We last visited Levon Helm in a two part FTV back in April of 2020 (FTV: Mark L. Helm – Part 1 (4-15-20) and Part 2 (4-22-20)). Based on his autobiography This Wheel’s on Fire – Levon Helm and the Story of the Band (Levon Helm with Stephen Davis, updated 2013 for A Cappella […]
We have discussed some of the Saturday Night Live crew previously so it seemed high time to shine the light on some of the others players who revolutionized comedy in the 1980s. We have already covered Dan Aykroyd (FTV: Dan Aykroyd 4-1-20) and Steve Martin (FTV: Wild & Crazy Guy Part 1 & 2; […]
By now, readers of these FTV ramblings are well aware that ‘drummer’ is my main musical gig. I was inspired early on by the likes of Dave Clark (of the Dave Clark Five) to be a singing drummer and as such acted as the lead or co-lead singer in every band I was in. I […]
At the end of my first year working in the Huron Mountain Club kitchen as a busboy turned dishwasher, my stress level was reduced for several reasons. We had survived the busiest part of the summer season short-handed with only two busboys and me pushing the dishes coming out of two dining rooms three meals […]
On those occasions when my students would complain the work I had assigned was boring, I would play the ‘Helen Toivonen Card’. As an educational mentor, they didn’t come much better than Helen. If her students complained, she would agree with them and say, “You are right. This is soooo boring, why don’t you […]
Okay fans of The Doors, complete the lyric begun in the title: Weird scenes . . . inside the gold mine (which comes from The End, the final track of their eponymous debut album). I purposely made this a little too easy so it would serve as a red herring. With my apologies to Jim […]
Perhaps it would be closer to the point if I entitled this FTV ‘Historical Snowmobiling Adventures’ as I haven’t ridden one since our kids were in elementary school. Grandpa Ed (my dad) always kept a Ski-doo Elan at camp he called ‘the kid’s machine’ so they could take a spin when we stopped by. […]
John Pepin of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources wrote an excellent article about the Craig Lake State Park (A Visit to Michigan’s Most Remote State Park – published in the Ontonagon Herald, April 10, 2019). The park straddles the Baraga – Marquette County line just north of Lake Michigamme. This article was interesting […]
Okay, this is a time when one of these ramblings must open with a disclaimer: This FTV is about the band, Mr. Big, but it started out as a musical trivia question posed to me at a local grocery emporium by Dan Bigge. The original question escapes me, but the answer was ‘Mr. Big’. […]
When we left Part 1, William Shatner had just had a close encounter with Gene Roddenberry who claimed to be working on a script for a new Star Trek vehicle. It would either become a low-budget TV movie or big screen feature, but Gene did not share the specifics with Bill. It was 1975 and […]