Neanderpundit

M Porretto is reminiscing about the impact Gordon Lightfoot had on his life, and mourning that while Gordon is still around his voice has slipped off to the Great Beyond.

This is an interesting thought to hold in your mouth, roll around your tongue, press up against the back of your front teeth.
A lot of my heroes- in music, in print, in film, in person- have left pretty solid witness marks on me, and when I rub up against those old worn spots I often reminisce about the way that person changed me.

My course has been steered by some pretty unlikely pilots. Sure, Dad is responsible for a lot of my current behavior, then mom, then many of the people who have taught me the ongoing value of decent ethics in the workplace and in my personal life.

I haven’t got the gene that makes me capable of playing music, so I don’t have the same connection that Fran has; my talents lay elsewhere. I have had the privelege of meeting and sometimes working with people like W Edwards Deming. Joseph Engleburger. Dean Kamen.

While those who are my heroes have passed or will pass, the work they do remains. And affects millions. Just as the music of Gordon will live on.

What is important is not the life of the men, but their work. Their work exists outside of time.

On a lighter note, I once took the wife to see Roger Whittaker, another “easy listening” type. I was the only man inthe audience with any hair. I stepped out to one of the side exits to have a smoke, and was accosted by a gaggle of old broads, some in wheelchairs, who had also come to smoke. Most of them sounded like Lucille Ball in her late years. Some were actually smoking through their tracheotomies. “You’re a fine looking young man” they said. “Do you have a ride home? I have a new caddie”. “Not too many young men come to see the finer performers like Roger”. I finished my butt and made a polite, and hopefully not obviously hasty exit. Roger was himself in fine form- and i believe as of this writing still is. As it was, I took the wife. Me, I woulda preferred Steely Dan.

A regular reader of Red Meat, you should be.

This is my favorite.

These are good also. And this.

Two and a half weeks after your lap band surgery, don’t become so comfortable that you forget all about your surgery and eat a hamburger patty. Especialy without chewing it extremely well.

This is what happens.
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