Home Sweet Home

I live in a rehabbed Catholic school in downtown Topeka. It's very odd place, or you could say it has character. They left some of the original school lighting that I can control with a fader. Impractical (I don't do fluorescent well)

The spiral staircase of death. If you don't find my body for days, this is why.

One of the nicest places I've lived for sure.

They left the original cork and chalk boards. 

Aesthetics aside (those will be dealt with), everything works. (DVD, Laserdisc, etc) yay.

My recliner is my latest addition. The room is now full.

The second floor is where the convent used to be, so each bedroom has two doors. The nun's quarters were half of each bedroom. The doors on the left both go to my bedroom, on the right is the laundry and bathrooms

Looking back, the planet radio room is on the right with, again two doors. The second door's first step (rear) would be a serious mistake, so it's kept locked.

We Can Go Downtown..

After I set up all of my media yesterday, I decided to just hang and  watch some favorites last night. I have Plex which is hard to understand I guess. I am signed into another account and I get his movies apparently through the wonder of the internet. I guess he gets to choose which one's he wants to share.

Anyway, I went browsing through his collection and I found an  "old" favorite Valley Girl from 1983. I remember it was a cute movie back then and I think it was Nicolas Cage's first or second role. I got about 15 minutes into it and it gagged me with a freaking pitchfork. Talk about not aging well. It was annoying.
So I kept searching and decided to stop an another old favorite "Moscow On The Hudson" with Robin Williams and Maria Chaquita Alonzo. I remember seeing this at the movie previews we did at KY 102. Just about every week, we would preview the major movie coming on that week. We'd give away the passes at remotes or on the air. I got see so many movies for free and before anyone else did. So, I stopped on this movie and it still was great. Ms. Alonzo count NOT have been cuter and of course Robin Williams playing a Russian defector? Still entertaining.

I finished my night wrapping up the first season of "Good Girls."
This is a netflix series about good girls who get way over their head in gang like activity.

I found the series very entertaining. I've been a fan of Ms. Hendricks since Mad Men but the other two are quite entertaining also. I've become a huge fan of Mae Whitman who plays the young "very white" woman. The series is very well done and eagerly await season two.
So, now on Netflix, I'm waiting for the next season of "The Crown", "Ozark" and "Good Girls."

I woke up for the first time in a long time on Saturday morning with a clear head, so I decided to walk to the post office and mail a package to a friend. It seemed downtown was very Zen like with it's emptiness. I got to the post office and was listening to some great soul music on someone's radio. So I then I rang the bell. I found out it belonged to Edith and we talked about Smokey, Diana and the great soul music of all time. I told her my dad's  saying about me being so ugly I had better learn to dance. "Did you?" she asked and I told her I did. "I'd dance with you anytime" she said.
I smiled. So Edith, an older black woman who has three years left before retiring and I are buds.

As I was walking back to my apartment downtown, I took a detour as Jackson Browne's "Before The Deluge" came on planet radio in my pocket. That song has always made me pensive, but this morning, for some reason, I got lost in my thoughts and drifted considerably. It's the usual stuff, "why I am here?" "What the hell am I doing?" kind of thing and for some reason, calmness entered my consciousness.
Maybe, just maybe I'm supposed to be somewhere I'm at. I am unable to process thoughts like that at this time. My consciousness is very stubborn. I'm looking forward to being sober.
The competition has a big street party right in front of our stations today. Of course I will stop by (1 1/2 blocks away) just to be sure they are being good stewards of the business. :)

On my way home, I noticed a Jeep with an International Harvester front license plate stopped at a red light so, I went over and told the driver my dad worked at IH for 30 years in the Quad Cities. He told me the license plate was in honor of HIS father who just passed and worked for 35 years at IH in the QUAD CITIES.  He went to Moline, graduated in 1977 and has lived in Topeka for 20 years. Two strangers who damn near cried stopped at a stop sign in downtown Topeka Kansas.
Complete kismet on a Saturday morning.

My boys in Thunderhead play tonight about 45 minutes away. There are my favorite tribute band without a question. They play Rush songs true and note for note. I am looking forward to seeing Mike, Billy and the rest of the troop later today.



There will be a lengthy bike ride preceding that as I've found a nice trail running through central Topeka. I won't get much speed on the trail but the distance is nice.

Please Mr. Postman

 The postman was very good to me today.

All remastered and everything with all the demos, too.

You Can Get Anything You Want...

Well, here I am post Facebook.

I think I've gotten more done than ever before. But, in order to function on my company's social media platforms, I must have a facebook page. So I made up one. But it is what it is and right now, no problems.

I went to see Night Ranger tonight, while not one of my top ten bands, I've always enjoyed their music. I think the first song KY102 played back in the day was "Sing Me Away" in 1982 I believe.
There were four out of the five original guys and the "replacement" was in Alice Cooper's band for 8 years, so he had some chops, too. Very tight songs played with great enthusiasm. Jack Blades has a great stage presence. I wanted to get to Jack tonight and chat with him about the interview I did with him and Tommy Shaw at KSHE's Real Rock Cafe about 25 years ago.




KSHE had a restaurant in Union Station that was pretty freaking cool. The food was very good and we spared very little expense. We hired good people who knew how to run a restaurant. The Cajun Chicken Pasta was my favorite. I remember asking to be in charge of the music and they let me. I was also in charge of videos on the various screens around the cafe. I had a Laserdisc, DVD and VHS all hooked into a video mixer and put the videos on 6 hour VHS tapes that actually for what we were looking for, did a pretty good job. So, I put something from Tom Petty's Greatest Hits from laserdisc and I'd mix that with something from "The Wall" from VHS and maybe something from a Dave Mason DVD. Then on VHS, the KSHE logo, then, well you get the idea. I recall spending hours and being up all night getting these tapes ready for the grand opening. I wanted to make sure they all looked great and blended together well which they did. A couple of problems arose however when I didn't edit well and that allowed a bare breasted woman to slip thought during the "Gimme Shelter" video. Leaving in the rape scene from "The Wall" wasn't too smart either. Heh. I used the video editor on the music too. I thought I had a great mix, but seems there was a problem with the licensing companies after awhile. The restaurant was in business about a year I think before the Hard Rock across the parking lot sued us. It seems the names were a bit similar.

John Entwhistle's band Ox played one night at the Cafe.
He was absolutely livid when he got inside the place. I don't know what he was expecting but, it wasn't a "cafe." I did an interview with him previous to the show that night, he was just fed up and took it out on me. Every other word was "fuck" and he had such a bad cough, I literally could not understand what he was saying. He gave a very uninspired performance.

Myself, Slash and band at the Real Rock Cafe.

Me and Jesse James DuPree of Jackyl, right before he takes a chainsaw to a wooden chair.

And that's where I interviewed Jack Blades. Slash and Jesse James Dupree of Jackyl, too. He was shocked that a radio station also had a restaurant. The place was packed for him and Tommy and they were very cool signing everyone's stuff. I wanted to say hi tonight and see if he remembered.

I'll find the picture of Jack, Tommy and myself and add it as soon as I can.