I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SHERYL CROW-Tiny Desk Concert #919/Tiny Desk Fest October 29, 2019 (December 2, 2019).

This Tiny Desk concert was part of Tiny Desk Fest, a four-night series of extended concerts performed in front of a live audience and streamed live on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Back in October, NPR allowed fans to come watch some Tiny Desk Concerts live.  October 29th was pop rock night featuring Sheryl Crow.

I had tried to get tickets to the Tiny Desk Fest.  Possibly on this night, although really I wanted the indie rock night.  If I had gotten tickets to this night I would have been a little bummed to find out it was Sheryl Crow.  I did like her many years ago, but I basically grew disinterred in her after her first couple of albums.

However, this set proves to be a lot of fun.  Her old songs sound great, the new songs are fun and her voice sounds fantastic.

“I heard a big thing on NPR about the shrinking of the attention span and how now, with pop songs, everything has like six seconds before you gotta change it, because the kids swipe over,” Sheryl Crow tells the crowd early in her Tiny Desk Fest concert. “I’m just gonna tell you right now: We’re dinosaurs. … And while the kids are all writing fast food — which is super-cool ’cause it tastes great, super-filling — we’re sort of still writing salmon. We’re the songwriters that are here to tax your attention span.”

She opens with “All I Wanna Do”

Twenty-five years ago this fall, Crow was in the midst of a massive career breakthrough: Her inescapable hit “All I Wanna Do” was entrenched in the Top 5 — it would later win the Grammy for Record of the Year — and her 1993 debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club, was well on its way to selling more than 7 million copies in the U.S. alone.

Gosh it seems way more than 25 years ago to me.

I get a kick that she starts the song by saying “This ain’t no country club.  This ain’t no disco. This is Tiny Desk.”  The songs sounds terrific.  It holds up well and feels rejuvenated with some amazing pedal steel from Joshua Grange.  Surprisingly, the song doesn’t finished, it just jumps right into “A Change Would Do You Good.”  This song is one of several that feature nice keyboards sounds from Jen Gunderman (who also provides backing vocals).  Sheryl hits some nice high notes and there’s a great slide guitar solo from Peter Stroud.

She played some songs from her new album.  Introducing “Prove You Wrong,” she says this song features Stevie Nicks and Maren Morris.  They’re not here but were gonna play it anyway.  This song is remarkably country-sounding with some bouncy country bass from Robert Kearns.  There’s also a honky tonkin’ guitar solo form Audley Freed and a more rocking guitar solo from Stroud.

She wrote some songs with Chris Stapleton, like “Tell Me When It’s Over.”  This opens with a little drum fill from Frederick Eltringham.  It’s got a surprisingly disco feel in the middle of the song with some real old-fashioned keyboard sounds.

Fifteen years ago she moved to Nashville to quite out the noise–you know the noise of the world.  She says NPR is calming.  There are tiny desks everywhere with good people sitting behind them telling the truth at their tiny desks.  This is an introduction to “Cross Creek Road” an Americana song with solos from first Stroud and then Freed.

She continues saying that things are crazy these days and its hard to raise kids telling them you’re not allowed to lie, truth matters, be nice to one another, be empathetic and then having to turn off the TV if the news comes on.  Her nine year old asked her if the apocalypse was real, which freaked her out until she realized he was watching a zombie movie.  This

“Out Of Our Heads” proves to be a good old-fashioned campfire sing along.

The set ends with “If It Makes You Happy.”  She starts it slowly in an improv way, but when everyone kicks in it sounds pretty darn nice (although maybe a little slow).  I really like the keys that sound like flutes in the middle.

The blurb says she performed two unexpected encores.  I assume we heard them but they just cut out the intervening clapping?  Either way, it’s a really great set and shows that Crow still has it.

[READ: December 2019] Moone Boy: The Fish Detective

This second book has an introduction from the imaginary Friend just like the first one.  It invites you to put your feet up (but not on the book unless you enjoy reading through your toes) and to have a snack (the red bits on the cover taste like strawberries).

The book opens with the explanation that Martin Moone doesn’t handle the calendar very well–he doesn’t like long stretches of time on between holidays, so he divides the calendar into “yections:”

• Boxing for Love: St.Stephen’s Day to Valentine’s Day
• Lovefool: Valentine’s Day  to April Fools Day
• Fools’s Gold: April Fools Day to 20th May (my birthday when I always ask for gold gifts)
• Golden Days: 20th May to end of term
• Days of Wonder: summer holidays!
• Wonder What Happened to the New School: start of term to 5th November
• Why Won’t It End: 5th November to Christmas Day

We were in the last yection–it was 50 sleeps til Christmas and Martin wondered if his parents had thought of a good present for him. They said they were torn “between getting you new school trousers or fixing the sink in the bathroom. You love that sink, don’t you?”

Then Martin gives the crux of this book: For Christmas he wants a Game Boy.

That seems unlikely to happen so maybe Martin could get a job.  He thinks he’d like to a be a bin man.  But the actual bin man says you’re not exactly a man are you?  It’s in the job title after all.

So Martin thinks of jobs with boy in the name.  Stable boy (he’s allergic to horses); cowboy (same thing); schoolboy (it doesn’t pay well); Game Boy!

