I learned today, via Texas Monthly, that all of the shipping container “rooms” at Hotel Turkey, in Turkey, Tx, have turntables and Bob Wills albums.
Happy Birthday Robert Smith
Never change.
Can’t believe you nerds spend your money like that.
But have you seen my new Yordan jersey? This one’s different because it has gold trim for the world champs! But it clashes with my Space City hat, I’ll need a new hat…
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My boss’s boss is a huge sneaker head…he talks about his collection all the time. A man in his late 50’s, VERY high up in a Fortune 50 company, earning seven figures…is obsessed with basketball shoes. We all gotta be somewhere.
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One of Mark’s friends is like that about shoes. He is not like that financially.
My favorite hotel in the world, the Shorebreak Resort in Huntington Beach, CA, has a turntable in every room (along with a yoga mat). It’s always exciting to check in and see what classic rock album is featured in your room. There’s a vinyl library in the lobby that you can grab records and take up to your room.
That may be the most awesome hotel amenity I’ve ever heard of.
I will not stay in this hotel room…it is scratched.
That place looks great…I like that area but haven’t been out there in years, may have to change that soon.
My dresser drawer is full of eels!
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It’s a very good vibes place.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say these guys have been friends since high school.
https://twitter.com/nocontexthumans/status/1657707126830120962?s=61&t=Qeg0hB-yP82d4KsztftlEg
The Eurovision Song Contest has changed a lot.
https://twitter.com/bbceurovision/status/1657493015085170688?s=61&t=Qeg0hB-yP82d4KsztftlEg
Also, do yourself a favor and Google Hannah Waddingham as host of this year’s contest.
I got to meet Robert Plant yesterday.
He was in town, on tour with Allison Krause. I was at work, baking, when I saw my employee Nicole talking to a big ass, beefy, pealed-looking dude wearing a shirt that said “Outlaw Music Tour.” She was raving about Willie Nelson, whom she has seen many times. He leaned confidentially across the counter and mentioned something sotto voce. A moment later she came up to me and said, “So, Robert Plant is browsing books at your coffee shop…”
I about plotzed. Texted some. Left the man alone. Then finally I went up and asked if I could help him find anything. He said, “Yeah, I’m good.” Mrs banedoodle texted me: I’m not sure I would recognize him now. Then: Looked up a recent pic. He looks like a muddy puddle in a gravel road!
My mother-in-law–having caught wind on one teeming text tree or another–showed up with amazing alacrity, 76 this year, the quiet awe of a schoolgirl about her. She shuffled into my kitchen giving me looks. “Don’t bother him, Peggy, please.” “Can I ask to take a selfie?” “Please just leave him alone, Peggy.”
She compromised, said to him on her way out: “Are you a musician?”
“After 9 pm I will be,” he said.
She graciously told him he was responsible for some of her favorite songs, and took her leave.
I was keenly aware of how silly the music had become we were playing in the shop. 70s funk. I kept thinking, Should I put on Zeppelin? I was remembering being in the back seat of the family car on some road trip, listening to the opening bass notes of “Dazed and Confused” on my headphones–an experience that must in many ways be akin to being born. I remembered skipping school at Hyde Park Baptist in 8th grade, learning how to smoke cigarettes with a dude named Justin seldom caught outside a tie-dyed Zeppelin shirt.
Robert Plant finally decided to buy a book and I got to ring him up. It was Born to be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune. He explained, unprompted, that he’d already read it twice but bought it whenever he came across it to give away. He unleashed a perfect little paragraph about the book that I can’t reproduce from memory because my memory in the moment was crushed by his celebrity. But it concluded with the word “derring-do.” He looks great, by the way, and has very vivid big blue eyes. I said, “You should write blurbs.”
“I have done.”
“Oh, I think you’ve written a lot more than that, sir.”
“Well, used to. But you can’t sing about Golum about anymore.”
“Maybe we should! Maybe we must!”
“Frodo, maybe,” he said.
“Do you want a bag?”
He didn’t want a bag. He had a trunk already, he explained, a very large one he brought to America every time he crossed the pond to fill with things to look at later.
As he left I said, “Thank you–for everything!”
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Speechless, i am
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So cool when a person you have always assumed is cool turns out to be totally cool.
Perhaps THE greatest driving song ever.
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That is awesome. I have met some rock and roll people, none quite as important and influential as Plant, unless you think Madonna is. We used to have a saying “rock and roll is where high tech meets low life”, and many rock and roll folks fit that description. Plant does not, and he’s obviously experienced the world and decades in ways few of us ever will. In interviews he always comes across as engaging and interesting, chatting about all sorts of things. Nice to hear that image is accurate.
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What a fantastic scenario! I’ve seen him a few times recently…Band of Joy a few years ago with Patty Griffin and a month or so ago with Alison Krauss. Both times I was taken aback by the subtlety of his voice given the shredding he used to engage in. His early folk years have served him well at this stage of his career. He’s absolutely one of my favorites.
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I prefer his post-Zeppelin material by far. " He looks like a muddy puddle in a gravel road!" is a seriously apt description. The man has zero fucks to give about anything and that’s great.
I’ve only seen him live once, in 1985 according to the internet. I know it was in the 80s, but (again according to the internet) he didn’t play Houston on his 88 tour. The only song I recall from the setlist was Back in the USSR, which he did as an encore after announcing it was “time to play an old song, from 1968” and everyone thought this was the night he would finally play a Zeppelin song. He sure showed us! Great show. Can’t remember if he had an opener or not.
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Dude, you pulled that off brilliantly! You let others do the fawning (while setting limits), sold a legend a book that he already owned, AND got to have a nice, unforgettable conversation with him. Just perfect.
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