1) There's a big event in New York City tonight: The Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
This recognizes the craft of songwriting, and tonight Foreigner's Mick Jones and Lou Gramm will be honored – and will perform together for the first time in 10 years. (They say there are no hard feelings and there's no need to mend fences.) Aerosmith's "Toxic Twins" Steven Tyler and Joe Perry will also be inducted. The legendary songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin are getting a special award tonight for their massive body of work, even though they never wrote a song together in the same room. Creativity works in strange ways. Billy Joel and Sting are among tonight's presenters. So why isn't this whole thing on TV? The Songwriters Hall of Fame needs to juice up the showbiz a little and get some recognition for this event outside of the music community, right?
2) Where can a pot smoker fire up a doobie if they don't own a home? When legal marijuana shops start opening in Washington, tourists are going to flock here to buy it, right? But while they're staying in Seattle, where will they smoke it? In a hotel room? Can't do that. You're not supposed to light up on the street, either. The Seattle City Attorney is suggesting private pot clubs in the city for tourists, and for renters whose landlords won't let their tenants smoke weed, or smoke at all.
You know marijuana use is legal in your own home, but if you don't own a home, what are you supposed to do? There should be someplace you can go to spark up besides just wandering the streets. Or sitting in your car. And the city doesn't want to discriminate against people just because they can't afford to own a home or they're visiting from out of state. It sounds like a great idea to me, and very considerate on the part of the city.
3) You may be revealing your politics by the names you gave your kids. That's what they've figured out at the University of Chicago.
Liberal parents like names with softer, more feminine "L" and "A" sounds, especially with the "A" falling at the end of the name (Ella, Sophia, Liam, Lena). Conservatives go for names with harder, stronger, more masculine "D," "K," "T" and "B" sounds (Kurt, Kim, Donald, Bryce). Righties prefer traditional and common names while lefties are more likely to pick an unusual name. The parents of a Mary or Elizabeth or John are more likely to vote red while the parents of an Apple or Moon Unit are most likely voting blue. (My parents being the exception to that -- I was raised by flaming liberals, but my siblings and I have good, solid, all-American names: John, James, and Janet. I guess we were conservative on the outside, radical on the inside.
He's a rock icon, he's an activist, he plays the ukulele, and now he's got his own line of clothes. Introducing Eddie Vedder's Seattle Surf Company. Your chance to own Eddie Vedder solo tour posters:
and apparel:
And various other swag from the Pearl Jam front man, like bottle openers and mugs and stuff.
1) David Crosby has announced he's going to die in 10 years. Well, that's his guess anyway, and before his time is up, he'd love to do one last tour with Stills, Nash & Young. Rolling Stone says Crosby told the Wall Street Journal, "Look, I have maybe 10 more years if I'm lucky. I have hepatitis C, diabetes and heart disease. I'm managing them. I'm going to the gym three days a week, I'm feeling strong and I can still make audiences feel great . . . My dream? One more tour with Crosby, Stills and Nash and my friend Neil. From there, I'd be fine. I'd be able to sail. I'd live. And I'd be happy."
He's 71 now, but of course his liver is much younger; he got a new one in 1994, so that should buy him a few years. He's like a beat-up old VW bus that got a new engine after 200,000 miles. With proper maintenance, he could keep going for years.
2) More from the Ailing Rock Star Desk . . . . Eric Clapton canceled a couple of shows on his European tour -- last night in Vienna and tonight in Stuttgart, because of a "very severe backache," according to his website. Clapton is 68, and he has had physiotherapy in the past to combat the grueling grind of welding that axe night after night.
His people say Slowhand's "currently with specialists who will be able to better determine the course of treatment." Which in rock star lingo means Dr. Feelgood's making a house call and he's gonna shoot him full of something. The good news is that EC will be back in action for his show Friday night at the Koenig-Pilsener Arena Oberhausen, Germany. Since you probably won't be there for that, check out this amazing live version of "Layla" with Clapton and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits:
3) Siri's getting a sex-change. One thing about Apple's new iPhone software that we didn't hear much about on Monday – when you upgrade your phone to iOS7 in the fall, you'll be able to reassign Siri's gender.