Then they see an ad for a paperboy.  It sounds perfect–Martin is unqualified and there are no qualifications.  But when the start time is 6AM, that pretty much nixes the job.

Martin’s friend Padraic says that his Aunt Bridget owns a butcher shop.  The trick is though, since Martin’s unqualified, the only way he’ll be able to get the job is if he speaks Irish (Auntie Bridget loves to speak Irish),   Martin, like all other kids, takes Irish class every day. But his class is right after lunch when he likes to nap.  The only phrase he knows is

Múinteoir an bhf uil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas, le do thoil?

which means

Teacher, may I go to the toilet please?

This seems like a liability, but when Bridget asks him (in Irish) if he knows how important cleanliness is, when he says the phrase, it pleases her to no end.

Martin was going to be a butcher boy!

It is on the first day of work that Martin learns that Bridget is in strict competition with Francie Feeley’s Fabulous Fishatorium, the shop across the street that has been stealing all of her business.  Each week the Fishatorium window would have fish displayed in a diorama*

*Diorama this word can either mean “a model or a scene with little figures standing inside it” or else “the diarrhea of a llama” Just depends on the situation.”

The book is full of these misinformation-filled footnotes.

Dioramas include The Last Fish Supper and Starfish Wars.  The owner Francis “Touchy” Feeley was very friendly and would hug and kiss anyone he met (that’s probably where he got the nickname from).

But Martin and Bridget think something is fishy about Feeley.  So Martin decides to go undercover to investigate.  When Martin suggests he become a spy fro Bridget, she says, and to think I was going to fire you today.

Martin can’t believe he was going to get fired.

Was it because I found a rat and herded him into the sausage machine and accidentally switched it on?

Was it because I dropped your keys into the toilet when I was peeing into it and then used that glove you’re wearing to fish out the keys, but dropped that into the pee bowl too, so I used your other glove to fish out the first glove and then used your hairnet to fish out the keys?

She decided keep him as a spy and gives him his weekly wages: a “Lucky Bag” from the shop–could be anything!

Now this book is very childish (and very funny) but there was nothing as funny (and childish ) as when Martin tries to come up with his spy name.  When he gets to the fish store Francie asks him his name and his imaginary friend Sean Murphy tells him not to use his real name so he comes up with the first think that pops into his head.  My name is Fartin Foone.

The joke that never stops being funny (throughout the book).

Also working at the fish emporium is Declan Mannion the school bully.  In the previous book he fell in love with Martin’s sister.  Declan has no memory of Martin.

But while they are talking Martin sees mysterious men jumping out of a truck and doing loads of fish gutting.

So Declan tells Francie that Fartin knows the secret.

Francie threatens to gut Martin if he reveals the secret, but Declan tells Francie that Martin’s too dumb to be a problem.  How does Declan know he’s dumb?

Well put it this way–I once saw him eat a whole plastic display of fruit and not know the difference.
Martin chuckled with amusement. “Haa no, that’s not true.  But I did once eat a whole display of fruit in a shop once.  That part is true.
And how did it taste? asked Francie.
Not great.  Completely juiceless.  I think it had been sitting on the counter for a few days.”

Francie is comforted and gives Martin a broom to do the ol’ seeep sweep bang bang (Sweep the fish guts then bang the brush on the floor to get rid of the fish guts).

Now that he’s in, though, he can learn some secrets like that Feeley’s Sherbet is made of 93% fish guts, 6% fruit, 1% sand.

When the seven bells ring that night signalling the end of the day, the mysterious men come in to clean the fish.  Francie introduces Martin but they don’t understand English.  Finally Francie points to Martin and says fish guts,  And that is what the mystery men call him from then on.

Martin’s parents are sol pleased that Martin has a job that they let him take the most comfortable room in the house–much to his sisters’ displeasure.  The get revenge by putting make up on him while he’s asleep.  But just the right amount so it looked like he’d done it himself.  There’s a very funny pay off to that later.

There’s also a funny subplot about Martin needing to get to school faster so he decides to remove a bunch of bricks from his back yard wall–thus saving him several minutes of going around it.  The payoff for this is pretty great, too.

But the important thing is the foreign fish gutters.  Turns out they are from Brazil and they are very nice.  One of them even sings beautiful songs.  Martin doesn’t want to turn them in–he has become friends with them.  Even when Bridget offers a substantial (Game Boy sized) reward.

But someone else winds up ratting them out.  And Bridget makes sure to tell the Garda about the foreign objects.  When Martin says they are his friends and he doesn’t understand what they’ve done wrong.  The book dismantles the immigration compliant.

Bridget says they don’t have the proper working papers

But Martin doesn’t understand.  Why are these hard-working men, who are helping their families, being treated like criminals?

Bridget says well, they come her and take our jobs.

But the factory was closed before they got her.  Didn’t they create jobs?

So what will happen?  Will the Brazilians be arrested and sent back to Brazil?  Will Martin keep either of his jobs?  Will he ever get a game boy?  And what of that hole in the wall?

Well, as for the Game Boy, lets just say that Martin’s dad likes to do a bit of DIY.

This book was very silly and quite funny but there was also some surprising heart in it.