the top of my lungs. The song filled me with such innocent joy that I didn't care how eccentric that made me seem — or perhaps I was relishing the chance to be eccentric.

Strangely enough, not long ago, sitting in the audience taking notes as a small-town crowd debated whether to allow a fast-food restaurant to invade their unique tourist community, I was hit by that old familiar sense of innocent joy. No, I didn't break out in a chorus of "We all live in a yellow submarine," but I did feel a wonderful contentment of being back where I belong.

Odd to be so happy at something that at times has felt like drudgery over the years. But it was a warm understanding that chronicling the news of a small community has turned out to feel like part of my life's mission. We all have a purpose, and it's delightful to be doing it.

Offline and back

2010-04-09T06:39:00.003-05:00

I've been offline for a few weeks while things change (for the better) in the day job. Three years ago I was invited to move from the small town to the big (well, medium-sized) city; last fall I let it be known that I was content with the job but miss the small town. Now I'm being moved back to a place that I pretty much loved for five years, and I'm tickled. Official announcements are still to come.

In the meantime a variety of projects remain in limbo, including my 20th homemade album, Ten Thousand Days, and its accompanying series of podcasts ... the long-promised book Refuse to Be Afraid ... and my little Christian music podcast Ikthuscast, which I find myself thinking may have run its course after 150 installments.

I have at least one book report to write up for you and a handful of other thoughts and observations, but for this morning I just wanted to check in and say hello. As for that yet-to-be-announced change I started this note with, I've become one of those folks who is getting paid to do work he loves, and that is always good news.

How to slay the hobgoblins of health care

2010-03-24T06:13:00.005-05:00

The debate over the new U.S. government health-care monolith all came down to something H.L. Mencken wrote quite a few years ago now. How individuals proceed from here depends on recognizing that ultimately, our lives depend on ourselves.

The political arguments of the past few years have been a perfect illustration of what Mencken meant when he wrote:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

What are the supposed hobgoblins that have menaced America of late? Hard-hearted insurance companies. Greedy drug companies. Cold-blooded hospitals. Ambulance-chasing lawyers. Doctors more devoted to earning a Beemer than saving lives. Lest we forget, the rampaging hobgoblins include power-hungry big-government Democrats and heartless corporate-serving Republicans. The most frightening hobgoblins of them all: On the one hand, the prospect of a catastrophic medical event with no safety net. On the other, the specter of a totalitarian, brutally intrusive government.

I don't purport that these hobgoblins are wholly imaginary. The players of the political game have marched out far too many anecdotes for anyone to deny that sick people are thrown roadblocks by insurance carriers, that prescription medicine costs can be unreasonable, and that politicians have goals that do not involve the good of the folks who elected them.

However, I do suggest that there is an important question to ask whenever someone appeals to your darkest fears, a question that must be answered before you willingly relinquish your freedom:

Why does this person want me to be afraid?

What possible gain could this politician, this advertiser, this seeming friend achieve by making me alarmed and clamorous to be led to safety? More often than not, the fear-maker offers a way out of your anxiety that not coincidentally involves a personal profit to himself. A politician offers a bill. An advertiser offers a product. (And in the interests of full disclosure, even I offer you something: I am writing a book called Refuse to Be Afraid that I hope to sell you someday soon.)

The person who wants you scared proposes to lead you to safety. The politician asks only that you surrender a bit of your liberty. The advertiser asks only for a bit of your cash — but keep in mind that money misspent deprives you of the liberty to spend it wisely.

And here's the most important underlying fact in Mencken's words, the fact that's hard to remember when you are sufficiently alarmed: You have the power to lead yourself to safety.

No one can deprive you of your freedom without your permission.

For years the U.S. government has been moving to replace the unwieldy and unresponsive private-sector bureaucracy that is the health insurance industry with an unwieldy and unresponsive public-sector bureaucracy like those of many federal government agencies. Politicians have matched insurance-claim or hospital horror for Medicare or Veterans Affairs horror. Now the power grab has been passed and signed into law, but one essential hasn't changed.

Whoever controls the unwieldy and unresponsive bureaucracy, you have always had control of your health decisions. No one cares more about your health than you do. That was true 10 minutes before this abominable law was signed, and it's true today. So take control. Take the steps you are still free to take — you'll find that most of the hobgoblins holding you back were imaginary. It's a scary thing, assuming control of your life. But if you refuse to be afraid, the benefits are enormous.

