A few weeks after starting this blog I was joined by a good friend, Puppet Show. In fact, one of the reasons I began blogging was because he went away on vacation and left me with no one to talk to about music! He co-blogged with me for a while in those early days and as he was my sole source of music conversation at that time, I often went to him with my random and embarrassingly stupid questions. I’ve been begging him to come back and do some posts. He’s finally agreed to recount his story of how he spent this year’s summer holidays for you all. It’s a doozy! [edit, sorry! got the links all sorted now]

“What I did over my Summer Vacation – A Musical Interlude: Opus I”

We all have summer vacations that as kids we remember into our adulthood, there are a lot of things that can trigger those memories. Some of us are blessed to live in an area where there are many things to do and not far to go, while others have to travel a good amount of distance to get to where we’re going. I have a little of everything going my way; my family owns a cabin on Lake Huron in Michigan. The nice thing about it is that we go every year with basic out of pocket expenses being groceries and gas. Good news is, buying 2 weeks worth of groceries is cheap, bad news is, I no longer live in Michigan and the road trip to the cabin has gone from 3 hours to 15 hours; still, it’s worth every hour behind the wheel.

Now, the interesting thing about the area is TV signals are nonexistent, and with the new DTV mandate the old TV airwaves that you used to get at 10 at night are gone. I actually prefer no TV in a beach cabin as to me it’s useless anyway, you’re on the beach all day. With no TV we MANDITORILY turn on the local radio station (which will be locked in for the duration of the trip): the wondrous WLEW FM Cruise 102.1 out of Bad Axe, Michigan. I so love this station, as it plays the same thing EVERY year. I kid you not, the sampling is awash of who was who and begs of nostalgic toys that you lost as a kid. A sampling of an average day: Ted Nugent’s Fred Bear(well he is the motor city madman), Journey: any album pre-Raised on Radio, Styx:  any song off Paradise Theatre, Ugly Kid Joe’s  Cats in the Cradle, Eddie Money’s “Shaking,” 38 Special’s  “Fear the Reaper,” Carly Simon, Cher, KISS’ “Beth,” Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs,” Duran Duran, Kid Rock, ELO, Cheap Trick, this was a Wednesday sampling of stuff I remembered to jot down,… incredible.

The best thing about the station, (I have no idea if it is in it’s charter), is that it is forced to play these two songs at least once every day; Gordon Lightfoot’s Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road Now I know the good ol’ Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a great song, and I actually look forward to hearing it and in the evening as I watch the ships on the horizon in the shipping channel, I may hum a few bars to myself. As I hummed I would think, as I looked out over the Huron lake… why am I hearing this song about a ship on Lake Superior sung by a Canadian? But, I Digress… My biggest snap back to reality was when I heard Empire of the Sun’s Walking on A Dream I was immediately taken back to a track that Tart directed me to months prior that I played on an almost regular basis… to now be hearing it on the station I listen to during my summer vacation… that rocked.

Let’s return to the cabin now for the humorous side of my musical vacation, excuse the set up, it is long but well worth it. As long as I can remember we have enjoyed (I use that term loosely) rental cabins to the one side of our property. Typically there is rarely an issue, but from time to time I may nicely let a renter know that the dunes they are on, or the beach they are using, is ours and please use the rental property to the side. Mostly you will receive a “sorry” or “no problem”… but there’s always that one group. To make a long story short my sister ran into trouble with a (drunken) group (family) that just seemed to want to cross that line and cause trouble, they are regulars at this rental property, and lucky me I got to meet that group this year. The family appeared to be mid to late 30’s parents with a wannabe stud McMuffin who was whipped and beaten down (nagged) by his aspiring MILF failed-stripper wife (more on that later). Kids ranged from 8 to 12 years of age, and their 300lbs 5’8” Uncle (Insert Fiddle About joke a la Tommy here).

As you can imagine, all sorts use the rentals, units are decent and mixed in too, (about 20 units placed throughout a 2 acre lot leading to a beach) as I said the “family” didn’t take to kindly to the notion of private property vs. public access vs. rental property last year, and for lack of a better term were complete asses. Me being 6’6” and well into the 270lbs area, I can appear intimidating, so I am not sure why, but they didn’t want to seem to cross said barrier to cause havoc this year. They instead decided to nuisance us… so how do you nuisance someone, well it’s quite funny actually. You get your portable “boom” box and get close to the disputed private v. renter property line and play music to annoy the other side, while that plays out gyrate your hips back and forth side to side like an ex-stripper in front of your 8 year old and 12 year old. The hip thrusts during Squeeze Box played off their “Who’s greatest hits” CD was priceless, as Roger Daltrey would bellow “in and out and in and out and in and out” she would thrust her hips back and forth with her hands placed in front of her attached to some air booty, I never laughed so hard in my life, it’s what makes the world go round people… excellent.

So how do you end an epic vacation such as this, well funny you ask, well since we are in the area anyway we will go to the wunderbar town of Frankenmuth Michigan, which is home to such shopping as Bronners, the worlds largest Christmas store; and believe me, in all honesty it is. Mix that with the culinary delight of any Faux German town aspiring to bring in visiting tourists… the chicken dinners. Yes I said that right, family style chicken dinners. To this day when I think of family style chicken I think of Germany, it goes hand in hand. Kidding aside, they make a great family style dinner, and yes we go every year it’s part of the experience. So where is the musical interlude to this? Well picture this, the town is done up with German Bavarian architecture, even the covered bridge that was brought on to the Bavarian Inn’s property was made in Germany and shipped over piece by piece. Enter the restaurant, have a seat, order, and enjoy your dinner, complete with Bavaria accents, art, and waiters and waitresses in Lederhosen and Lederdressen for the girls. Let us not leave out the accordion player that walks around from table to table; I wish I had my camera on me or even a recording device because here is the best part: our accordion player was an older gentleman who played all the German classics but he had a sense of humor. He would play polka classics to the 60’s plus crowd who showed up for the early bird special, but as he approached the table of college kids a few tables from me he broke out into “Proud Mary” ala Creedence Clearwater Revival, (masterfully done too), the best accordion version I ever heard. I tip him well and laughed as I left, absolutely wunderbar.

So as I leave with my musical interlude of what I did over my summer vacation, I would challenge you to look and listen and find joy in the music of past in present in your life. Carry on my wayward son and Happy Trails to you…  Puppet Show

buy The Who’s Tommy …. buy Empire of the Sun’s Walking on a Dream ….. buy Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road ….. buy Ugly Kid Joe’s As Ugly As It Gets: The Best of Ugly Kid Joe ….. buy Ted Nugent’s Spirit of the Wild ….. buy Van Halen’s Diver Down ….. buy The Who’s 20th Century Masters, The Millennium Collection, The Best of The Who ….. buy Gordon Lightfoot’s Complete Greatest Hits

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.