Get singing now, for you never know, the coming forces of Halloween evil might bring you ‘shorter of breath and one day closer to death’

It became Quick Six, not quite times ten, but for several others ironically celebrating with a quick fix on the same otherwise slow night, it was also time to get singing You Say Its Your Birthday, and the traditional song is always a part of it (hopefully there won’t be that unfortunate soul who feels an obsessive need to harmonize, “and many more.”)
— As these things go, at least I’m just the other side of 60. And a bartender friend said that rather than my just turned 58 years of age, I look 56. (Some have said more like 40, when I have my literal grayish beard — or is it white — shaved off). Be that as it may, I ran into old friend Stacy on my birthday weekend — as an aside she looks just like Kate Hudson, really, but a younger version as Kate has had more than a few additional birthdays. Stacy said it was not only her birthday that day, but that of three of her friends who also were celebrating there, not to mention a fifth birthday girl at the other end of the bar. They made up a full half of the patronage that night. Stacy wanted to make this an announcement, so she stood up and clinked her glass, (but make no mistake about it, not for a birthday kiss, I’m too old). But there’s more. The next night it was Jeff Loven’s birthday, so he had a sub musician come in, and there was even one more birthday girl who ended up getting thrown in the mix. The antithesis to all this celebrating is Matt, who is a very good and valued friend of Hudsonwinightlife, who has proclaimed that now turning 40, he is done forever with birthdays, even if there is a party involved.
Ditto with my dad, who whom I made some tentative plans to swoop up mom (who is more into music and loved a past karaoke night with me, and even wanted to stay in the crowd when I was ready to call it a night) and celebrate his birthday with a downtown band. It fell short because everyone needed to get to bed early, and mom said, if you had made this offer 10 years ago … But she is well versed in Bruce Springsteen, for example, whereby dad has never even heard of Ozzy Osbourne and for a long time considered all this Devil’s Music — he particularly didn’t like Revelation (Mother Earth) even though being a Bible Thumper — and mom, being the stereotypical German, felt obliged to follow suit when voicing her opinions. So when they come for MY birthday, its usually just stay home and forsake the local festivals as everyone took a nap, there was no going to any kind of harvest fest. An end note: When the noted local musician, the late Jeff Johnson, who even got a lot of mainstream national airplay over decades, said he wanted local celebrities to sing on his concept album and I was asked, and I told my dad I was flattered by the invite, and he shot back that they’re probably just a bunch of potheads. I said I didn’t know these musicians that well, just sing or song or two with them, and I don’t know what they do backstage! But I told dad, I didn’t respond about what I was going to do going forward with this possibility, just considered it nice to be in the same company as, say, my old friend Rebecca Kolls. And even though Jeff said he had written a song especially for me to sing, I wasn’t quite comfortable as being characterized as a “local celebrity,” although I’ve heard that term used many times since.
— And the new, sorta, car shows go on, and will surely be put on substantial display at one of the latest organized gatherings. There was the bumblebee with a flair of black flame, another car where the exact color ratio was a bit checkered, and then one more where yes, the base color was yellow, but there were literally hundreds of small decals decorating it up. And lastly, there was seen a bright neon car that could without winter coming be one of those environmental thingees not much bigger than a golf cart — even though that was often seen — that also had a burst of flame on the side door. And among others, would they be at the recent Willow River Car Club show in the town of Hudson? That recent Saturday had showers but only scattered, and a rain date was listed for the following day. Hopefully between the two …
— The Surly brew production area is open 24 hours, it was announced. They say that they’d prefer to be open 25, and would use that time to brew more beer. I think the Wisconsin drinkers made that a given — as they love their Surly without hopefully getting surly — or for sure the fact that there is a dark beer patterned after First Avenue in Minneapolis, touted at Darkness Days in Somerset, that is available even in the Badger State (insert geography references).
— Again about that eye-sore one-room wreck of a house on Monroe Street in North Hudson. Workers finally appear to be working overtime to put a finish to it getting rehabbed. Hence the big concrete pouring truck that blocked the entire street. If you wanted to make your late-night run from Season’s Tavern over to Starr’s Bar, as that would be the logical route, as if you’d be sober enough to micro-manage such details, you’d be screwed, to make another construction reference.
— A few days before the recent glimmer of snow, it was goodbye to the summer miniskirt. The exception might have been the blonde in a short skirt that showed off tattoos on both legs, which she freely displayed, especially to a newfound friend who was wearing more fittingly sorel boots, and was flanked by others with less-over-the-top-winter-coming foot gear.
— Lastly, village crews were seen posting a great big raft of directions onto the stop sign detouring Pepperfest parade breakdown crews to follow that advice. Only yards up the way was a great big hill, enough so that the typical “dangerous hill” sign has been posted just ahead of them 24/7. That’s a bit of knowledge that might have been more useful the next day, as we were moving into fall with festivals, especially if you’ve been imbibing a little too much in those funny peppers, oh sorry, that might be funny mushrooms (vegie of choice).