The iPhone's personal assistant will have a man's voice, if you want. Siri has always been a man in France and the UK (probably because French guys won't take directions from a woman.) And if you've ever used stand-alone GPS navigation gadgets, many of them let you pick from a whole array of voices, from Darth Vader to Spongebob Squarepants. But in the US, Siri has always been that efficient yet somewhat beguiling mystery woman. BTW, the male voice of Siri in the US will be this guy
who does the voice for the United Airlines toll-free help line. He does sound helpful, doesn't he?
And one other change for Siri when the new version comes out in the fall: Microsoft's Bing will replace Google as Siri's default search engine.
1) Yesterday was the 37th anniversary of Paul McCartney and Wings' epic 1976 concert at the old Kingdome in Seattle which set an indoor concert audcience record of 67,000 people at the time.) And today, you get to relive the action because McCartney's ROCKSHOW from the 1975-76 tour is finally out on DVD.
There were VHS and Beta versions back in the day,
but those are obviously obsolete now, and unlike those releases the new DVD/BluRay contains the entire concert, restored and remastered from the original 35mm film and a half an hour longer than the earlier versions.
It's really the only visual chronicle of McCartney at the peak of his solo career, and besides a nostalgic look at the insides of the cavernous Kingdome, you get to see Linda McCartney in action, too.
2) No more fake leather, fake wood, and fake green felt on your iPhone.Apple finally unveiled a fresh new design for the iOS operating system that powers iPhones and iPads.
You're going to see a revamped icon system, new typography, a new color palette that actually picks up tinting from your wallpaper image, more translucency, animations like raindrops and moving clouds on the weather app, and --very much needed -- a swipe-up control center for commonly used functions that used to be buried several layers in, like wifi, "don not disturb", and even the flashlight. Then there's true multitasking between apps, a better camera, everything's clearner and crisper . . . . it looks like a big improvement, and you'll be able to upgrade sometime in the fall.
Here's a little bit of the big reveal:
A lot of the features and the look of iOS7 will be familiar to Android and even Windows Phone users; in fact, I think Microsoft deserves some credit for raising the bar as far as a crisp,modern, graphically cohesive interface. Nice to see our hometown team be able to feel like they were out in front on something like this.
Here's a look at everything Apple unveiled yesterday. Here's Apple's rundown of the new features. And here's a story about all the third-party apps that iOS7 might doom with this new release.
3) Here's good news for us Pacific Northwest coffee fiends . . . .I saw this in the New York Times over the weekend.
It seems like they go back and forth on this, but the latest findings about moderate coffee intake -- like three or four 5-ounce cups of coffee a day or a single venti-size Starbucks — can reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, basal cell carcinoma (the most common skin cancer), prostate cancer, oral cancer and breast cancer recurrence. And, most important for those of us who've worked in radio all our lives, animal experiments show that caffeine could in some way stave off dementia. ("I'm not just trying to wake up, here – I'm preventing dementia!")
By the way they don't think it's just caffeine, it's the actual coffee. So Red Bull or Four Loko aren't going to do the job. Although let's also keep in mind that loadking your java up with sugar doesn't do anything good for you. Here's the full story. Bottoms up!
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Vivian Campbell, the guitarist for Def Leppard, has revealed that he's being treated for Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is cancer of the white blood cells. The guitarist, who is 50, has been receiving chemotherapy for two months, with four months of treatment remaining. He said he's been "feeling rather spiffy, all things considered. I feel fortunate that my cancer sent me an alarm call in the form of 'the cough that wouldn't quit'." Campbell says he still plans to hit the road with Def Leppard this summer for a tour that starts in France in 10 days.
"Despite cancer and chemo, me and my new aerodynamic hairstyle (read: no hair) are going on tour this summer with the band," Campbell wrote. "I don't want anyone to be so shocked by my new look that they ask for a refund."
In light of the forthcoming European and North American dates from Def Leppard, guitarist Vivian Campbell felt it would be right to let the band's supporters know that he is currently in recovery from cancer.