Someone gets it after all

2010-03-18T07:04:00.003-05:00

Today's edition of Pearls Before Swine.

Coming Soon: Ten Thousand Days

2010-03-10T06:34:00.005-06:00

The guitar is back in my hands, and my fingers are rusty. But it feels good.

Last year, Barry McGuire and John York brought their Trippin' the Sixties show to Green Bay, and the next afternoon Barry spoke and sang a few songs at the Cup O'Joy up the street. It was a weekend that changed my life, and not just because he led the Cup crowd in singing me "Happy Birthday."

That Sunday night, I pulled out the guitar for the first time in ages and wrote a song for the first time in ages. I had chuckled with Barry as he described writing "Greenback Dollar" with those trusty old chords, G and C, and an Em thrown in for good measure. Out came "Back Where I Belong," which begins with words that listeners of Uncle Warren's Attic #57 might recognize:

"I was dead and gone, but now I'm better ..."

That was just the start. For the next month songs came pouring out of my brain, almost like a dam had burst and emitted tunes. By the end of May — April, really, just one song came out in May — I had a pile of songs that fit together so well I was pretty sure I had an album in hand.

Almost 12 months gone now, and those tunes have been percolating in my mind. It's long past time to pick up the guitar, confront the microphone, and start sharing them.

And so ... watch this space. And make sure you're still subscribed to the Uncle Warren's Attic RSS feed, because that's where the first versions of these songs will be coming.

The Anti-Wildflower Man (and Woman)

2010-03-03T05:26:00.005-06:00

A couple in California is being harrassed by the lawn police. No, it's not the scenario I wrote about in "Wildflower Man," where a fellow let the flowers take over his yard; just the opposite. Read the news here.

Some Southern California cities fine residents for watering their lawns too much during droughts.

But in Orange, officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for removing their lawn in an attempt to save water.

The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their frontyard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water -- and hundreds of dollars -- each year.

And so the family has been charged with a misdemeanor by the city for failure to have at least 40% land cover on their property. Oh wait, did we say "their" property? If it's a crime to keep the land in the condition you think is best, who really owns it?

"It's their yard, it's not overgrown with weeds, it's not an eyesore," said (neighbor Dennis) Cleek, whose own yard boasts fruit trees. "We should be able to have our yards look the way we want them to."

Something in human nature just seems to make certain people force their ideas about The Way Things Ought To Be on the rest of us. Or, to put it another way:

"Compliance, that's all we've ever wanted," said Senior Assistant City
Atty. Wayne Winthers.

Don't let anyone scare you

2010-03-01T05:40:00.001-06:00

Fear may draw a television audience. It may generate cash for an advocacy group. It may support the legal profession.

But fear paralyzes us. It freezes us. And we need to be flexible in our responses, as we move into a new era of managing complexity.

So we have to stop responding to fear: Is this really the end of the world? Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods? No, we simply live on an active planet. Earthquakes are continuous, a million and a half of them every year, or three every minute. A Richter 5 quake every six hours, a major quake every 3 weeks. A quake as destructive as the one in Pakistan every 8 months. It's nothing new, it's right on schedule.

At any moment there are 1,500 electrical storms on the planet. A tornado touches down every six hours. We have 90 hurricanes a year, or one every four days. ... Violent, disruptive, chaotic activity is a constant feature of our globe.

Is this the end of the world? No: this is the world. It's time we knew it.

— Michael Crichton

I stand corrected - records in cars

2010-02-26T07:18:00.003-06:00

I got an e-mail overnight regarding my statement that "as wonderful as vinyl is, they never figured out a way to play records in the car." I guess I knew that — I always heard that Motorola's corporate name derives from "motor" and "Victrola" and the effort to create a practical car record player — but I have to believe the idea never caught on because of tonearms' tendency to skip when jostled, or maybe solving that dilemma was way too expensive. In any case, items like this make for fun speculation about what might have been ...

Vinyl, eBay and the road to freedom

2010-02-25T07:09:00.004-06:00

I've had some modest success as I start selling parts of my vinyl LP collection at eBay. No surprises yet — over the past 15-20 years I have been one of the last surviving people who preferred to buy records when available, and so as vinyl experiences a reawakening, I knew there would be a market for those limited-edition vinyl copies of albums produced over the last couple of decades.

