Category: non-coffee stuff

Salt & Pepper Diner Essential Song of the Day for 9/4

I recently read Carrie Brownstein’s memoir Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. Some of you may know her from Portlandia, more than a few of you are saying “Who?“, but I think of her as one third of seminal 90s/00s band Sleater-Kinney. This is my favorite S-K song, try it 21x in a row for yourself.

Salt & Pepper Diner Essential Songs of the Day for June 16

Remember mashups? Thanks to Glee and the Pitch Perfect franchise, there was a hot minute when listening to one song at a time just wasn’t enough. But one way or another a golden opportunity was lost as no one made the right choice.

These two songs together would give us, if the not the mashup we want, definitely the mashup we deserve. Layer these two guilty pleasures together and 1+1 will equal a jillion. Play them back to back 21x in a row and they’ll be all mashed up in your head, you’ll see.

Salt & Pepper Diner Essential Songs of the Day for 4/3

We all know about one-hit wonders, but what about acts that successfully chart two songs and are never heard from again?

You can have your Tone Loc and your Paula Cole, but for me the best was the Greg Kihn Band. Both hits are undeniably ear candy that are fun to sing along with (especially in your car with the windows down on a nice day), you get a little bit of jangling guitar in one and some white boy funk in the other, and the clincher? One was the source material for a Weird Al song. Game, set and match. If you weren’t into early 80’s rock, just play ‘em 21x in a row and you’ll see.



this is what passes for being social these days

Most days lately I continue the long slog toward becoming a living caricature of an old man by watching the birds who gather at our recently installed backyard feeder. We get a lot of regulars, from cardinals to blue jays to woodpeckers to mourning doves to starlings. I can watch for hours. I’ve been surprised by how much comfort and enjoyment I get from it.

one of these is a woodpecker and the other is an abject fiction sold to us as unwitting children by the cartoon industrial complex

If this makes me an old fart then so be it.

the author (left) and an unidentified friend enjoy an evening of theater in this undated photo

Salt & Pepper Diner Essential Song of the Day for 1/3

We watched the new Bee Gees documentary this week, and I’ve listened to quite a bit of their music over the last few days. I feel like I’m on the verge of dashing off a 5,000 word thought piece on their genius, where they went wrong, and all sorts of vitally important Bee Gees stuff. Dissecting the songs Tragedy and Lonely Days would probably be worth 5-10 pages alone. In the meantime, I’m going to listen to their best song 21x in a row.