Vivian says, "I feel fortunate that my cancer sent me an alarm call in the form of 'the cough that wouldn't quit'. Otherwise, how would I have known? After several months of trying every inhaler known to man, my doctor finally had me X-rayed. A further CAT scan revealed that enlarged lymph nodes were doing wrestling manoeuvres on my windpipe – hence the cough. What was causing the enlarged lymph nodes, however, was yet to be determined, so I underwent a surgical biopsy on March 11th, the first day of Leppard rehearsals for our Viva Las Vegas shows. Obviously, I didn't make it to rehearsal that day, but it's okay; I know the songs by now.
My diagnosis was Hodgkin's Lymphoma and 6 months of chemotherapy is the prescribed treatment. I'm about 2 months in and feeling rather spiffy, all things considered. Hodgkin's has an over 80% cure rate, so by my reckoning, if you're going to have a cancer, Hodgie's is the one to have!
The reason I'm sharing this with you is because, despite cancer and chemo, me and my new aerodynamic hairstyle (read: no hair) are going on tour this summer with the band and I don't want anyone to be so shocked by my new look that they ask for a refund. Simple economics, really.
My family, friends and bandmates have all been extremely supportive through this and I look forward to a summer full of shows with both Def Leppard in June/July and the debut of Last In Line this August."
1) Parking in Seattle is tough -- especially when low-life scammers are taking up all the spots.
Have you ever hunted for a parking space in Seattle and noticed that some metered spots are occupied by cars with a disabled parking card hanging form the rearview mirror? I just saw this story in the P-I that says Seattle police think 60 percent of the disabled placards on city streets are being used fraudulently. Yeah, 60 percent!
State law allows anyone with a valid disabled parking placard to park for free on city streets. That's fair. But in 2010, the Legislature downgraded the penalties for wrongly displaying a disabled parking placard from a traffic violation to a parking citation. So, since there was less money to be made on it, the Seattle police disbanded their disabled parking permit enforcement unit. They think friends and relatives of disabled people are using the disabled permits, sometimes after the permit holder has died. "I sure miss grandpa." " Me too, but I sure love parking for free. Thanks, Gramps, wherever you are!"
2) Do you have a weather app on your phone? Probably – and it's probably fine for a general forecast, for this general area. But around here, the most important thing to know is will it rain, or more realistically, when exactly will it rain, because you know it's going to at some point around here. This app called Skymotion gives you minute-by-minute precipitation forecasts for your exact neighborhood.
Literally like 3 pm, no rain where I live and am about to take a bike ride . . . 3:05 pm, yes rain.where I live. For all I know, Jeff Renner has one of these in his pocket and he peeks at his phone just before he goes on the air.
The Skymotion app is free and it's for iPhone/Android/Windows Phone 8. Get it here.
3) But be careful how often you check that app on your phone, because if you're using a mobile device a lot, you're probably leaning over a table or slumped back in a chair. Your head is tilted forward; your shoulders are curved.and your arms are bent by your side. This position is probably screwing up your neck and spine. The average human head weighs 10 pounds in a neutral position -- when your ears are over your shoulders. For every inch you tilt your head forward, the pressure on your spine doubles.
A doctor calls condition Text Neck. The guy has actually founded the Text Neck Institute to study the problem. And he has created the Text Neck app for smartphones – when you're holding the phone at an acceptable angle, a little green light glows in the corner of your screen.
If you hold the phone at an angle that puts you at risk for Text Neck, the light turns red
and you can even have the phone vibrate to remind you to sit up straight like your mama told you to.
1) Sting explains why his next album is dedicated to . . . Sting.
You may have heard that Sting is working on a new album – it's called The Last Ship. Fair warning – it's not a regular album of Sting songs. It's about the end of the shipbuilding industry in the Newcastle area of England where he is from. It's based on a Broadway play of the same name, which will premiere next year. Watch as Sting explains why this project is all about what he values as a musician and as a native of Newcastle:
Lots of lutes and penny whistles and stuff. The album's coming out at the end of September, and in case you're thinking, wow, Sting, it sounds a little not rock & roll, well there's this: the lead singer of AC/DC Brian Johnson – who's also from Newcastle – is doing some guest vocals on the album. So that adds a little zing.