As I suspected, Neil Young remains cool. I cleared out my collection of Neil's more recent stuff at prices that made me happy. And the recipients of the albums sound pleased, too. Ah, the free market at its best — when buyer and seller both gain something of value.

As much as I love music and vinyl, why am I doing this? Partly to pass along the joy. I've experienced the fun of putting a slab of vinyl on a turntable and the fulfilled expectations of the fresher, more real sound that comes out. Now it's time for others to enjoy it.

Mostly it's because I've finally learned there is no music so sweet as the sound of my voice saying, "No plastic, I'm paying with cash."

For the third time in my life, I pushed my cards to the limit, to the point where too much of my income was going to purchases I made a long time ago, and accumulated interest. In a sense, I don't own this collection; the agents of Visa, Mastercard and Discover do. And so, to pay off my masters, this debt slave is liquidating.

Don't feel sorry for me; I'm so happy about this decision I could bust. It's all about freedom. And passing on the joy of music ownership. (My favorite records long ago were transferred to CD anyway — as wonderful as vinyl is, they never figured out a way to play records in the car.)

So check out my stuff on eBay — right this moment I have only four albums up, including the immortal American III: Solitary Man by Johnny Cash, but I plan to be busy this weekend. And if you want some great info about getting out of debt, check out the work and podcasts of Dave Ramsey.

Uncle Warren's Review: American VI: Ain't No Grave

2010-02-24T05:01:00.001-06:00

Johnny Cash was already a legend when he met producer Rick Rubin, but what the two of them did together is, well, indescribable. The last four albums Cash released in his lifetime are the best recordings he ever created. Tom Petty once said the best Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album ever is Unchained, the second Cash album produced by Rubin where the Heartbreakers sat in as the backup band.

After The Man In Black died in 2004, Rubin released a fifth album that was very good but didn't quite live up to the previous standards. Tuesday the sixth "American" project arrived, with Rubin promising this is the last he'll be associated with. Amazingly, American VI: Ain't No Grave does not sound like the last decent scraps from the pile.

When the three then-surviving Beatles cobbled "Free As A Bird" together around an old John Lennon demo tape, a friend of mine said it was comforting to hear a new Beatles song again. That's the feeling that this new Cash-Rubin collaboration evokes.

The title song is perfect for Cash to release after his death, after a long and often defiant life: "Ain't no grave gonna hold this body down." And all of the tracks are about endings, most of them covers given the unique Johnny Cash treatment. From Sheryl Crow's "Redemption Day" to "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" and including an original tune called "I Corinthians 15:55" ("O death, where is your sting?"), the album is a fitting valedictory. And "Aloha Oe" is a wistful and perfect song with which to close.

Johnny Cash was already a legend when he started working with Rick Rubin. But he could have become a legend just on the basis of these six albums (and don't forget Unearthed, the five-disk set that includes a few dozen great cuts that weren't quite great enough to make the "American" projects).

I had all sorts of ambitious plans for my day off Tuesday, but I spent the afternoon with Mr. Cash instead, listening to the new album twice and the first two American recordings in between. There never was an interpreter of songs like Johnny Cash, and no one brought out the best of Cash like Rick Rubin.

Secrets of rhinoceros success revealed

2010-02-23T07:57:00.005-06:00

Oh — a rhinoceros!

Wally Conger is my best friend I never met. He and I "met" as teenagers in the late 1960s when he was putting together fanzines like Spidey Fan and Fantasy World from his parents' home in California. I was in New Jersey, which is why we never met. In those days people communicated by snail mail mainly because, well, there was nothing else. Seems to me we talked by phone once, which was kind of cool but expensive.

After 2-3 years we drifted off to live our lives until 2005, when a friend of mine sent me a pithy quote he'd picked up off the Internet that was written by "Wally Conger." Modern communications being a little more sophisticated and instantaneous than it used to be, I found this Conger fella within a few minutes and sent him an e-mail to the effect of "Are you the Wally Conger?" Kind of a silly question, really — how many Wally Congers writing about pop culture and anarcho-libertarian-type stuff could there be?

