Monthly Archives: July 2023

And Just Like That…

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Well, this is the last Friday before school starts.  I say bring the school year on!

After being in the counseling office for 20 years, this English teacher is ready to go.  I have not spent this much time away from a school building in a very long time.  I am ready to get back.  There is always so much optimism that goes into a new school year.  It is a new beginning.  The students know it.  The teachers know it.  That is what makes it so special.

I have seen this cartoon show up on social media of late.  Photoshopping Linus is never a good look.  It’s not the government’s job to do what Linus is supposedly alluding to.  No, there’s a choice you make every day.  God has been with me every school day.  And if you know anything about standardized testing in Indiana, you know school prayer is alive and well.  So much for the cynics.

Thank you to Brother Tim Petty for getting me back on the golf course for the first time since 2019.  It was a great time.  I hit the ball better than expected.

 

I reference this picture as the place field goals go to die.   This was taken during a walk about campus recently.

Justin Hayward wrapped up a run of shows recently.  He will be back on the road in October.

The dates are slowly trickling out.  I am optimistic about getting to one.

Speaking of Jus, he recently was awarded his O.B.E (Order of the British Empire) from King Charles.  The award was announced last year before Queen Elizabeth died.  Not bad.

This isn’t bad either.  Granddaughter Penelope sporting her Moody Blues onesie.  If I can get her to a show before Justin hangs up his guitar, she’ll be the fifth generation I got there.

The Atlantic Ocean side of Topsail Island, NC.  Was there earlier in the week with my dear wife, Carrie.  The waves roar on.

The sound side is peaceful and quiet.

I must say I never tire of being reminded of a song I recorded when it plays at random on my Amazon Music account.  I hear it and have to remind myself for second.  Oh yeah, I know that one.

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

 

 

A Top Ten Classic by The Moody Blues

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I never tire of thinking about the music of Spring and Summer of 1986. The Outfield was singing about Josey being on a vacation far away.  The Bangles were singing about a Manic Monday.  All Mike and the Mechanics needed was a Miracle. Bob Seger was in the midst of an American Storm.  And one song, well, one song made this senior in high school at the time look as though he was on to something after all.

The story is worn about me happening on the cassette of The Moody Blues landmark album Days of Future Passed on my 15th birthday in 1983.  I took it home and that was that.  This was my Ed Sullivan moment.  On a musical island in Southern Indiana, I listened to every Moodies album I could get my hands on.  That was an easier thing to do in 1986.  The album was called The Other Side of Life.  Released on April 9th that year, The Moody Blues were on the charts again.

The single that was a top ten hit 37 years ago this week was a tune called Your Wildest Dreams written by Justin Hayward.

This signed vinyl promo copy still sounds pretty darn good.

Thank you, Moody Blues.  Heads were nodding and toes were tapping to a song that made folks around me ask, “Isn’t that the band you always listen to?”   That was more than enough.

Looking at the calendar, looking at my head full of white hair, listening to a song that hasn’t changed.  I think that is what music gives us.  I know Justin Hayward of The Moodies and now a great solo artist says there is something special about hanging on to the music of your youth.  I hear exactly that today, listening to this song with purpose this many years on.

The first Moody Blues concert I attended was in 1986.  When they walked across the stage my simple 18 year-old mind was thinking I was glad I got there when I did.  These guys look old.  The Days of Future Passed thing is nearly 20 years old is what I told myself.  I wasn’t alone.

Steve Wine wrote an album review of The Other Side of Life for the Associated Press in 1986.  A couple lines from Steve were “Kids are buying records by men who look like their grandfathers-check out gray-haired drummer Graeme Edge on the jacket of The Other Side of Life (Polydor), which has climber the charts as rapidly as any album the Moody Blues have released in their 21-year career.”

Steve’s last line said, “Grandparents never sounded so good.”  To Justin Hayward’s defense, he was only 39 when the album was released.

I got there in 1986 and heard that radio hit of a song Your Wildest Dreams live. The wild dream joke was on me.  I didn’t get there just in time like that teenager thought.  The music may have been great in the 80s.  That did not mean it made us very smart or forgiving at the time.

