Things I did not do today: finish the Taxonomy of Cruelty essay at which I've been picking away. Make any progress at all on laying out next week's Bleats. Finish the wedding slideshow I have to do by Friday. Check the mailroom to see if the new butter dish came in.

Things I did do: filed a fun Substack; edited and submitted a commissioned piece; laundry; vacuumed (there's a pulse-throbbing tale I'll relate tomorrow); walked the dog thrice and learned that the new kibble is really firming up his innards. Yes sir yes sir three bags full. Most important: I renewed my license to drive.

The Government Center is now located in Southdale, the mall around which my entire life from the age of six has somehow revolved. I used to do this at the big Government Center downtown, kitty-whomp from work, and in recent years this meant going through tunnel past the cafeteria that was closed, and the glass cases that once held historical exhibits, but were left empty post-COVID. Now it’s the happy shiny mall.

I tweeted that I expected to be done with it in seven minutes, and someone immediately responded with a laughing and weeping emoji. But as soon as I sent that tweet, I was called the counter. I was out of there in five minutes. I know DMVs is have an extraordinarily bad reputation, but I’ve never had anything but efficient friendly service at the Minnesota outlets. I made my appointment online; I filled out all the necessary paperwork online, I showed up a minute before my appointment and was promptly called at 1:45, click click, click sign here snap the photo – as usual I look like an aging war criminal - and please take a look in the box and read the top line. Question: do you see any flashing lights? Me: no. The clerk pushes a button and asks me if I see any flashing lights now.

I didn’t.

I wondered if I should.

I said no. I guess it was a question to make sure you were actually listening and paying attention. Or maybe there were flashing lights, and she just assumed that I’d said yes. Since I wasn’t walking into walls and didn’t have Coke bottle glasses, or a cane or a dog, I was good to go. I was out of there in five minutes, not seven, and when I got in my car, I got a text.

Minnesota Nice. Really!

Dinner with Uncle Realtor Gary and his wife Jill, a former stew who used to work for Northwest Orient (gonnnnnng) Airline. At the end of the evening an friend of theirs visited the table; he was a former airline pilot who’d been married to an airline pilot, with kids who are airline pilots; his father had been an airline pilot. Imagine being born into that family and wanting to be a bus driver. You’d never hear the end of it. I asked him about favorite airport approaches, and he was talking about how much he enjoyed Washington National, until they made them do it on GPS. Flying that beast with your own hands, sliding in along the river - he lit up describing it. What a skill! What a joy to love to land as much as you love to leave.

ANYWAY I gave Gary and Jill the Fred tour before dinner, and when we stopped down by the Club Room I remembered it was Wine Down Wednesday. Note: it has never been Wine Down Wednesday beforeT the staff put out champagne and meats and cheese and cake, and everyone was invited to meet the building staff and chat. I stopped in to tell them I wouldn't be able to stay, but I certainly did appreciate them and they were great. I mean, two different staffers asked me how my Boston trip was, and one asked if I'd had a good time with my daughter. Their natural and professional extroversion has met my own insistence on being that guy in the elevator, and hence we're all familiar with each other in the general, small-town sense.

It is easy to be that guy in the elevator, if you have a dog and can read the car. Some people you leave alone. Today a young woman in full Flashdance garb entered the car on the third floor, where the gym is. Headphones and full scowl at the phone: do not engage. Later: a guy gets on carrying a box that contains a waffle maker. Well hell yeah we're going to talk waffle mixes for seven floors.

Anyway, after I'd made my apologies, the staffer asked if we'd like some sparkling wine for my makeshift tour? On the house! It was totally Fred.

Jill brought some pictures she found while idly thrifting - I think she thought "James would be interested, or, if not, give it the heave-ho."

You know there's one of those geolocating nerds out there who could find this location after a minute of clicking. There was another, with our old friend:

Ah! That narrows it down, doesn't it! I decided I would become that geolocating nerd, and a minute later . . .

The Noyes MN crossing, now closed and abandoned.

Pretty good, eh? Count me among the geolocating geniuses! Sure, the photo had the name NOYES MN on the back, but I had to turn it over and look at it, so I did bring some effort to the project.

We went to dinner and sat outside and had lobster rolls, and it was just a delight. I cannot tell you how much the in-law outreach means. I treasure all these people and I'm lucky they want me to stick around. They're going to Rome soon and wanted some recommendations, and when I went home I dived into the archives to get some routes and points of interest, and was reminded again of last summer's wonderful trip, and had the familiar reaction: divorce sours a thousand photos. But I knew I'd done a good job arranging that family vacation, and everyone had a marvelous time, and if it was the last, well, that wasn't my doing. I didn't decide to haul out the bolt cutter. Found a photo of me and my daughter toasting my new retired future in a Trastevere restaurant. No poison there. We'll be happy in Rome some day again.

And now . . .

Deep in the “Current Work” folder is a bin of Tiny Ads. I thought I might add them to the book of the same name.

This one - oh, the sadness it no doubt caused.

It’s an old ad - late 40s, early 50s. I’m no expert on the song-poem industry, although I know more than most, simply because most don’t know anything. There was a revival of interest in these awful records in the Oughts, I think, maybe the early Tens, thanks to the fantastic “Beware of the Blog” from WAMU. The 365 Days Project resurrected so many old records of dubious merit, most of which weren’t song poems.

There’s a compilation of the best of the worst, or vice versa, and I’ve always been in awe of the confidence of the man who had to sell these lyrics.

The fellow who sent in the lyrics for the next song might have heard what followed, and thought “perhaps I should have sent in a few more lyrics.”

You can just imagine him thinking he’d written a classic.

The singer of many of these tunes was:

Rodd Keith (born Rodney Keith Eskelin; January 30, 1937 – December 15, 1974) was an American multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. He is perhaps the best known figure in the obscure musical subgenre known as song poem music.

He worked for several companies active in the song poem business, a practice also known as song sharking, and generally dismissed as a scam.

His earliest song-poem work was made for Sandy Stanton's Film City label in which he would build the entire track using a Chamberlin keyboard (a precursor to the mellotron). These early recordings have a woozy, distinctive sound that are like nothing else before or since.

He fell off a freeway overpass, possibly while flying high on goofballs.

He’s praised as an accidental genius. But it’s all awful.

It got me thinking of someone else who had a brief vogue during this time, in the last days of the Good Internet: The Sleep-Talker. Dion Macgregor.

He made many records. The BBC tells the revival story here.

I think he was faking it.

Note: they got Edward Gorey to do the album art. That’s impressive. What do you know about Gorey? Was there really much to know at all, outside of the delightfully macabre art?

Because of the settings and style of Gorey's work, many people have assumed he was British; in fact, he only left the U.S. once, for a visit to the Scottish Hebrides.

In later years, he lived year-round in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, where he wrote and directed numerous evening-length entertainments, often featuring his own papier-mâché puppets, an ensemble known as Le Theatricule Stoique.

I can't say whether he was happy, overall, but he was productive, which was its own form of happiness.