Turns out we lived semi-parallel lives in the media and corporate worlds until the last decade and a half, when he took off on his own to work on a variety of business projects. He was the guy who introduced me to Blogger, which has led to my so-far-not-so-vast podcast and publishing empires. He has lent his name to reviews of ventures like The Adventures of Myke Phoenix, and I've helped plug Wally's stuff when and where I can.

In the last year he's launched WallyConger.com, a place devoted to "smashing wage slavery one job at a time. Starting with his free e-book Fire Up Your Cash Flow Over a Donut and Coffee in 10 Minutes ... or Less!, Wally has been providing regular advice about how to move out on your own with Web and/or other businesses.

His newly released project is a fun conversation preserved in black-and-white and audio called No-Nonsense Damn-the-Torpedoes Jungle Rhinoceros Tactics to Flatten the Crap Outta Fear, Worry & Doubt (apparently he can't name something in fewer than 12 words). It's an interview with Scott Alexander, blogger, entrepreneur and author of three motivational books starting with Rhinoceros Success. What's rhinoceros success? Here's Scott talking to Wally:

The rhinos are guys like you and me. We're out there having fun. We enjoy life. We're charging. We're building businesses. We have dreams. We have goals. We wake up in the morning and we want to get going on stuff. Now I know you like to enjoy your cigars and stuff, and that's part of your adventure, is doing what you want to do. But the thing for rhinos is, they're out in the jungle and they're having fun. They're pursuing what they want in life.

And they don't let anything get in the way of their success, growing a tough hide and charging through setbacks to victory ...

... you hear these success people say, "Well, success is easy if you think it's easy." But I totally disagree with that. I think success is difficult; it's radically difficult. Think about it. If success were easy, if anybody could automatically become a success, it wouldn't be success, right? It'd be mediocrity. It's easy to be mediocre, but if you want to be successful, you have to charge harder, you have to do things that the cows aren't willing to do. You have to get out there and charge and expend some energy. So, yeah, the chips are always down, and fortitude and charging is the most important thing.

Along the way in a 45-minute conversation, Wally and Scott share some valuable insights about what it takes to get up some momentum and keep charging — and they have fun along the way. The podcast would make a nice package on its own, but Wally took the time to transcribe the whole gorram thing into an ebook — with a short bonus anecdote — and he throws in some worksheets designed to help you start your rhino life. So you can take your time perusing the words, take the conversation with you in your car or iPod, and scribble out your own plan for rhino success.

This is definitely something I'm going to keep close at hand in the Attic, and I heartily recommend it to the dozen of you who visit here regularly. [Full disclosure: I've signed up for Wally's affiliate program, so I'll get a piece of the action if you buy the package after clicking "Click here to view more details."]

Go ahead. Take a look. Click here to view more details.

Knowledge overcomes fear:The scary sign in the window

2010-02-21T08:10:00.002-06:00

I hadn’t been alive for very long, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to die yet. The little poster in the front window of the barber shop in Little Falls, N.J., told me it might not be long.

In stark bold letters, the poster announced “The 7 warning signs of leukemia.” I didn’t know exactly what leukemia was, but it sounded scary and in the late 1950s it was almost always fatal. The poster said it was cancer of the blood.

I did an inventory for the signs. “Change in a mole or wart” — well, my little body was littered with moles, but I was pretty sure they all looked the same as the day before. “Fatigue” — no, I had plenty of energy; I was a kid after all. “Hoarseness” —

I cleared my throat.

Was I hoarse? I did have a little bit of a tickle there, a small frog perhaps. I tried a few words.

“Hello? Hello? Oh no.”

My voice was a little ragged.

I might have leukemia! It was a real possibility. The poster said so. My voice was hoarse.

I squirmed my way through the haircut, panic rising in my soul at every clip. Why waste my time with a haircut when I might have so little time to spare?

Afraid to say anything out loud, I was quiet on the way home, and the next time I was with my mother without the brothers around, I approached her and said solemnly, “Mom, I have to talk to you.”

She could tell right away that I was a tad distraught. No doubt she looked around the house to see if anything else was broken, but the look on my face told her this was different from guilt. I led her into a bedroom and closed the door.

“What? What is it?” Now she was starting to get anxious herself.

I threw myself against her apron and hung on for dear life.