2 )After a decade of painstaking work in the lab, heat-resistant chocolate is here. The makers of Cadbury chocolate has figured out the science on this so they can sell chocolate in Africa and other hot regions of the world. No details yet on how it tastes or what it'll be called or what the hell is in it, but it'll solve the problems chocolate makers face in sub-Saharan Africa, "where many consumers shop in outdoor markets and food can be left for hours in the blazing heat. The new chocolate can withstand 104 degrees Fahrenheit and not turn to liquid," says a company spokesman.
Fantastic. Just what the third world needs -- delicious food with no nutritional value whatsoever.
You must try the Almond Dark Chocolate Sea Salt and Asbestos bar. Scrumptious, although I hear it's a little gritty.
3) If you never saw the Grateful Dead, you might not get the Grateful Dead. This film may clear things up for you.
Sunshine Daydream is a movie from 1972 that captures the Dead on stage that year at the Oregon Country Fair in Veneta, Oregon, and it's being screened in theaters for one night only on August 1st. The movie gives you a look at never-before-seen footage of the band live as well as more recent interviews with the Dead's inner circle -- like Wavy Gravy, and Jerry Garcia's ex-wife, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia. It's going to play at like half a dozen theaters around here on August 1. Click here to find a theater near you and to buy tickets.
Here's a clip (caution, contains naked hippies and lots of drug-fueled twirling so it may be NSFW:)
Remember no smoking in the theater – you'll have to spark up in the parking lot before you go in. Or bring brownies.
Yes! In honor of National Donut Day, everybody who stops into Krispy Kreme today gets a free donut. Why National Donut Day? Who knows? Who cares? Free donuts!
1) Seattle traffic is bad. We know that. And 'm not talking about the paralyzing jams caused by collapsed bridges and overturned semis; just the regular day-in-and-day-out crappy commute. A company in Kirkland called Inrix analyzes this stuff, and they say on the list of the country's most congested cities, Seattle's still hanging in there at number 8 . . .. but. congestion has increased 15 percent in the last year.
No big surprise, the busiest time of the week is Friday afternoon at 5, and the most congested artery is I-5 between Northgate and Joint Base Lewis McChord, which is a pretty freaking long stretch of freeway. If it makes you feel any better it's worse in LA, it's worse in Vancouver, and globally, LA is third behind the Belgian cities of Brussels and Antwerp. (What's up with Belgium?) You can mess around with all the stats here.
2) If you were thinking of boarding a flight this weekend with your knife and your hockey stick, you're going to have to change your plans. Or at least check your bag.
The Transportation Security Administration has reversed itself and decided not to allow small knives and golf clubs and hockey sticks in carry-on luggage on planes. The TSA Administrator John Pistole got a lot of pushback from flight attendants, and air marshalls, and relatives of terrorist victims. Pistole's idea was that screeners should concentrate on explosives that could bring down a plane, not little knives and stuff. (Ironic that the guy's name is Pistole . . .you still can't take a pistole onto a plane.)
You can see how flight attendants didn't much like the idea of a cabin full of disgruntled knife-wielding drunken passengers. I can understand that. I don't exactly get why they had to publicly announce the change in the first place, though. Why not just quietly loosen the rules? "Security" is your middle name -- why tell people, "Okay, if you were planning on bringing your knife onto a plane and wreaking havoc, welcome aboard!"
3) The 10 Most Annoying Rock Star Behaviors. It's a thrill to see your favorite band play live, right? But let's be honest – sometimes you feel a little bit used by the artists considering we shelled out our hard-earned money to see them. Rolling Stone just published the 10 Most Annoying Rock Star Behaviors.
Their list includes Show up ridiculously late, play too much from the new album, only perform the hits, and a big one in my book:
9. Solo
This will have some dissenters. But if you aren't Neil Peart, Ginger Baker,, Eric Clapton or a musician on that level of genius, nobody wants to hear you solo. Many an Aerosmith concert has come screeching to a halt when Joey Kramer takes a drum solo. John Entwistle is basically the only man ever born who could make a bass solo entertaining, and he is gone; this window is closed, rockers. The unaccompanied guitar solo should have died with the 1970s with very, very few exceptions.
