Music Friday: "Changes"

I was first introduced to the work of Charles Bradley when he was featured as an artist on an episode of Netflix's Luke Cage. 

And then this song was used for the hilarious animated series Big Mouth. 

Enjoy.

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm starting to follow Premier League football, so I'm trying to decide on a team to support. In a recent FB post, I queried people on teams that I might support. Initially I thought about following Arsenal, but I found out that the Rams owner also owns Arsenal, so I ruled out that team. 

I've whittled it down to three teams:

• Tottehnam Hotspur
• Wolverhampton Wanderers
• Liverpool

I'm leaning toward the first two. As superficial as this sounds, I like Tottenham's colors and the bird emblem. But I also really like wolves, which is the nickname of Wolverhampton. 

I've been watching the hell out of Bosch on Amazon prime. I usually like a good cop drama, and Bosch is a solid offering. I like the lead actor, Titus Welliver, who plays Harry Bosch, but I only remember him from his past performance as a minor character on Deadwood. 

There are so many good TV series out there to watch via Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon that my book reading is suffering.

I finally finished Punisher, but I still need to get back to The Umbrella Academy and finish that series. 

I started watching the old series Justified with Timothy Olyphant, a series I half-heartedly watched when it aired. I will say that the Nazi/white supremacist crap in episode 1 turned me off considering the current times and occupant of the White House.

As I was walking the dog the other day, I thought about one of these hypothetical questions that sometimes rambles through my brain. My thought was about the icons of classic rock and which artist I could not do without. 

To me, there are four major classic rock icons from the 60s/early 70s era: 

• The Beatles
• The Rolling Stones 
• The Who
• Jimi Hendrix

Of those four, I was thinking about which artist I could not do without. 

This is probably not the most popular pick, but of those four, my favorite artist is Hendrix. I have just always been drawn to his blues-influenced rock. I like all of those four of course. They are incredibly influential bands. But if I could only have one in my musical rotation, I'm going with Jimi. 

I used to listen the hell out of the Beatles, Stones, and The Who though. When I was younger, I taped Beatles LPs from my siblings' collections and got them on cassette tape. I had a number of number of The Who albums on cassette, and I listened to the Stones Greatest Hits album a ton. 

If you drop a penny one day and know you dropped it but didn't pick it up, and if the next day you pick it up, can you say the rhyme and get good luck? Asking for a friend...

Music Friday: "Professor Booty"

I only know of two songs that have the word "professor" in them. One is R.E.M.'s "Sad Professor."

In light of the good news I received today, I offer you "Professor Booty." 

Random Notes from a Crank

I am in support of the global movement of the "Fridays for Future" movement. As detailed in this Washington Post article, "School Climate Strikes Draw Thousands to the Streets in Cities Around the Globe," the movement entails this: "students forgo classes each week in favor of something they have said is more important: pleading for action on an issue that will affect every person on the planet, but young people most of all." I find it heartening that people are protesting when many of them can't even vote yet. 

Meanwhile a majority of the GOP and Moscow Don either don't want to do anything about climate change or stupidly describe it as a "hoax." 

Clowns. 

Stupid, stupid clowns. 

Their nonsense reminds me of a great quotation from a fine book by Catherine Nixey: The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World:

• "One can achieve a great deal by the blunt weapons of indifference and sheer stupidity." 

Here in Illinois, the state legislature has passed a law that is going to the new Governor that is making the legal age of buying tobacco products at age 21. I don't know about this bill. If there is any legal age that needs to be changed, the legal age to buy alcohol should move back down to 18. I do see teenagers vaping as a major issue, however. 

Music Friday: "They Don't Shine"

I need to get it together and start posting more often. I've had all of spring break, but I've been doing some work around the house and doing some reading. 

Regardless, Tedeschi Trucks Band has a new album out, and here's a solid tune from that opus. 

Music Friday: "Fourth of July"

I am late to posting my regular Music Friday post because the Nasty family had to drive to Springfield because my daughter was dancing her solo at a dance competition on the UIS campus. 

On our way back in the middle of the night, the Sirius XM Lithium channel had an "artist confidential" feature that had Chris Cornell singing a number of songs acoustically. It was part of a tour I guess he did years ago. 

One of the questions he was asked was about how certain songs just didn't work right with an acoustic arrangement. The song he directly mentioned was "Fourth of July," one of my favorite Soundgarden tunes and a fitting song this week since Superunknown was released 25 years ago. 

Cornell also mentioned that this song is one of the best lyrics he ever wrote. 

So I happily present to you "Fourth of July."

Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Pesto-Laced Meatballs with Quick Red Sauce

I got the idea for pesto-infused meatballs from a cooking show hosted by Jamie Oliver. I made some modifications though because I used pork rinds. 

Ingredients
2 lbs. of ground beef
Half of a yellow onion, chopped finely
2 cups (approximately) of regular pork rinds, smashed into crumbs
5 tablespoons of jarred pesto
2 tablespoons of Penzey's Tuscan Sunset seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
Smidge of garlic powder
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
olive oil
1 ball of fresh mozzarella, cut in pieces to cover the meatballs

Process
Saute the onion in a bit of olive oil for approximately 8-10 minutes. In the meantime, combine the ground beef, crushed pork rinds, pesto, and some of the seasonings. Once the onions are done, add them to the mix and combine with a potato masher. 

Form the beef mixture into the size of meatballs you want, put olive oil into a cast iron skillet, heat on medium-high, and brown the meatballs on all sides. You probably want to brown the meatballs in two or three batches. 

Put the meatballs into a 400 degree oven and cook until the insides are the desire temperature. Pull the skillet out of the oven, remove the meatballs, and drain the skillet of any grease. 

Put the skillet back on the stovetop on medium-low heat and then add the meatballs, crushed tomatoes, and seasonings. Cook for about ten to fifteen minutes and coat the meatballs from time to time with the sauce. Top the meatballs with the fresh mozzarella and cover the skillet to make the cheese melt over the meatballs.That'll take maybe five minutes, and they should be ready. 

Music Friday: "Outshined"

It's been a long damn day. I'm feeling outshined.

Btw, this tune is probably one of my top ten favorite Soundgarden songs.