“One of the symptoms of cancer is hoarseness and today I’m hoarse!!!” I wailed.

For just a moment there was no sound in the room except for my terrified sobbing.

And then, a soft laugh.

You know the scene in the movie A Christmas Story where Ralphie gets in a fight and afterward his brother, Randy, hides under the kitchen sink? When Mom asks what he’s doing there, he screams, “Daddy’s gonna kill Ralphie!”

Mom gives a soft chuckle and says reassuringly, “No, Daddy’s not going to kill Ralphie.”

Every time I see that movie, I laugh out loud because Randy’s fear and Mom’s reaction are so real. I know, because that’s exactly how I sounded that day and exactly how my own mother sounded when she said, “No, you don’t have cancer.”

Patiently, she told me I needed to have more than one symptom before I needed to consider the most dire diagnosis. I realized I probably was going to live. The fright eased its way out of my tiny frame.

Lesson learned: Wait until you have all of the facts before jumping to conclusions. So often we become afraid because we only understand part of the story. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” says the old proverb — but the emphasis is on the word little. If you don’t have full knowledge, you can make a dangerous mistake: such as being paralyzed by fear.

The leukemia society didn’t mean to frighten a little boy that day, but planting a little fear in your mind is a common motivational tactic. The idea of the poster was to get you to a doctor, but it also works for product advertising and politicians.

When I sought more information from the closest trusted source at hand — my mom — the fears were dispelled.

Are you scared of something you don’t fully understand? Get more information. Most of the time, the situation is not as dire as you fear. And even more often, as I learned by discovering I didn’t have leukemia, the situation is not even a “situation” at all.

Fritzi on albums

2009-11-02T07:09:00.003-06:00

The Uncle Henry Collection

2009-10-02T04:53:00.002-05:00

I have a box full of my own uncle's old 78 rpm records, which my cousins gave me after his memorial service a couple of years ago. My goal was to clean them up and transfer the songs onto CD for them - life, of course, has gotten in the way.

Part of my plan when I got back to the Attic was to get to that project, make it a regular segment of the podcast - "gems from Uncle Henry's stash" or some such. Still an idea.

The trouble with my Biggest Ideas for the new series is that they're labor-intensive upfront; I'd need to get a lot of extra work done before the launch. I do want to try it, though, so I guess I should just get to it and quit whining.

Getting it ready on a timely basis may mean forgoing the iguanodon sound effect. I think everyone could probably live without it, though.

Remodeling the attic

2009-10-01T07:24:00.004-05:00

I'm telling you, I'm sure this is going to work if I just have some time to get the job done - hey come on, I'm on the phone here, what do you need? The iguanodon sound effect? I don't know, we'll figure it out. Wait a minute! Do iguanodons make any sounds anyway? You know what, I should call you back anyway. I've got some situations here, and oh! Somebody just walked in. Talk to you later, OK?

Hi there — sorry the place is such a mess, you know what happens when you leave something alone for a whole summer. I nearly choked on the dust when I opened things up.

I've had some plans for this place in the back of my mind for a couple of months now, and it's long past time to put them in motion. They involve at least a 16-week series, and hopefully that will give us enough momentum to keep sailing.

Sorry to hit and run, but I've got my hands full. Hard to find good help, you know. See ya! Hey!!! The guitars go next to the mixing board! What good are they going to do in that closet? Yumpin yiminy anyway ...

Music and podcasts coming

2009-06-26T06:23:00.002-05:00

I will have a second collection of free old recordings up soon.

Later this summer I will be putting a collection of new music up for sale and launching a 13-episode season of Uncle Warren's Attic.

Just so's ya know.

The Will To Fly - a w.p. bluhm collection

2009-04-30T07:44:00.010-05:00

First and foremost, thanks to Sunni for her comments about "Wanting To Live Forever" and suggesting that I make it more readily available. Without further ado, click here to listen or download the song (there's another link below, of course.)

THE ALBUM: From a dub between two cassette recorders with a nylon string guitar in 1974, to a recording using all computer-generated instruments in 2000, these 15 tracks comprise what I consider my "best of" those years.

The songs cover a variety of adventures, misadventures, ups and downs that we should talk about some night over a beer or two. For now, thanks for listening and I hope you like it.

