Of Tina Fey, Randy Newman, Ebola and Kate Upton

In 1999, Randy Newman sang these words: “I have nothing left to say, but I’m going to say it anyway” and “Each record that I’m making is like a record that I’ve made, just not as good.”  In Newman’s inimitable self-deprecating style, it comes of both hilarious and ironic, since his album Bad Love is arguably among the artist’s best efforts; it’s actually my favorite album of his illustrious career.

I too have nothing left to say, it seems, as I’ve spent the last month pursuing activities that include not a word written, a note composed nor a chord recorded.  However, since I recognize that age forty-six is quite a long way from the coffin (once can hope, at least) that I better begin writing something or I’ll simply have to go the way of Billy Joel and call it a career (without, um…the actual career).  I figure, if Bob Seger can come up with something say even after no one cares, why not me?

So here goes…just a few things on my mind:

I’d be a lot happier for the Kansas City Royals were it not for all the former Brewers.  A little glimpse of what might have been.

I could not be less worried about Ebola.  So why is it taking up so much news time?  Somewhere around 32,000 U.S. citizens die from influenza each year, garnering less than a front page headline.

In a perfect world, I would be that guy who reads The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, I'd be up on my politics, I'd have read all the classics and I’d know three languages.   Alas, I am not that guy. 

Tina Fey, while an excellent writer and comedic genius, is no dramatic actress, and the film “This is Where I Leave You” suffers as a result, not to mention that author Jonathan Tropper writes his own screenplay and is just a little too faithful to his original work.  Sometimes an editor is necessary.

If an artist is going to go through the trouble of printing out its song lyrics with a CD, wouldn’t you suppose the lyrics should be easy to read?  Yeah, I’m talking to you, Rufus Wainwright, The Shins and Dave Matthews and Pink Floyd and Prince and…

The fall of the Milwaukee Brewers, as demoralizing as it was to witness, did in fact prove my preseason prediction correct.  On March 26 I wrote to some friends, “I said between 83 and 85 wins (earlier).  I'm going to go on the low side.  83-79, good enough for third place, but no playoff.”  The Crew finished 82-80.  Third place.  No playoffs.  I’d rather have been wrong.

I’ve heard that you should never look at another woman who’s younger than half your age plus seven years.  So for me, that’s thirty years of age.  Kate Upton is twenty-two.  So yeah, I’m failing that test.

Running once every six months does in fact make the run much more painful.  I finished a 5K last month in relatively good time and felt it for three days.

If my daughters are any indication, senior year of high school is no longer considered a fun year (mine was a blast).  They have been trudging through their existence, almost as if they were well into their second decade of a dead-end job that earns little pay.  I guess, in a way, they are into their second decade of a dead-end job with little pay, except that this year there is an end, and a year from now their lives will dramatically improve.  But for goodness’ sake, whatever happened to the notion of enjoying the ride?

Some gifts keep on giving: the vertebra I fractured in December of 1990 is coming back to wreak havoc on my neck.  Perhaps I should have taken a beginners lesson after all.  Unfortunately I was immortal when I was twenty-two.

In the category of “Lessons You’ve Learned but Don’t Heed,” I went on a record and CD-buying binge last month, and now I feel the stress of having all these albums that need listening too.  Perhaps this is why I have nothing left to say: I’m too busy listening to music!

Are We Entitled to Make a Living Doing What We Love To Do?

The movie 20 Feet From Stardom – and if you haven’t seen it, you should – has sparked many conversations with my musical brethren, most of whom point to two scenes that they found particularly poignant, both involving the amazing vocalist Merry Clayton.  Never heard of her?  Don’t worry about it.  You have, in fact, heard her. 

The first aforementioned scene shows Clayton and Mick Jagger listening to the isolated vocal track of Clayton’s performance on The Rolling Stones’ song, “Gimme Shelter.”  It’s one of those performances that summons emotions in me that I’m unable to put into words.  Hearing the track, coupled with watching the singers respond to it, gave me chills and brought me to tears.  Just thinking about it gives me the chills.  Not too shabby for a song I’ve probably heard a couple hundred times.

The second scene has Clayton recalling how her attempts at stardom in the 70s resulted in three albums that sold poorly.  She says, her voice cracking, “I felt like if I just gave my heart to what I was doing, I would automatically be a star.”

