Soggy Sunday

Jonathan Schwartz. Joni Mitchell. Seems to fit on a soggy Sunday in spring.

Yep, I'm lazying away the day, listening to "The Sunday Show." The papers are put away for now. Those other Sunday shows have been watched. I just get mad anyway, and that's no good. Not today.

Jon is bringing his A game today. Sinatra. Ella. Armstrong. Bennett.

A few minutes ago he played Sinatra's cover of John Denver's "Like A Sad Song." Oh, how it works.

I had forgotten the recording. I don't spend too much time in the Don Costa era. But I do put the song in the same category with "Cycles." They aren't essentials, but, dang it, one connects to them, maybe more so on a day like today.

I wanna watch the documentaries I've ordered and received. "Vietnam: The 10,000 Day War." "World War II with Walter Cronkite."

But, no. Not right now. It's me and Jon and the music. Heck, he's talking about the Red Sox now.

Radio's power is its intimacy. I feel like Mr. Schwartz is an old friend, same way I felt about Claude the Cat and C.P. and Walker and so forth back in the days when radio hadn't been gobbled up by corporate monoliths. It's one of the reasons I love WDVX.

Speaking of which, last night I hung out with "East Tennessee Quiver" host and my pal Bradley Reeves and friends in North Knoxville. It was billed as Elvis Night, and there was plenty of that, but we also got into "Star Trek" and "The Fugitive" and Carl and Pearl Butler, and 16mm film, and The Beer that Made Milwaukee Famous, and how the weather was.

Ross Southerland played acoustic guitar and I sang until my voice went. The old dreams, the good dreams, returned, 17 years reversed in a flash, the song remembered when.

Nancy Lamott is lamenting "The Days of Wine and Roses" while I am sad and sanguine on a soggy Sunday in spring.