Words and music by w.p. bluhm (except for track 8)

THE SONGS: You can play them by clicking on 'em or download using your computer's standard download procedures.

1. Years of Our Lives (6:55/Written 1977/Recorded March 18, 1986)
2. Seems Like Old Times (2:25/1978/Dec. 22, 1985)
3. Crying Over Spilled Thyme (2:56/1977/1977)
4. Always Love You (2:49/1976/March 30, 1986)
5. Sweet Sarah Wilde (5:08/Sept. 6, 1984/Dec. 21, 1985)
6. Priscilla (3:33/1972/1975)
7. Darling Don't You Cry (3:52/1974/1974)
8. Happy Talk (4:32/Rodgers-Hammerstein 1949/1992)
9. Sha-la-la-la-la-la (1:49/June 6, 1985/Dec. 22, 1985)
10. Snuggle Bunny (2:31/Feb. 7, 1999/Feb. 21, 2000)
11. The Best is Yet To Be (3:36/June 22, 1986/1987)
12. Wanting To Live Forever (5:05/Jan. 27, 1986/March 30, 1986)
13. Billy and Jody (2:51/June 30, 1988/July 26, 1989)
14. Don't You Worry (3:25/Aug. 30, 1986/1987)
15. I Thank God (4:15/Jan. 30, 1987/1987)

Please e-mail me with questions and comments.

THE LEGALESE:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Uncle Warren's Attic 58: The Pedestrian, and more

2009-02-08T22:30:00.004-06:00

A dramatic reading of one of my favorite Ray Bradbury short stories anchors this session. Try to ignore the fact that I refer to a Bradbury "tune"; in fact, as musical as the master's prose is, it's probably as accurate a misstatement as you're ever going to hear. Vintage ads for Coca-Cola and a prominent Illinois politician are also on the agenda.

Plus, I spend a couple of minutes reminding you that I'd love to sell you some musical fiction of my own ...

The songs:
She Said Her Name Was Saffron - Marc Gunn
You Bug Me Baby - Larry Williams
For Your Boy and My Boy - Peerless Quartet
God's Gonna Cut You Down - Odetta
Don't Go Drinking With Hobbits - Marc Gunn

Download here, click the podcast icon or press "play" on the player at the top of the right rail.

UW Attic 57: History of recorded music

2009-01-10T15:55:00.005-06:00

A 3.5-minute journey through seven audio formats is featured in this particular trip through the attic - to wit:

"Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" - Odetta
"The House of the Rising Sun" - Jack Elliott
"Old Blue" - Cisco Houston
"In the Mood" (2 78s, a cassette, 45, 33, CD and download versions) - Glenn Miller
"Tar Paper Stomp" - Wingy Manone and his Orchestra

Along the way you'll hear clips from "The First Family" with Vaughn Meader and "Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD" starring David Hasselhoff.

Download here, hit the pod icon or click "play" at the top of the right column.

Uncle Warren's Attic 56: New Year's Rockin' Attic III

2008-12-28T22:37:00.006-06:00

OK, maybe you don't "rock" when you're talking Ole Svenson & His Smorgasbord Band, Bing Crosby and Benny Goodman ... download and enjoy!

First off, I tell you about the tri-speed turntable that powers this podcast, and then Ole checks in with the now-classic "Yingle Yingle Yumping Beans." After a word from the company that brings you the very best chocolate, we check out a couple of Beatles covers from Bing Crosby ("Hey Jude") and Benny Goodman ("Octopus's Garden").

While we're on the subject (and after a commercial message a la National Lampoon Radio Hour), a brief introduction to Emitt Rhodes, who was marketed as a McCartney sound-alike but was quite an artist in his own right. The link takes you to a nifty interview that I discovered after the show was put to bed.

I had to hear the Ballad of Serenity again before bringing in Marc Gunn's version of "Hero of Canton," and then it was time for Rockosaurus Rex to ring in the new year a couple of days early.

UPDATE: Sometimes the obvious escapes me, but this is ridiculous: Download here or click the player up there on the right.

Playing catch with my daughter

2008-12-25T11:22:00.008-06:00

She came into our lives about 18 months ago, on Friday the 13th of July, 2007. As I turned onto the U.S. 41 on-ramp, a little black kitten darted across the road in front of me and disappeared into the brush on the side of the ramp.