No one could blame her or countless others for this belief.  After all, we hear it all the time: Follow your dream.  Do what you love.  Cinderella sang about it.  So did Aerosmith and a thousand other bands.  Hell, even I’ve written about it. Graduation speeches promote it.  Websites are devoted to it.  An industry of inspiring posters capitalizes on it.  It’s what parents want for their children.  It’s what children want for themselves when they become adults.  And I think there’s a kernel of good advice in that sentiment.  Do what you love to do.

And yet…

Are we entitled to make a living at it?  What a luxury it is to even be asking the question! In the history of humankind, how long has this idea of doing what one loves to do for a living been given even the slightest consideration?  For me, it brings to mind centuries of apprentices toiling in atrocious working conditions, slaves enduring worse, millennia of farmers laboring over the land, generations of immigrants, past and present, suffering through the most strenuous jobs for the littlest of pay.

I wonder how many people historically have had the luxury of saying, “I want to do this for a living.”  How many people living today can devote a realistic thought to the notion?  The starving worry about food, the terrorized worry about safety, and the poor worry about making a better living. 

So the fact that some of us are able to entertain the notion of doing what we love to do is already a blessing of blessings.  Let’s start there.  But should we be able to make a living doing what we love to do?  Well, that all depends, doesn’t it?  I could get into an analysis I suppose of capitalism, supply, demand, education, market saturation, etc., but what it all comes down is that sometimes jobs are in demand, sometimes they aren’t, and sometimes there’s never demand for what you love to do. 

Our grandparents, especially those who were the first in their family to go to college, probably didn’t give this a second thought, and majored in what was going to guarantee them a job. Right now, it seems like nursing is a good profession to go into.  I have a niece pursuing this as I write, and her prospects look good.  In a decade, who knows?  Engineering looks very promising at present.  Architecture, not so much. Then again, I know an architect in Milwaukee who is living her dream.  You just never know.  The entertainment industry, of course, is even more fickle.  Some musicians can make a decent living at it.  Others become superstars.  Others still can barely get by.  It isn’t fair, but that’s the way it is.  In 20 Feet from Stardom, singer/songwriter Stings says, “It’s not about fairness.  It’s not really about talent.  It’s circumstances.  It’s luck.  It’s destiny.  I don’t know what it is.”

And shouldn’t this be the case?  After all, if I could make a living watching baseball on TV, I would do it in a heartbeat.  I know people who love to fish.  Does that mean they should be earning a living at it?  I know people who love nothing more than to play a round of golf.  Does that mean they should get paid for it?

For me, I think the answer is this: do what you love.  Pursue it.  Immerse yourself in it.  And if you’re able to, do it for a living.  But either way, don’t stop.  I stopped playing music and writing fiction for a while back in ’94 and ’95, and then again in the early 2000s.  You know what?  I found myself out of sorts.  Unfulfilled.  Unpleasant at times.  Well, duh.  I wasn’t doing what I loved to do.  Now I make a little supplemental family income and I get to write fiction and play with fabulous musicians and create good – sometimes great – music.  It isn’t superstardom, but so what?

I have musician friends, some of whom play or sing for a living, and it isn’t easy.  I’m sure they had thoughts of stardom when they were air-guitaring in front of the mirror in 1985, but despite the difficulties, they’ve chosen to keep doing what they can to earn a living playing music.  Other people I know had thoughts of stardom but decided to go into teaching or engineering or accounting.  But they haven’t stopped playing.

I wish Merry Clayton had made it big.  I wish lots of people had made it big.  But there’s no reason they should have, just like there’s no reason I should be paid to watch baseball.  That’s life.  I have two daughters who in a year’s time will be majoring in fields of study that guarantee them nothing except a degree in four years.  What happens beyond that is anyone’s guess.  But I hope in twenty years, both of them are still pursuing their love, whether it’s during the week from 8 to 5, or on evenings and weekends.  Either way, they will be successes in my book. 

And you know what?  Merry Clayton is a star in my book, too.  To hell with superstardom.

Rock Star For a Day

A serendipitous twist propelled my bandmates and me into a realm of temporary rock stardom last week while at the same time a good-natured musician named Izzy was relegated to the role of story-teller.

Many months ago, Izzy gave Paula Lorenzo-Tackett, director of Cache Creek Casino Resort in Brooks, California a business card for his band, 2^nd Time Around.  There are countless bands called 2^nd Time Around, or in my band’s case, “Second Time Around,” and lo and behold, after searching on-line for a while, Ms. Lorenzo-Tackett happened upon the website of a band from Barringon, Illinois, liked the promotional video, and decided to ask them to perform at the sixth anniversary celebration of her restaurant, the Road Trip Bar and Grill of Capay, California.

