#son benjamin

Mine for a day

A word about this Gibson J-45 Standard acoustic …

When I’m in L.A., I always borrow a guitar from son Benjamin to keep my fingers flexible and my calluses intact. On Christmas Day he plucked this one from his collection (vast, in my opinion) and handed it over.

The next day it dawned on him that he needed that particular guitar for the Wild Horses show. He took it back and replaced it with one that was more than suitable to my needs.

Heartbreaking

FaceTiming from L.A. Friday, son Benjamin appeared to be fighting back tears as he talked about the things in his adopted city that he had loved and lost in the past 72 hours or so.

Various restaurants, shops and museums; homes of close friends; “Christmas Tree Lane” in Altedena, where residents have been going whole hog with their holiday displays since 1920 . All of it gone.

The destruction is breathtaking: 12,000 buildings lost. The death toll at 11 and bound to rise. Big chunks of sunny LA. turned into what one reporter called a “hellscape.”

Meanwhile, Lord Huron guitarist Tom Renaud posted the above photo and message.

'Map of the World' well traveled

Son Benjamin's senior project at U-M's School of Art and Design included five mixed-media panels collectively known as "Map of the World."

They're all roughly 64 inches tall and 32 inches wide and composed of salvaged scrap wood - old window frames mainly, which means that if you're going to hang one on a wall, you'd better have a solid stud and some industrial-strength wire.

Sharon and I bought two (one hangs in our home; the other, at the lake). My brother bought one and a friend bought one.

The fifth panel (pictured above) ended up on the wall of a Lansing restaurant, where it remained from 2005 until two days ago. Now it's in our living room, leaning against a wall.

It so happens that the restaurant is being remodeled and can no longer display the panel properly. Somebody there who was aware of our connection to the artwork tracked us down and offered it to Sharon and me.

'Cuckoo's Nest' - for the very first time

It's funny how the memory works. If you had asked me three days ago if I had read "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," I would have said, "Oh, yeah."

But I would have been wrong.

I've seen the movie several times (it's a favorite of mine), but, somehow, I wrongly assumed all along I had read the book, too.

In a way, I'm glad I hadn't because I'm currently on my first time around and enjoying it immensely. I'm only a quarter of the way through and am laughing out loud at Kesey's wit.

I mentioned the book to son Benjamin; it just so happens that he, too, read "Cuckoo's Nest" only recently. He predicted that the final paragraph of the book would knock my socks off.

A tip of the hat to veterans

Speaking of which ...

My younger son, Benjamin, while on tour with Lord Huron, stopped by a military store somewhere in Florida and bought me this hat.

I served on the Forrestal, an aircraft carrier, in 1968-69.

Red meat

Son Benjamin and his band, Lord Huron, were playing the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal earlier this week.

Among the items in the catered buffet for the musicians: raw venison.

As you can see from this photo he sent me, only the outer edge of the meet has been cooked.

I’ve always been a staunch opponent of overcooking venison, but I’ve never gone quite this far.

“It’s actually really good,” he wrote.