I pulled over, thinking that she probably would just run away in the tall grass - but instead she popped back onto the shoulder and started croaking, like E.T., "Home! Home! Home!"

So I took her home. The vet said she was 5 weeks old and healthy.

I called her E.T. for a few days, until her dry throat healed and she started mewing like a normal kitten. Red named her Blackberry, and it fit.

The thing that became clear fairly quickly is that this cat is smarter than the others. All of our little beasts (yes, all seven) have their front claws removed - it's a defense measure to save our property. (We don't let them outside where they can become predators and prey, either.) The time for declawing is usually ripe when they start climbing the door jams and the patio door screen.

Well, after being stymied by the loss of her front climbing implements, this kitten learned to brace her back against the open sliding door and use her back claws to climb the screen - working her way down the same way. Smart kitten.

She has invented a game on the stairs. She will drop a little green Nerf ball down the stairs and try to catch it on the way down. It works better if I help. From the bottom, I'll toss it over her head so it bounces off a top stair, and she'll chase it down.

The other day, she stayed on a middle stair and pounced for the ball as it bounced past. When she caught it, she'd play with it for a couple of moments, and then bat it over the side so it bounced back down to me. Sometimes she'd whap it as it went by to give it extra momentum and try to get it past me.

We played the game for 10 minutes. I'd try to stop when she was chewing on the ball and say, "OK, I have to get ready for work," but after I took a few steps away I'd hear the ball bounce down the last few stairs. She wasn't ready to stop playing.

Why didn't I just keep walking? I don't have kids of my own, so the animals are the closest thing I'll have to children. About halfway through this episode, it struck me that this sweet joy I was feeling must be something like fathers feel when they're playing catch with their children. I wasn't ready to stop playing, either.

Uncle Warren's Attic 55: A Tale of Two Whaps

2008-12-12T20:50:00.008-06:00

A special hat tip to Wally Conger, who influenced this show in ways you'll hear about. Wow, it's good to be back — I hope you agree.

Coming your way: Vintage ads for Camel and Budweiser, with The Crew-Cuts stepping in for the latter. Also ...

+ Sweet Dawn My True Love, a B-side from Crispian St. Peters
+ You Can Have Him, a lost treasure by Dionne Warwick
+ Railway Station, from Oshkosh's own Bill Waters Band
+ Sixteen Tons by Eric Burdon, the best thing about Joe Versus the Volcano

... and a lot of jabbering from yours truly. Download here or by clicking the Pod icon.

UPDATE 12-17-08: Yumpin Yiminy, I went almost a week forgetting the "55" illustration I tracked down for this episode. Whatever. It's there now.

Where I hope to be heading

2008-12-10T19:23:00.004-06:00

I think back in September of '06 I had a different feeling when I sat down to do Uncle Warren's Attic #2. More relaxed, having more fun — it wasn't "I have to do a show." I think that's where I want to get back to.

So, while I'm assembling the new one, check out the old — #2. Or #3. Or Number nigh-yun.

Thanks for checking

2008-12-10T07:05:00.002-06:00

It's nice of you to visit, even though I haven't been here for a while. So here's a secret you can tell your friends and family: Uncle Warren's Attic #55 will arrive soon.

I've spent the last couple of days listening to UWA #2-5, and I think going "back to the basics" may make the show fun to make again. I found some fascinating stuff poking around in the Attic last night, and I think you'll get a kick out of 'em.

So consider this viral marketing - if you know anyone who has enjoyed the show in the past or might like what I did back in those early shows, pass the word. Thanks!

In case you're wondering

2008-11-16T16:46:00.003-06:00

It's possible you have heard that I'm bringing back Ikthuscast, my little "15 minutes of Jesus twice a week" celebration of independent Christian music. And that announcement may have caused you to wonder if there will be an Uncle Warren's Attic #55 and beyond.

The answer to that question is: Yup. At least I think so. At least I plan to. The Attic is a little more labor intensive, so I can't say when fer sure.

But I'll keep you updated.

What happened

2008-09-26T18:04:00.003-05:00

I don't know what happened, really. I just woke up one morning, realized I hadn't done a podcast for a while, and my brain said, "That's OK, you're done for now."

