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  • The Dreams That You Dare to Dream

    My buddy Kevin Kehr asked me to contribute a piece to a blog series he’s putting together entitled “Re-Imagining the Afterlife.” I sent him a tale of my grandmother that’s part memoir, part ghost story, all true. Give it a read, pass it along, and give Kevin a little love.

  • 158. Martin Luther King and the Great Hopscotch Leap

    Force Elementary School stood four blocks from our home on the working class side of Denver. It was a big, red brick rectangle with a flag pole in front and a blacktop out back. This is where all the action happened: tetherball, tag, four square. In one hotly contested hopscotch battle, I watched Haskell, my…

  • From the Stacks: Jefferson Airplane – Bark

    By 1971 Jefferson Airplane wasn’t the same band that played Woodstock. Founding member Marty Balin was gone (for now), as was drummer Spencer Dryden. The band added a violinist, Papa John Creach, too.

  • From the Stacks: Music to Break a Lease!

    Great album cover or greatest album cover? Discuss. I’m not sure what I like most about this sleeve. Is it the Jerry Lewis clone on the cover? The fact that this particular apartment building apparently has brick floors? Is it the idea that in 1956 there was such a shortage of shitty, neighbor-annoying music that…

  • The Complete List of Secrets for Men and Women to Better Sex, Happiness and World Peace

    I haven’t posted many links to my Good Men Project articles over the last couple of months. Honestly, there’s just too many of them. That joint keeps me jumpin’. But this short little piece today is a nice one, and it’s getting great response. Please give it a read, share it on your social media…

  • Deep Cuts: Musicians Who Made the FBI Nervous

    Insane Clown Posse and the Juggalos are not the first band to make the FBI’s radar. Far from it.  The G-Men have been cracking the case of the Evil Music That Will Destroy the World for at least a half century. The Feds weren’t always wrong. There have been some pretty bad guys on stage…

  • The One and Only Time You’ll Hear Me Defend the Juggalos

    …and it’s not really Juggalos I’m defending here but civil rights, specifically the right to be an incredibly stupid kid who listens to shitty music and makes bad fashion choices. First things first: I don’t know the two guys in the photo at the top of this article. I found their photo on Flickr. They…

  • From the Stacks: Bob Brozman – Hello Central…Give Me Dr. Jazz

    I picked this one up because the cover promised nothing but goodness: resonator guitars, a harp guitar, George Winston on piano. Come on! And it was on the mighty Rounder Records label, which is like a blessing from the blues pope. I wasn’t disappointed.

  • From the Stacks: Ohio Players – Honey

    No band has a more spankable collection of album covers in their discography than does The Ohio Players, and of those none has crusted more tube socks than 1975’s Honey.

  • April’s Picks: January 2014

    The rather magnificent Ms. April is back with her monthly list of tasty cuts that you can’t do without. This is a killer playlist, so let’s get on with it: