RIP David Sanborn

I found out jazz saxaphonist David Sanborn died while I was in Portugal via Datalounge, of all things. I was shocked to find out he'd been suffering with prostate cancer for a number of years because I had no idea. One of the last concerts I saw in New York before I moved to the Chicago area was one featuring David Sanborn and Bob James and it was great. I'd seen Dave in concert before, but not with Bob. They had a new CD out and performed songs from that and from their older Double Vision CD. 

Back in the 1990s, when I was a secretary, I met David Sanborn at a suburban Detroit record store. He was in town to promote his CD Pearls that had recently been released and I took a long lunch break, drove to the store, and met him. There's a picture of us together somewhere in my mounds of junk. I was (and still am) a huge David Sanborn fan. He was the kind of older man I really liked when I was in my 20s. Not that I could see myself hooking up with a guy who was almost my father's age, but I would have made an exception for Dave! There was something very appealing about him. Aside from being incredibly talented, he also seemed like a nice guy. I rambled when I met him and told him a story about some guy who kept yelling out "Jo Ann's Song" at a Sanborn concert I'd been to like Dave was taking special requests. He laughed and probably thought I was a psycho, but he still posed for a picture with me. 

RIP, Dave.  

Post-Portugal Perspective

It's been almost a week since I returned from my weeklong trip to the island of Madeira, off the coast of Portugal and I've had a lot of time to process the trip. I had a great time and learned a lot about Madeira, its people, and its ecology. The travel group I was with (that was comprised mostly of British folks and one white South African), provided amusing and interesting commentary (and more about them in another post), but we all had a great tour guide who took us all around Madeira and accompanied us to places like a banana plantation, a rum factory, on a boat ride where we saw dolphins, and many to the peaks of many mountains. Maderia is a beautiful place with friendly and (I might add) attractive people. I highly recommend a visit to this wonderful island if you get the chance. I've posted some pictures below from my travels. 

Adeus, Portugal!

I have returned home after a week in Portugal, Madiera speficially. What a great place! I highly recommend it if you're looking for somewhere to travel in Europe that it's terribly expensive. The climate is great, the people are nice, and the island is beautiful. I plan had to been to go to Germany sometime this year and I took German lessons last summer with that goal in mind, but I couldn't get it to work out in terms of the time or money I wanted to spend, so I looked into other places in Europe and decided on Portugal. I traveled with a group of Brits (who were a lot of fun and very interesting to observe). As the only American in the travel group, they often asked me questions about the USA, Biden, Trump, etc. Oy vey! I didn't go on vacation to talk about American politics, but they're interested, so I did the best I could to answer as honestly as I could about my feelings on every subject they raised. 

More on Portgual later, but I'll just say that I had a great time and I'm glad to be home. I'm the kind of American who enjoys visiting other countries, but knows I'd never live anywhere else (or at least I don't think I could). I'm too accustomed to what I know here in the US of A!

Here's a picutre of one of the little A frame houses on display in the Santana region of Madeira and also a little model of that house from one of the museums we visited. 

Going to the Movies

I've been slowly going back to actual movie theaters to see movies, but I'm still not back to my pre-Covid days of theater movie viewing. I still remember the last movie I saw at a theater before Covid shut everything down: the remake of The Invisible Man. Who knew that would be the last movie I'd see in a theater for years? (Not a bad movie, but not that great either.) The last movie I saw in a theater recently was Late Night with the Devil (that I drifted off to sleep on). I love a good scary movie and the good ones are few and far between these days, unfortunately. When I saw Late Night, I saw a trailer for a movie called Cuckoo that looked interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing that one. 

Last weekend, I read a lot of media reports about how the new Ryan Gosling movie The Fall Guy didn't meet expectations at the box office. I couldn't figure out who the audience was for this movie. Female Barbie fans who liked Gosling in that movie? Young guys who like action movies? Fans of Emily Blunt? Older people (like myself) who remembered the TV series by the same name? (I, honestly, barely recall that TV show. It wasn't something I watched religiously was a kid like The A Team or Fantasy Island.) Whoever the fan base was for The Fall Guy remake, those folks didn't turn out in huge numbers to see the film. I think part of the reason so many movies are tanking these days is that they cost way too much to make. I also think movies come to TV via streaming so fast these days that it's not worth it to trek to a theather and see it unless it's something you feel like you really need to see on the big screen. 

This weekend, the new Planet of the Apes movie is hitting theaters. I'll pass on that one although I saw one of the Apes movies years ago with Mark Wahlberg and it wasn't bad. I saw a trailer for the one coming out today the last time I went to the movies and it didn't look terrible, but it looked like something I could wait to see via streaming, not at the theater. I wonder if people will turn out for this movie this weekend. 

Jump, Jump, Jump to It!

The list of people I actually like or don't actively dislike at my day job is getting smaller with each passing month. At times, I find myself asking, "Am I the asshole?" Sometimes I am, but sometimes I'm not! I'm just getting more and more annoyed with the constant emails that expect you to drop everything else you're doing and, as Aretha would say, "Jump, jump, jump to it!" I had to tell someone I work with recently to pump the brakes after he came at me about a project that had only been sent about a week before. Jeez! It's a good thing I'm taking some time off soon. I could use some days away from the constant emails, stupid questions, and unrealistic expectations. 

RIP, Paul Auster.