My bandmates and I didn’t quite understand the request.  We are a very good classic-rock band, to be sure, but performing around the Chicago area these past several years has taught us nothing if not a healthy dose of humility.  There are many, many good bands out there, and we know that our performances can always be improved, our transitions and endings made tighter, our stage-presence refined, and we know that there are countless amazing performers within the California border.  So it was with a degree of skepticism that we accepted the invitation to fly out to the West Coast, all the while wondering if it was too good to be true.

It wasn’t.  For two days we were treated like royalty, as Ms. Lorenzo-Tackett flew with us on a chartered jet to Sacramento, accompanied us on a stretch limo to her restaurant and casino, and then treated us to a state-of-the-art stage, lights and sound system, not to mention a wonderful stay at the beautiful Cache Creek Casino Resort.  The Entertainment Technical Manager at the casino, James Taylor, told me stories about his time working with Amy Grant and Blackfoot, and how when he got the call to work at Cache Creek he couldn’t turn it down because it was evident that the ownership believed in doing things the right way.  Strolling along the runways on the theater’s perimeter, I glanced at the photos of other performers who have graced the stage at Cache Creek – Ringo Star, Melissa Etheridge, Jay Leno, Smokey Robinson, etc. – and it was clear that doing things the right way had led to some wonderful performances.  And here we were, a cover band from Chicago, getting to play in front of 475 people in a spectacularly-decorated room with several audio and video experts working diligently to coax as good a performance out of us as possible.

For three sets, we performed our hearts out, hoping we would do right by the folks at Cache Creek, and ultimately, we think we did.  We had a blast, the crowd danced and yelled for more, and Paula and her husband Jerry gave us high praise.  Whether or not we were deserving of it, we didn’t know.  We just knew we had given it our all.

The leaders of Second Time Around, Johnny and Angie Fridono, are believers in karma.  Treat people right, and you’ll be treated right.  I’ve only been in the band for the past year, so I feel like I got to ride the coattails of decades of Johnny and Angie treating people right.  Who knew when I responded to a “keyboardist wanted” ad last year that it would lead to such an incredible journey?

At the show’s end, there was Izzy, clapping his hands in front of the stage.  I introduced myself, and he said, “I’m in a band called 2^nd Time Around too, and I’m the reason you’re here!”  He told me the story, and I wondered if he was going to be bitter about seeing a different band perform where his band had hoped to play.  But Izzy said graciously, “You guys are TEN TIMES better than we are.”  Izzy seems like another guy who treats people right, and I hope that karma catches up to him sometime and offers him the gig of a lifetime.

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Clockwork Angels

DAY NINETEEN: Clockwork Angels, running time 66:04, released June 12, 2012

Listening to Clockwork Angels, one gets the feeling that Rush enjoyed writing and recording this album.  Unlike Snakes and Arrows, there’s a sense of exploration and joy on this effort, with shifting moods, exciting riffs, some great hooks and plenty of moments that challenge each member of the band.  It’s easily the band’s best effort since Test for Echo, and quite possibly their best album since the early 80s.

The opening “Caravan” immediately provides the hook and infectious chorus so often lacking in later Rush material, setting the stage with the universal chorus of “I can’t stop thinking big,” and “BU2B” provides an exciting opening riff and a memorable refrain. 

The album gets bogged down a bit with the unnecessary effects and interludes.   There’s hardly a guitar part that isn’t bathed in effects, filling up the entire stereo spectrum, and beginnings and endings of songs are extended with traces of vocal and guitar parts swept with ethereal effects, sometimes serving to give the listener a respite from the onslaught of sound, other times doing nothing but prolonging what should have been a much shorter effort.  This isn’t Rush of 1981, after all; they are not at their prolific best.  An album of 50 minutes would have been preferred.

A silly megaphone effect is employed on two successive songs: the title track, and again at 1:55 of “The Anarchist” before going back to a terrific chorus.  As with many recent Rush songs, too often they write great parts of songs without writing an effective piece from beginning to end.  “Carnies” is an example of a track whose verse is a complete mess, but whose other sections work extremely well.

“The Halo Effect” is a complete song – probably the album’s best – melodic from the start, accessible, with universal lyrics, and one of the few times in recent memory that a Rush song ends exactly when it should at just over three minutes.  “The Wreckers” is another gem, perhaps going on a minute too long (particularly at the bridge at 2:50), but again a very good verse and chorus with a contagious guitar intro.