I suppose I could write about the press of daily stuff — what B.W. Richardson refers to as "the quotidian' — but it's not that. Something inside just shifted and I didn't want to do podcasts. Nothing personal, I just had a "been there, done that" moment, and I don't have anything more to toss out.

Oh, The Imaginary Revolution thing? I suppose B.W. being weeks behind on that project had a little something to do with it, but the Attic could have gone on without him. Yeah, I'm irritated about that, but as you know it's hard for me to stay mad at Richardson.

When I'm having fun with Uncle Warren's Attic, there's no fun quite like it, so I'm not going to close the door and walk away forever. But I have closed the door and walked away. Sorry about that, and thanks to everyone who has sent words of encouragement over the course of my 53.5 episodes.

I like the idea of UWA too much to let go of it. I've just misplaced the spark for it. It's around here somewhere and I'll reboot down the road a ways, no doubt. After six weeks without a show, though, I figured I owed you at least a few words to say, yeah, the podcast is on hiatus or whatever you want to call it. Thanks for listening!

I-Rev as a separate podcast

2008-08-14T07:25:00.004-05:00

In case you'd rather just have The Imaginary Revolution without all of the marvelous trappings of Uncle Warren's Attic (why you'd want that, I don't know), I'm going to post the chapters over there on the right, underneath "View my complete profile." You probably will even be able to download chapters 2 and 3 before I finish UWA #55, although it escapes me why you'd want to enjoy the story outside the trappings of my marvelous Attic.

Here is another place to grab the opening chapter.

UW Attic 54/I-Revolution Chapter 1

2008-08-11T15:15:00.003-05:00

"Chapter 1: The Matter of the Cookies" launches our dramatic recitation of the upcoming novel The Imaginary Revolution by my imaginary friend B.W. Richardson. Because he didn't quite meet the goal of having the first three chapters ready, B.W. opened his notebook and gave me a couple of mini-scenes to pique your interest for the rest of the story.

Also in this episode: "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Reinald Werrenrath ... "Harrigan/Yankee Doodle Dandy" from Fred Waring & the Pennsylvanians ... and "Two Dollar Shoes" by Rosie Thomas.

Download here or by clicking the Podcast Icon, or just press "play" over there on the right.

Promo for "The Imaginary Revolution"

2008-08-02T20:13:00.004-05:00

You're going to want to have your podcatcher primed and ready for UWA #54, that's all I'm sayin' folks.

Click on the Pod icon or here to hear all about it!

UW Attic 53: Monsters, Campaigns and An Imaginary Announcement

2008-07-23T06:06:00.005-05:00

Barack Obama's comment about the need for "aggressive diplomacy" with Iran reminded me of an Anakin Skywalker line, which led to a little audio collage that also incorporates The Prisoner and that other guy running for Big Guy this year.

Other features of this 53rd trip to the Attic: Two versions of "I'm a Monster" by the inimitable Scotty MacGregor ... The memorable "Oh, The Thinks You Can Think" from the lost Dylan Hears A Who project ... "That's Cool" by Adam and the Couch Potatoes ... and a big announcement about upcoming episodes.

Click on the pod icon or here to download — or press player up there on the right to listen online.

Project Reboot

2008-07-21T07:04:00.003-05:00

I've been doing some musing of late about how to reboot my various creative efforts to improve the quality and consistency. The problem is not in your set. I hope to be completing the muse process in the very near future and bear some fruit.

Thank you for your patience, and feel free to browse to make sure you've sampled the entire set of 53 trips to the attic, starting from Day One — not to mention the semi-classic episodes of The Imaginary Bomb that started my podcasting career.

Meanwhile, please stand by.

Aunt Fritzi on music

2008-07-14T06:49:00.004-05:00

UWA 52: From Independence Day to Orchestraville

2008-07-06T21:23:00.007-05:00

Even if I'm a couple of days late for Independence Day, I have to read from the Declaration and play the Hurtado Brothers Royal Marimba Band version of "The Stars and Stripes Forever," don't I? I mean, it's tradition! Also within this slightly longer trip to the Attic are a couple of tunes by Red Ingle and his Natural Seven and the complete and unabridged Rusty in Orchestraville, one very interesting adventure. Oh, and there's a little Spike Jones in there, too.

As always, click the pod icon or here to hear — or, if you must, press play on the player at the top of Column B.