Catching my breath

As you’ll see in Friday’s column (read it here), I returned Wednesday after almost two weeks of vacation in London and Paris. (Oooh la la!) The column is a recap of some of the bigger local news that occurred while I was away.

As for this blog, I used up my store of prepared material while I was gone to keep the posts coming for your reading pleasure. I’m out of time for a Restaurant of the Week, but I’ll try to be back on schedule with that next week, when I’ll also present my monthly Reading Log and a few photos from my trip that may be of interest.

Oh, and if you’re not following me on Twitter, you can do so here. I tweeted photos and commentary from London and Paris. And there will be more: I have photos from Paris I haven’t tweeted yet.

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Davy Jones and ‘Daydream Believer’

I loved “The Monkees,” which I watched as a boy in reruns in the early to mid 1970s. Robert Lloyd of the LA Times has a thoughtful piece on Davy Jones’ passing that to my mind hits all the right notes on the show’s appeal (“the self-aware naturalism of its leads”) and the false arguments about the made-for-TV band’s authenticity.

Reader Bob Terry reminded me that one of Jones’ signature vocals, “Daydream Believer,” was written by Pomona native John Stewart. I wrote a column in 2007 about the song’s 40th anniversary that included an interview with Stewart, who died unexpectedly three months later.

That column appears in full below. And here’s a YouTube video of the song with a nice selection of familiar vignettes from the show.
Continue reading “Davy Jones and ‘Daydream Believer’” »

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This rat really rates

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Reader Mike Hames offers a tourist tip: “If you are ever in Shell Beach (just north of Pismo Beach), you might want to see the ‘reasonable rat’ at this motel.” Sounds good. If you’re going to meet a rodent, might as well be a sensible one.

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