“Headlong Flight” is a blistering seven minutes of pure joy, employing brief allusions to Rush of yesteryear, including riffs from “Bastille Days” and “By-Tor and the Snow Dog.”  It’s a powerhouse that I would expect to be included in any future tours the band might make, though I wonder if Clockwork Angels might be Rush’s swan-song.  It wouldn’t be a bad way to cap off a forty-year career.

As with so many hard-rock albums these days, Rush squashed the sound too much in the mastering process.  You can practically hear the limiter pumping at 1:10 of “Seven Cities of Gold” as Geddy reaches for the high notes.  I also noticed it at 2:43 of “Carnies.”  Not a preferred production technique, but it’s unfortunately been the trend of heavy rock music for the past decade.  Listen to A Farewell to Kings back to back with Clockwork Angels and you’ll hear just how much production has changed since the 70s, and not all for the better.

“The Garden” ends the album with an touching summary of what one takes away after a long life of ups and downs.  And then…it says it again and again, for almost seven minutes.  But oh well.  Such is the reality of an ambitious band in the CD age (though we’re almost out of that age, I would suspect).  

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to Caress of Steel, a very weird way to end a twenty-day journey.

Yes you can: Open an IRA for your Child

Money seems to be a preoccupation of mine these days, which is ridiculous, as there are more important things to consume one’s time, like albums, ping-pong and baseball.  But one aspect of money management I’ve embraced recently is one that every parent should at least consider: opening Roth IRAs for your children. 

Back in college, when my friend Mark announced that he’d just opened an IRA, not only did I not know what an IRA was, but once explained to me, I didn’t understand what the hurry was.  After all, I was still visiting the TYME machine (ATM to those of you from outside Wisconsin) three times a night to buy “just one more” pitcher of Hamm’s; the only foresight I possessed was drinking a glass of water to minimize the inevitable hangover the following morning.

Over time, I learned about saving early and saving often, and by now my family has reaped the benefits of this strategy, but I could no doubt be in a better position had I started saving prior to obtaining a full-time job after college graduation.  As a father of three, I’ve looked for ways to get my kids on the right track earlier than I did, particularly since debt accumulation is higher than ever and wages for many careers are stagnant.  Saving money might be more important for those currently in their teens and 20s than it ever was for those currently in their 40s and 50s.

Enter the custodial Roth IRA.  Yes, your kids can open an IRA (or, more accurately, you can open one for them if they’re under age 18).  Any money your kids earn up to $5500 this year can be put into an IRA.  That doesn’t mean your child can’t spend or save the money she’s earned this year; my two daughters earned small amounts in 2013, and they were allowed to spend or save that money as they saw fit, but I matched their amounts and put it into their respective IRA accounts.  Some companies don’t allow you to open up a custodial IRA – Fidelity is one example – and some brokerage firms require minimums that my 16 year-olds couldn’t reach, but there are several options to fit most people’s needs.  I ended up opening accounts through E*Trade, though I could just as easily have opened accounts at TRowe Price, Vanguard, Charles Schwab or TD Ameritrade. 

The idea of course is twofold: get your kids to become accustomed to saving (even if they’re currently not flipping the bill, they’re learning that saving for one’s retirement is important), and start growing their money.  My daughters only earned $900 and $1500, respectively, in 2013.  But if they manage to earn 7% for the next 50 years, that money will grow to $26,511 and $44,186.  Not a bad start.

If you can’t afford to match your children’s income in total, perhaps come up with a compromise and have your kids save a portion of their savings and you match that portion.  Even a couple of hundred dollars is better than nothing, and there are funds that will allow you to open an IRA for as little as $100.

One note: you can only invest legitimate earnings, so keep good records of your child’s income and file a tax return even if they don’t have any withholdings to recoup.  One of my daughters earned all of her income by babysitting and doing other odd jobs that didn’t require a W2 or generate a 1099, but I still had her fill out a tax return (form 1040EZ only took her 5 minutes to complete).  Throughout the year, I kept track of all of her earnings on an Excel spreadsheet and included it with my tax records.

There are great resources to get you up to speed on opening Roth IRAs for your children.  Three than I perused before taking the plunge are below:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2011/04/18/make-your-kid-rich-with-a-roth-ira/

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/110713/benefits-starting-ira-your-child.asp

http://www.kiplinger.com/article/saving/T046-C001-S001-give-the-gift-of-a-roth-ira.html

Now start keeping track of your children's savings, open up an IRA, select an index mutual fund, and watch it grow.