In the end, I was fortunate enough to witness nearly 60 Moody Blues concerts from 1986 to 2017.  Last year I heard Justin Hayward sing this song once again during one of his shows.

I’m not the only one who subscribes to the hanging on to the music of one’s youth philosophy.

A few days ago I was at my parents’ house and we were listening to these long players.  Pat Boone sounded great too.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

 

 

 

Finding Baseball

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The second speaktherights.com photo after Bob Biddle took me to see Fenway Park in 2014.July 10, 2023?  Did I hear one of you say that?

Gads.  Summers do fly by.  So do Falls and Winters and Springs.

On July 8, 2014, I wrote my first speaktherights.com entry.  I never dreamed I would still be here.  I never dreamed I would not.  We just do what we do.  If anyone is reading that is fine.  Some people talk too much.  Some people write too much.  In the infancy of speaktherights.com, I felt compelled to play catch-up.  I wrote many entries often.  When I look back, I marvel at the material and the drive to put it here.

Like the seasons, times change.  I don’t have that great sense of urgency to run to the keyboard each time I am inspired.  I have written a few new songs lately.  That has been good.  One day I may make another proper recording.  Like all things, time will tell.

But here we are.  Just a few things on my mind today.  Inspired?  Somewhat, I think so.  I am working on new material for the upcoming school year.  That is inspiring.  I think I enjoy teaching and appreciate the opportunity to help students more than ever.  With youth comes optimism.  Lord knows we need it.

Have you seen this guy?  Elly De La Cruz plays for the Cincinnati Reds and has invigorated a team, a city, a league.  We have not seen anything like it in the 55 years I have been on this orb.  On this play he stole home after stealing second and third.  The first Cincinnati Red to do so since 1919.  I saw a photo of this from the third base side and the umpire looked like he’d swallowed his snuff when Elly touched home.  The best day any sports pioneer ever had was the day the guy looked at his baseball diamond and pointed to the plate pitchers aim for and called it “home”.

This was the HOME of my heroes.  Walking up through one of those holes you can see at the red seat level was a voyage of pure possibility.  In doing so, I found a way to see Sparky Anderson and The Big Red Machine, harass Enos Cabell in left field, see George Foster hit a red seat home run, watch a kid attempt to throw a foul ball back from the second row of the red seats behind home because he thought they needed it to keep playing.  Would you believe the second base umpire saw it all and summoned an usher to give the kid another ball.  I saw Bill Dorn hit a homer and stand in the dugout afterwards to see an ump look to the Reds bench and call it a “foul ball”.  I saw Joe Morgan flap his elbow while he was at bat.  I saw Lou Pinella throw second base-twice. I was there for Johnny Bench Day in 1983 and watched him put in a huge chaw of Beech-Nut.   As a child they had a promotion called “Bat Day”.  Every kid got a regulation sized Louisville Slugger as they entered Riverfront Stadium.  When the stadium organist played “DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DUH!”  Every kid rose to their feet, raised their bat by the handle and yelled “CHARGE!!!”

Perhaps the best of any of it was having seen enough games there, more than I can ever remember, to enable me the visual point of reference to see what Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall meant when they called Reds games on radio.  I listened to many.  If they were winning, I always had to wait to hear Marty say, “And this one belongs to the Reds.”

Elly De La Cruz has charged a team to raise their game to his.  Otherwise, he’s just going to make them all look bad.  But that’s the way it happens when some great teams are made.  Joe Montana took the 49ers from woeful to legendary.  Yes, the unthinkable is possible.

I was in a school musical about Thomas Edison.  The Electric Sunshine Man is what it was called.  There was a song in that yellow book that said, “Nothing is impossible if you try.”  Sometimes gifts are handed to us for no reason other than it was meant to be.

That is why I am interested in baseball again for the first time in a long time.  The snooze fests I used to try to watch are now reminders of how and why I once enjoyed a game and a team so much.  To be given just a remote dose of that is worth the time.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson