Exciting social whirl at the Fred tonight, as the Spring Party gets underway in a few minutes. I was just out to take Birch for a micturition, since he’ll be alone and inside when I’m enjoying the evening and the event. Me? I’ll be alone and outside, which is completely different! Yes, just realized that I don’t know anyone, aside from a few folks in my general bracket to whom I nod down the hall, so unless I insert myself bodily into conversations, which I am perfectly capable of doing if need be, I’ll be standing at a table and eating and then coming back up to do the podcast.

But somehow the possibility of social contact is absolutely thrilling. What once was the norm or at least something that happened all the time without fanfare - you know, talking to people, having a bite and a glass of wine - is now an anomaly. I’ve been so Birch-bound I haven’t even thought of getting out.

LATER Well well I spent the interval chatting with some friendly folk from my floor, and I know what you’re thinking - oh don’t confine yourself to people from your floor! Branch out! Some day. For now I’m content to chat with them, particularly when the fellow is describing Diner routines I did on the air in 1997.

I was surprised and exceptionally grateful. Cannot describe what a tonic it was. Socializing, yes, but also archival praise!

Annnnd Birch was barking when I got back. Longest I’ve been gone. I figured it wouldn’t be a problem because everyone was at the party, perhaps. Or they just don’t hear him. To be frank, I'm done worrying about it. I feel bad for him, but I have to get out. And when I walk past the next door neighbor's, there's always a great shrieking and wailing of their small children, and I never hear it in Fred Base One. So, new era. Dog has to deal.

AI generated music always starts right. The right chord, the right arrangement, the right notes. There are now dozens of AI stations on YouTube playing manufactured easy-listening / swank / lounge stuff, with AI spy or sci-fi art. As a lark I tried using it for evening background music, Muzak if you wish. But I stopped, because something in my brain rejected it. I can’t explain. It was as if I was feeding it a tofu simulacrum.

YouTube still wants me to listen to clanker swank, though, and tosses up all sorts of new sub-genres. This one made me laugh, in a humorless “we have lost all cultural definitions” way:

 

 

There is no such thing as gas station music. But it had the desired effect on the target market:

The second one sums it up: simple childhood. The music is the inner soundtrack of our parents, we think.

The station itself isn’t imaginative, though. You will of course recognize it as the Tramway, and you're thinking that Phillips 66 copied it. I think not. This one . . .

 

 

. . . was built five years earier. The idea was out there. Phillips would expand and refine the design:

 

 

That one's in North Carolina.

I think it's the most enduring example of jet-age commercial architecture in the country.

Re: yesterday's video. I think I discovered something in one of the old photos of the Casablanca. When I saw it, I was, as the kids once said, shook. A long long time ago, while browsing photos in the library of the Strib, I came across a startling image of a belligerant man standing in front of one of the dive bars on Washington Avenue.

 

 

Well.

I've had that image in my head for 15 years, at least.

This one, too.

 

 

End of the bar.

 

     
  ding
     

 

I'd love to know if I'm right.

 

 

More next Friday.

 

 

 

  
   

 

 

I was at Peg Lynch's old house in Beckett, and was getting a glass out of the cupboard. The Kings were there as well, and I told Denis that I had just heard one of the secondary pieces for his "Lovejoy" sountrack and it reminded me of Gershwin, specifically the "Novelette in Fourths" He was quite pleased.

(In a departure from our usual AI-generated interpretation, I give you the main theme from the show, written by our dear friend Mr. DK. And yes, that's how the Kings came to know Al Swearengen.)

 
 

 

 

 

Not much is known about the band, says the internet, except for the names of the musicians, the producer, the label, the year it was released, and so on. The lead singer may or may not have been French.

You can certainly tell from the opening notes that this is, indeed, 1986.

 
 

 

That will do. The week went quickly and I didn't do any of the things I intended to do. I did different things.

I suppose there's next week, then. Thank you for your patronage, and I'll see you around. Friday column up at 11 AM for the paying customers.