You've probably heard the amazing audio that's been going around of the raw vocal tracks from the Queen/Bowie classic "Under Pressure." Here it is, in case you missed it -- Freddie Mercury and David Bowie in all their acapella glory:
But have you heard this one? Same idea -- just the vocals track, with the rest of the music turned down -- but this is David Lee Roth wailing on Van Halen's "Runnin' WIth the Devil." Some of the stuff that's coming out of Diamond Dave's mouth definitely wasn't written down on any lyric sheet:
1) After 13 years in the making, the soundtrack to John Mellencamp and Stephen King's long-awaited musical, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, just came out. The musical itself will hit theaters this fall; on the soundtrack, besides Mellencamp, you've got Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow and Kris Kristofferson.
According to Mellencamp, it's about "two brothers who are very competitive and dislike each other immensely. The father takes them to the family vacation place, a cabin that the boys hadn't been to since they were kids. What has happened is that the father had two older brothers who hated each other and killed each other in that cabin. There's a confederacy of ghosts who also live in this house. The older [dead] brothers are there, and they speak to the audience, and they sing to the audience."
Got that? No? Well, try this explanation from Mellencamp and King:
Okey dokey. The two will plug the soundtrack's release with appearances tonight on Letterman and the Colbert Report. Maybe when you actually hear the music it'll make more sense.
2) Here's great news for women yogis, bad news for pervy dudes who set up a mat in the back of the yoga studio. Remember back in March when the yoga apparel store Lululemon had to pull some black yoga pants from its shelves because the material was too sheer? Turns out see-through yoga pants were unpopular with women. Who knew? Well the Luon Black Yoga Pants are back at Lululemon.
They've got a new team in place to insure quality control on these things, so if you're ready to once again shell out between 72 and 98 bucks for a pair of opaque black yoga pants, go for it. Namaste.
3) Does it seem like your iPhone's battery is draining faster than it used to? You might not be tripping. Some web developer geek has figured out that the Facebook app might be doing stuff in the background even when you think it's asleep.
Apps aren't suppose to do that – if you're not using one, it's supposed to shut down, unless it's supposed to run in the background, like an app that plays music or streams a radio station. The answer? Either delete the app and use the web version of Facebook, or you can force-quit the Facebook app:
Double click the home button, tap and hold the Facebook icon at the bottom of the screen, and tap the red "minus" icon to shut it down. If you can live without it for any amount of time, which most of us can't. Details here.
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When you spend a lot of time in a tough town like NYC, you forget that the rest of the country is a little more relaxed. Joe De Rosa tells you what happened to him.
It was a surprisingly tender moment at the Rolling Stones concert in Chicago on Monday night. When the band pulled out their early classic "As Tears Go By," Taylor Swift strolled out onstage to do a duet with Mick Jagger. Now, you may or may not be a fan of Taylor Swift, but I think you have to agree that she was poised and professional -- they even do a fancy little dance together. Here's the video:
Tomorrow night, the Stones go north of the border to Toronto. We'll see if they round up any Canadian music icons for guest appearances.
1) REI isn't going to take back your nasty moldy 10-year-old sleeping bag anymore. I guess everybody knows Nordstrom has pretty much a no-questions-asked return policy, but Seattle's REI has been more than generous with their return policy over the years, too.
There are all kinds of stories about customers returning well-worn gear to REI long after they bought it because the store let them. The Seattle Times mentions a mom who used a stroller for several years, then returned it when her children outgrew it. That's why people started saying REI stands for Rent Everything, Inc, or Return Everything, Inc.
But starting today, REI is ending its policy of no time limits on returns. You'll have one year to bring back something you bought in the store for a refund or exchange, and only 30 days if you bought online. And they're going to be a little stricter about asking you to produce proof of purchase. That's too bad –
as the father of a 1 1/2-year-old kid, I was liking that stroller scam . . . .
2) For some reason, feuds within bands are always entertaining. Do you remember back in February when Stone Temple Pilots announced that they were giving the boot to Scott Weiland -- founding member and lead singer of STP? And then the other guys sued Weiland, claiming he sabotaged the group's 20th anniversary tour by turning up late for gigs and missing promo appearances.
