With summer and its 90-or-so days of concerts here almost as we speak, it is time for encores of more than one song and/or guitar solo. And of course that summer solstice. The smog that made the sun as pale as that backing a Slipknot concert, or at least a Corey Taylor solo performance, had floated further south.
That is the turning of an event, along with graduation, that was referenced at a local hair salon and spa, saying it is time to get your hair and body fit. It was again — theme here — announced on a two-foot-high sign on the sidewalk. All this reminds me of when Blue Oyster Cult, named after a mystically themed mussel in New England, did a whole televised concert on the solstice theme many years back. Talk about a concept for a concept album.
The two encores I’ve chosen to mention are from new Thursday night music at Bennett’s, and a Jeff Loven show just last Sunday. Both saw more than one extra song, when the singer/guitarist would normally be making haste to leave and get back home to family. One request led to another, like-minded theme and building on an earlier foray into an artist they liked, and the tip jar that kept getting filled, more than once, kept the show going.
At the Hop N Barrel parking lot, on the end on a weekend eve, they shoulda been ninjas. Two swordsmen in black garb and white masks, and I say swordsman loosely, as they were sparring with foam sticks, were the attraction for a couple of onlookers back in the area where the wrestling ring pops up regularly. I again, reference from years earlier, a comparable impromptu event that was occurring at times around midnight in a park in the middle of the city, with a sci-fi theme. This was all the buzz with the local cops, not for a reason that it was sinister, I think, but rather that the park was closed by ordinance each night an hour or two earlier.
All that keeps the canine unit busy. And these dogs will now have their day all afternoon, on Sunday, June 25. A mutt wash at Ultimissimo — did I spell that odd and long name better than when I got such a one wrong and said with a typo Rovertown, (look twice and a third time), and a source complained to my Rivertowns editor that “the only dog in this town” is truly yours truly — will charge $30 for the doggie spa. She gets the full pro treatment with nail clipping, scrub a dub, undercoat (and undergarment if wearing a doggie sweater?) brushing and drying, and ear pruning and piercing, OK I made that last one up. A full 100 percent of the rain or shine event proceeds — not just 99.99 — will go to a Lucky Dogs cause and also the Hudson Police Department Canine Unit. Three pooches are pictured on the flyer and you even get a shot of you and your favorite pup and yourself to keep. Gee, maybe you should go across the street to Dick’s and toast your pooch with a Lucky Dog beer.
On that theme, the Hudson Police Department will be officially closed Wednesday through Friday, to office traffic. Dad had his day and now its for the dogs, at least concerning the Canine Unit and its officers, as they need a break too. But the squad cars will roll on. And call the main number for any need, as all calls will be monitored.
This was not seen, above and/or below, by following a Freezing Moon, like the song by the metal group Mayhem. Or a Neon Moon, like the country tune. Or a moon at all. More like a Black Hole Sun, of Soundgarden fame.
The sun shown, around eight on a recent evening, as a hazy pale-and-not-quite-bright orange, not yellow, on what a friend of mine jokingly called National Smog Day. As this was the worst of the worst, as smoke from a rampant Canadian firestorm made its way south to our backyard.
So you might say, Smoke of Her Burning, another metal song. Its been called both death metal, or not quite that dark in tone. I think it fits the bill.
— Dad had long since fired up the grill, then gave it a cursory cleaning, and put away until July Fourth. But should he, thusly, be the one to bring home the bacon, although that is what he usually does anyway?
Thought you’d want to know, now, what the stores had in store for Father’s Day.
They are already heavy on Fourth of July stuff, but then there was that aisle of all kinds of summer-style reclining on-the-deck chairs you had to choose from. And the greeting card that said simply Dog’s Day … oops, that’s not Dad’s Day.
And at the local cigar shop, dad’s choice, the night before there was a guy lighting up an unusually thick and long stogie that was the size and shape of that of Johnnie … oh we won’t go there.
And dad of course does one-off construction jobs of various types, on his on days, so its worthy of note that at a local venue, a fixup in the concrete of their parking lot was done the old fashioned way … with dirt and shovel, rectifying a three foot, yard-by-yard square where there had been a killer pothole. And even this weekend, The One Remaining Downtown Bank gave it the whole enchilada, redoing their entire lot in one fell Saturday swoop. —
The air quality, as cast from over in the Twin Cities, was listed as well above 200 — a mere 100 is an average? — which makes the danger threshold, so therefore beyond. I at first scoffed at that, thinking it was yet another overblown index. However, it seen became “clear,” no one had previously seen it that high, as discussed at length across the fence with a couple of buds, as you might have seen in that Fox animated sitcom about some very ordinary, average guys. But it wasn’t until they pointed it out that it fully registered with me. Although I had earlier been aware of a distinct odor in the air, even from inside my apartment, that to me seemed like someone lighting more than one or two candles. But only knows, we all thought, how bad it must have been in the Boundary Waters, before making it down this far, as one would think that in those many hundreds of miles the bulk of the smoke would have dissipated to the ground. Canoeists would have stood, in their boats, in wonder.
But the show would go on, once this weekend came. It was the once a month, or so it would seem, pro wrestling extravaganza at Hop N Barrel. You could tell a block away by the loud thuds on the mat as the combatants landed. The one I heard most loudly, followed by a count of three that was much faster than the usual two-and-a-half, resulted in the crowning of a wrestler only known by the emcee as OSG, which I will guess stands for Ol’ Samson God. A couple of cyclists happened by on the adjacent sidewalk, and paused, also in wonder. Removing a helmet or two, if I recall, in the homage these guys always get.
One of the wranglers not in the ring at that moment, all decked out in face paint, was manning a merch booth, and munching on what I can only assume was a protein snack. For smacking down.