Awaken

Mmmmmmm. Is that the time? Crikey it's late. It's the beginning of August already. We stretch & yawn and emerge with grog from a nice long sleep with all sorts of plans for the day, the month, the upcoming semester, indeed the rest of our life. We will be posting tracks from the forthcoming Rob Vasey/Dry Rib CD Whose Last Trickle, and the prof will be providing a Drummer's Cut commentary for some of the tracks. We will report on Zeppelin progress & the class Special Topics: Led Zeppelin, which is being revamped for the Fall. One day we will get around to responding to that Weekly Rader post on pop & poetry. What else? Oh, all sorts of interesting ideas. But right now it is Friday morning, the sun is coming up here in The Beanery on College Ave, and we are in no hurry.

Noted in July:

* Fans of the football team West Bromich Albion (don’t ask) who have bought shirts that do not have the sponsor’s logo on them yet will be able to return the shirt and have the logo put on it – free of charge. What a deal.

* In The Beanery early one morning a woman sitting two tables away asked me – as the laptop was unsheathed – if it would be a problem if she & her friend had what she called (in a voice that ever-so-slightly suggested an unpleasant medical procedure) “a conversation”. It has come to this.

* Some people on buses in Berkeley still thank the driver as they exit the vehicle. Brilliant.

* David Silver is revising our class Introduction To Media Studies & we had a lovely evening of shop talk and not-shop talk at which it was agreed that the prof is actually going to give a lecture on -- whisper it -- MTV, sometime in October.

* It is possible to play along to "Whole Lotta Love". And "When The Levee Breaks". And, "Heartbreaker". Wow.

* Simon Frith has agreed to participate in an interview here at POP, some time in the Fall.

* Many old friends, ex-students & colleagues from afar have been in touch lately, we've had lunch and drinks with a few of you, and we encourage lurkers & old acquaintances to fire off a Comment, or send an email.

* And Chelsea have a manager! A manager, we do trust, who knows better than to boast about the trophies he has not won.