What I Did Today? (01/05/13)

Okay let's start by answering the blog title question by paraphrasing the late great Edwin Starr from way back in 1970 and say "absolutely nothing".

As I mentioned I was up at the ungodly hour of 4am or so and reheating the chicken noodle soup that I made for H the night before. After a couple bowls of that and reading some more MLB stories, I went back to bed to finish up my 2nd book of the week which was Brad Thor's "Final Black" which was a good read except for the preachy right wing asides from one of the novel's protagonists. Those parts kind of went blah. blah. blah whatever.

I have couple more books left from my recent Barnes & Noble discount table purchasing free for all. I guess I will be reading one of those on my next nocturnal readathon. I have the darn red squiggly lines under the last word of the last sentence. Look I put in hyphens and it's still red squiggly lined so I am just going to leave it as it is. Spell-checking gawds be damned! LOL.

Back to my doing nothing today. So I finished the book and went back to sleep around 630iah and woke back up at 10am. You get the feeling that when your day starts this way it's pretty effing likely that not much will be accomplished.

One my customers yesterday told me to check out a couple of videos on YouTube. Dave S. from Winnipeg referred me to the full versions of the Kennedy Center Honors for Led Zeppelin and for Buddy Guy tributes. I'm really glad that he did so.

Let's start with the tribute to the greatest rock band ever Led Zeppelin. From the get go this tribute was great with Jack Black's opening monologue that showed how much of fan he is of the band. What makes a tribute come across as honest and sincere is sensing the vibes of the speakers, presenters and performers. Starting off with Jack Black leading into the Foo Fighters leading to Kid Rock to Lenny Kravitz to Jason Bonham with the Wilson sisters. You could see, feel and hear the sincerity in their homages to Zep. Seeing Dave Grohl back behind the drum kit reminds you of the late John Bonham or if not him it sure as heck looks like Gonzo from Sesame Street was playing the drums. Then seeing the drummer of the Foos, Taylor Hawkins doing his best Grohl as a frontman singing the classic "Rock 'n' Roll" and having the time of his life doing so. Then Kid Rock doing "Ramble On" and then Lenny Kravitz doing "Whole Lotta Love". You can sense the honor these guys felt doing Zep's material in front of Plant, Jones and Page. Then the finale with Jason Bonham getting behind the kit just like his late Dad in Zep's glory years and the amazing Wilson sisters from Heart that have been Zep-heads forever it seems coming together with a tight, tight band, string section as well as a horn section and to top it off a full-fledged choir performing the epic "Stairway To Heaven" as it was their song to begin with in the first place. The camera flashes back and forth from this spiritual performance to the members of Zep that you can see are greatly touched by this amazing from the bopping heads of Jones and Page to the tears in the eyes of Plant. Simply amazing!

I then looked up the Buddy Guy tribute and was floored by the words and music. Can it get any better to start off an homage with the voice and presence of Morgan Freeman? I think not. That man and that voice can sell ice to Eskimos or swampland to gullible hicks like me. The words, the phrasing and the inflections in Freeman's voice touch a chord. Tracey Chapman then performed a Buddy Guy version of what we normally refer to Elvis' "Hound Dog". That segued into amazing performances with Jimmie Vaughan, Gary Clark Jr., Jeff Beck, oh my goodness Beth Hart and the inimitable flame-haired Bonnie Raitt. I singled out Beth Hart there because though I have heard the name before I had never heard her sing. All I can is OMG! What a talent! I immediately searched YouTube and have added at least 5 tracks to my favorites list. Check out her performance from Rockpalast 2011 called "Sister Heroine". It touched my heart and that's off the first listen. There aren't many songs that do that.

Next time I speak to Dave S., I'll have to thank him for turning me onto these performances. They'll be played often on this desktop as I type more of these blogs or search the internet.

So as is often the case when I get onto YouTube several hours go by before I come up for air. LOL. What started with the Guy & Zep tributes ended up with watching performances from Beth Hart, Joe Bonamassa, Zappa Plays Zappa, Styx with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, Steelers Wheel, Buffalo Springfield, Joss Stone, Roger Hodgson and Joe Walsh. Well there went the afternoon.

Now it's time for supper. I think it is a sandwich type of night. I was going to go crazy with a spaghetti sauce but that will be done tomorrow.

Peace out!