Buried Treasure

Sometimes the universe goads you to keep going. This was the case this morning when I woke up singing "All The Way From Memphis," one of those songs that—after you hear it the first time—makes you wonder how you ever lived without it. 

My brain being a database of rock and roll relativity, the song made me think of Joe Elliott (a huge Mott The Hoople fan), which made me think about the Planet Rock radio show he hosts, which made me want to listen online to his most recent playlist. 

This, and a pound of Peet's coffee, is what got me out of bed. 

Alas, the UK-based Planet Rock radio player wouldn't load on my US-based Mac. I updated my Flash player to no avail. I tried and tried and tried until it became a quest. 

But, in the end, I had to give up and load Sirius instead. Which led me to Tom Petty's Buried Treasure, a channel I'd never clicked on before. I like Tom Petty. I like him a lot, but had always assumed his catalog would be flooded with Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers. And it was, but I heard a Neil Young song I'd never heard before ("The Loner") that, musically if not lyrically (or perhaps both) embodied the essence of my '70s childhood. And a Zombies song I'd never heard before ("This Will Be Our Year"). And a Hendrix song (whose title I've stupidly forgotten) that prompted Petty to say, "Wow. If you listened to that song with headphones every day, I'm not sure you'd be able to walk very well." 

Did I say I liked Tom Petty? I love him. 

Throw in the three seasons of Veronica Mars I've just begun watching on Amazon Prime (never saw the show before), the David Foster Wallace book I downloaded to my Kindle (never read him before), my new Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (I can't wait to learn Muse), and the fact that I'm getting my eyebrows reshaped and I'd say I'm turning a sucktacular week into one kickass glass of frontier spirit lemonade. 

To keep my chi cranked up, I'm creating a collage of framed black and white photos for my hallway of people I aspire to be like, because they inspire me to be myself. Here are a few of them. Who would yours be?