Now Weiland has filed a countersuit demanding they pay him 7 million bucks and stop using the name Stone Temple Pilots. Weiland's suit says "How do you expel a man from the band that he started, named, sang lead on every song, wrote the lyrics, and was the face of for twenty years?" I guess the band's answer would be, "Uh, dude, we just did." They've already played a couple of live gigs with Linkin Park's front man Chester Bennington doing lead vocals, and he's singing on STP's new single, "Out Of Time.". So that's how that works. Ouch.
Here's a little bit of the song:
3) On a happier note, how about a U2 studio update?
Rolling Stonesays all four members were at Electric Lady Studios in New York on Friday, where Danger Mouse was completing his mixing work on the new, album, which is due in the fall. Probably. (Chris Martin of Coldplay was spotted at the studio too, though it's unclear whether he was actively participating or just avoiding going home to Gwyneth Paltrow.)
In a recent London newspaper interview, the producer Daniel Lanois said Bono played him tracks from the new album. "It sounded amazing," he said. "Very, very big and powerful-sounding. Some of it was adventurous. There were shades of Achtung Baby." That sounds promising. Late in the day on Friday, the band went onto the Electric Lady rooftop to record an acoustic version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" for some kind of art project. I don't have video of that, but here they are on the rooftop of the BBC in London:
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. . . .Well, it's not Seinfeld, which I would disagree with right out of the gate, but according to a new list compiled by the Writers Guild of America, the people who actually write TV shows, Seinfeld's Number 2. The best written TV show of all time is :
Yup, The Sopranos -- the riveting story of a New Jersey crime boss and his struggle blanace his work and his home life.
The top 10 also contains All in the Family, MASH, Cheers; Mad Men andThe Wire. I'm sure there will be lots of arguments about this – the oririginal UK Office is Number 50, tied with the Colbert Report and The Good Wife . . .while the US Office is number 66, tied with Dexter. Nowhere on the list : Two and a Half Men, with or without Charlie Sheen. But his dad's show, The West Wing, is Number 10.
Here's the whole list. Agree? Disagree? Join the convo on The Mountain's Facebook page.
1. The Sopranos
2. Seinfeld
3. The Twilight Zone (1959)
4. All In The Family
5. M*A*S*H
6. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
7. Mad Men
8. Cheers
9. The Wire
10. The West Wing
11. The Simpsons
12. I Love Lucy
13. Breaking Bad
14. The Dick Van Dyke Show
15. Hill Street Blues
16. Arrested Development
17. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
18. Six Feet Under
19. Taxi
20. The Larry Sanders Show
21. 30 Rock
22. Friday Night Lights
23. Frasier
24. Friends
25. Saturday Night Live
26. The X-Files
27. Lost
28. ER
29. The Cosby Show
30. Curb Your Enthusiasm
31. The Honeymooners
32. Deadwood
33. Star Trek
34. Modern Family
35. Twin Peaks
36. NYPD Blue
37. The Carol Burnett Show
38. Battlestar Galactica (2005)
39. Sex And the City
40. Game Of Thrones
41. TIE: The Bob Newhart Show and Your Show Of Shows
43. TIE: Downton Abbey and Law & Order and thirtysomething
46. TIE: Homicide: Life On The Street and St. Elsewhere
48. Homeland
49. Buffy The Vampire Slayer
50. TIE: The Colbert Report and The Good Wife and The Office (UK)
53. Northern Exposure
54. The Wonder Years
55. L.A. Law
56. Sesame Street
57. Columbo
58. TIE: Fawlty Towers and The Rockford Files
60. TIE: Freaks And Geeks and Moonlighting
62. Roots
63. TIE: Everybody Loves Raymond and South Park
65. Playhouse 90
66. TIE: Dexter and The Office (US)
68. My So-Called Life
69. The Golden Girls
70. The Andy Griffith Show
71. TIE: 24 and Roseanne
72. The Shield
74. TIE: House and Murphy Brown
76. Barney Miller
77. I, Claudius
78. The Odd Couple
79. TIE: Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Monty Python's Flying Circus and Star Trek: The Next Generation and Upstairs, Downstairs
83. Get Smart
84. TIE: The Defenders and Gunsmoke
86. Justified
87. Sgt. Bilko (The Phil Silvers Show)
88. Band Of Brothers
89. Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
90. The Prisoner
91. TIE: Absolutely Fabulous and The Muppet Show
93. Boardwalk Empire
94. Will & Grace
95. Family Ties
96. TIE: Lonesome Dove and Soap
98. TIE: The Fugitive and Late Night With David Letterman and Louie
101. Oz
Here's today's breaking fast food news . . . . It's about Dunkin Donuts, which you'll mostly find east of the Mississippi, so if you're traveling this summer, you're going to want to be on the lookout for this.
