In the fall of 2016, we spent two editions of FTV discussing the end – as in “when a band comes to an end” and not “The End of the world” (9-28-16 and 10-5-16 if you care to backtrack a little).  A couple of months ago, we spent sometime talking about the sudden end, and […]

      Part one of this column began when I was ruminating about things that get passed along to graduates by various commencement speakers.  Somehow things kind of swerved into a discussion of  how bullying each other has changed since I was in junior high those many eons ago.  Being mean to each other with pencil […]

      It is always interesting to hear the sound bites that the news media gather in the graduation season.  Every person tabbed as a graduation speaker will put their spin on “Oh the places you will go”, with some resorting to reading the whole tome of the same name written by the late  Dr. Seuss. […]

    For the purpose of this two parter, we are defining ‘Celebrity Sightings’ as casual encounters with persons who have a reason to be widely known to the public.  Getting to see the Black Crowes first at the Hollywood Palladium and later at the Wiltern Theater don’t count as ‘encounters’.  Seeing a celebrity standing five feet […]

      One of my favorite cartoonists these days is Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis.  I have never met him, but I always enjoy reading the introduction he writes for his daily cartoon strip compilations.  Many of them involve his dealings with fans and/or other cartoonist.  In his honor, I almost called this FTV Sometimes […]

      You read that right:  “Gigs in the Round”, not “Getting Around to Gigs”.  Transportation to and from gigs is a different chapter.  This one will discuss gigs where the band is not on a traditional stage but literally surrounded by the crowd they are playing for.  The name more than likely is a play […]

      What were you listening to during the Summer of Love?   Listening to the radio then meant AM Top 40 as FM was just getting to be the next big thing.  At 13 going on 14 years old, I was listening to a lot of pop songs and chumming around with a new piano playing […]

Every pet owner knows that their pet is the best ever – so we sadly announce the passing of our Mr Mittens aka Mittu, our wonderful Hemingway polydactyl cat.  He was a large, shy black cat with probable Maine Coon genetics (a BIG boy) who brought us much joy.  Alas, at approximate age 15 (he […]

      “Look them in the eye and give them a good, firm handshake.  None of that ‘wet dishrag’ stuff.”  If you had this conversation with your father at some point in your younger years, welcome to the fraternity.  I am not exactly sure how far back in time this goes, but when this piece of […]

      James Brown lived by “The One”.  He learned his rhythmic chops from drummers who learned them from the African traditions of their ancestors.  The emphasis on what Brown referred to as “hitting the one” gave him his unique brand of music.  Whether it was called “soul” or “funk”, it was a pulsing, drum propelled […]