Dunkin' Donuts is adding a doughnut breakfast sandwich to its national menu this week. Yes, donut breakfast sandwich, like a normal breakfast sandwich – mounds of pepper fried eggs and slices of lightly salted cherrywood smoked bacon -- but instead of an English muffin or a bagel, it's wedged between halves of a split glazed doughnut. People like bacon, people like donuts, why wouldn't you put them together?
Here's the thing: At a reasonable 360 calories, the Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwich packs 30 calories less than the turkey sausage sandwich Dunkin Donuts just brought out for people looking to eat healthier. It's actually good for you!
1) Maybe you saw that Mookie Blaylock, a retired NBA point guard, was in a serious car crash over the weekend – a woman in the other car died.
Pearl Jam took this news hard, because if you know your Pearl Jam history, the band was called Mookie Blaylock when they started recording together in Seattle. Before they even had a name, they were invited to open for Alice In Chains on their West coast tour. They would always mess around with basketball trading cards in the studio, and when they came upon Mookie's card, they said, "Hey, let's go with that!" The name didn't stick for very long, but the 10 album is named after Blaylock's jersey number. Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam said he did get to meet Mookie and play a little H.O.R.S.E. with him back in the day when his team was in Seattle playing the Sonics. The band has posted a get well message to Mookie on their Instagram account, and the New York Times covered the Blaylock-Pearl Jam connection in detail here.
2) Peter Buck, REM's guitarist, got married in Portland over the weekend. (Congrats to Peter and his new bride Chloe Johnson). All his former bandmates were there . . . so there could have been an REM reunion because there was live music being made. But, apparently the four former band members managed to avoid actually sharing the stage together at any point. All four performed at one time or another in various combinations on Saturday night along with other wedding guests like Joseph Arthur and members of the Decemberists, but never all four at once.
Here's Michael Stipe at the mike from the Instagram page of someone called cartwhisperer:
Before they broke up, they'd been known to get on stage at friends' weddings, but it looks like they were intentionally trying not to make news with any kind of musical reunion this time. But even with just 3 of the guys playing at once, I hear they did a wicked Hokey Pokey.
3) Lou Reed has joined a very exclusive group: The Rock Star Liver Transplant Club.
David Crosby, Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, Gregg Allman and Jack Bruce from Cream are all members of this elite clan, and now Lou Reed is a member too. Lou got his new one in Cleveland. On Facebook, Lou wrote "I am a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry. I am bigger and stronger than ever. My Chen Taiji and health regimen has served me well all of these years, thanks to Master Ren Guang-yi."
His wife, musician/performance artist Laurie Anderson, said, "He was dying. You don't get it for fun. I don't think he'll ever totally recover from this, but he'll certainly be back to doing (things) in a few months. I'm very happy. It's a new life for him."
It's hard to believe, but Lou is 71, so it's cool that he got a second chance. Clearly, rock stars are especially tough on their livers. (BTW, that's not Lou's actual liver in the picture.)
Catch THE FEED twice an hour between 6am and 9am weekday mornings on The Mountain.
Why do you drive to Aberdeen? To get somewhere else, right? Like Ocean Shores? Or Long Beach? Is Aberdeen ever really the destination? Doubtful. Of course, Aberdeen is famous for being where Kurt Cobain grew up, right?
You know how when you drive into town the sign says "Come as you are?" Which is a shout out to the city's most famous resident, the frontman of Nirvana? Well, the signs are 20 years old, they need freshening up, but some people think it's inappropriate to glorify Kurt because of his drug issues, so they're thinking about replacing the signs that welcome you to Aberdeen, possibly with mottoes that reflect the town's logging history. Yeah, that's going to lure the tourists over to Grays Harbor County. People, you can put anything you want on the signs. It's not going to change the fact that you're Aberdeen.
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