The Eclipse of the Beaver Moon early Friday morning was a treat to see, if you could withstand the 15 degree temps and cold winds. I managed to stay awake just long enough to see the moon about engulfed by the earth's shadow. And will not be seen this way again for another 500 years. This photo needs to find the right person to get credited for. This is one of the best photos of the Beaver partial.
Wrong beaver shot. On a different subject, I find the new Silk Sonic soul album quite a good listen. This is Bruno Mars hooking up with Anderson Paak and Bootsy Collins to put out a album that leans back to the funk jams of the 1970s with some Babyface like soul seduction songs, the first time I actually gave a glance at soul music which died when rap took over. Of course, Pitchfork slammed it, calling a nice but flawed look at old time soul. Rolling Stone was more giving, which leaves me in the middle, going more with RS with their view rather than the finicky Pitchfork reviewer who would rather review other craptastic albums like The Pharcyde or Lewis Taylor. Ross Scarano is no Michael Guluucci.
As we come to the conclusion of the this year, I have been compiling ideas about best places to eat at here in the Eastern Iowa area. Going to Madison is more of a struggle, great music and record stores, subpar places to eat at. At least here, we can always count on one of many Mexican places to eat at. Chinese food not so much. I used to rave about the Crossroads Bristol and they are still good, but they have cut their portions down quite a bit, tho there's no shortage of chicken fried rice. The Kung Pao Chicken still rocks, I just wish they have bigger portions. For take out Panda Lin, next to Metro in CR remains the best C.F.R. and they are still quick to cook it for you. Panda Express remains having the hottest blackened chili peppers in their Kung Pao Chicken (or General Tao's Chicken) The Red Lantern on Boyson and Chef Wong on 1st Avenue are the best of the rest. Out here in the boonies, the Anamosa Chinese place is preferred over the Monticello Chinese place. Simply of location.
The older I get, the less I eat pizzas. Simply of the fact that old age and the old body don't get along with pizza anymore. But I still have my faves. The new Unimpaired Bar in Iowa City had some mighty fine personal pizzas that were out of this world and I'm sure Daven[ort's Unimpaired Bar is more of the same. Marco's still is the best of the take out pizza and Kum N Go's slices are fine stuff, that is if the cook doesn't throw off the wall crap like pickles and pineapple on them. Naso's and Leonardo's is the old reliable, however, Happy Joe's shut down their CR Location by Half Price Books. We still have other places to choose from. Little Ceaser's shut down the Mt Vernon Rd store but their quality has been going downhill for a few years. Pizza Ranch still has the buffet going on. Urban Pie closed their Marion store. Tomaso's still a better alternative to the likes of Pizza Hut or the former Poppa John's. Stone City General Store has some good pizzas too.
For Mexican, there are and will never be any shortages of them. If I want to get in and get out in a hurry, Si Senor in Mount Vernon and the Taco Depot number 2 and 3 in Cedar Rapids are my destination. Ditto Los Agaves in Iowa City before the I 80 exit, a shame that wasn't around when I was working at my place of employment at that time. While my best friend continues to rave about Cancun on 33rd St, their waitresses are terrible. I realize in this day and age it's hard to find good help cuz none of the places pay worth a shit and no health insurance to boot so whoever they hire have a cavalier attitude and spend more time checking their smartphones than wait on you. Hacienda Los Glorias has two locations, I like the Center Point Rd one better than the First Ave one, but the latter is special simply of the fact that forty years ago, it was known as the Dark Horse Saloon, a very rough biker bar that had plenty of fights and bad bands there. To which one band was so bad, they had their plug pulled twice.
Rest assured, that the best of the rest are very good as well. El Bajio, I'd recommend first, the Los Compradres, which has a great mexican lunch buffet, Villa's Patio in Marion, Las Margaritas, Super Burrito and Casa Los Glorias are honorable mention. If you're into fast food tacos, Moe's and Pancheros do the trick.Fuzzy's Tacos has closed up shop and moved to Coralville.
Which brings us to Iowa City. and Los Agaves is the place to go. El Ranchero number 2 and the rest won't disappoint either. Davenport is usually Ganzo's tho I tend to go to Rudy's Tacos' simply of the fact of their sauces that they offer. Both Hot and Mild sauces I empty out the container. Los Amigos next to Goodwill, is another place I can get in and out within a half hour when they are not busy. Azteca 3 down the road, is always busy so I never been in there. Nally's Kitchen, is a well kept secret and maybe someday I'll get there to eat. But if you really desperate for cheap Mex food on the go, there's always Taco Bell.
Passings: Mick Rock, famed photographer of the 1970s that captured the likes of Lou Reed and David Bowie, Queen and Iggy Pop passed away at age 72. Keith Allison, best known as part of the later Paul Revere And The Raiders of the late 60s and early 70's died of natural causes at age 79. While a lot of fans like the early lineup of the Raiders, Allison and Freddy Weller replaced them and kept the music a rolling. Allison did record an album but unlike Weller, never made it past cult artist. Allison also helped The Monkees during the Head recording sessions. He was part of the Jones, Dolenz, Boyce, Hart band that toured in 1976. His best known song was Freeborn Man, to which would become a country standard and covered by The Outlaws. https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/keith-allison-dead-paul-revere-raiders-1235000602/
Billy Hinsche, part of Dino, Desi And Billy fame and later a touring musician with the Beach Boys, passed away at age 70, as well as his mom Celia who was 96 both on the same day. DD&B had a big hit with I'm A Fool. In the case of Billy, lung cancer got him.
The bargain hunts this month has been minimal at best, except for the Half Price Books 45's finds earlier in the month. Usually at that time, we are being bombarded with the start of Christmas music from the Times Squared own Corporate Crap Channel such as KDAT, (104.5 on your dial from Hell itself). Get ready for fifty versions of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, White Christmas and that Mariah Carey song. There will be one more Quad City run before the snows hit. Perhaps Madison. Overall, 2021 has been a decent year for bargain hunting and for the first time ever, I tried to document the stuff found. With Christmas Music in the air at the thrift stores and the Christmas rush is on, I don't think we'll find much till after Christmas, to which by then, Mariah Carey will be retired till next October.
In this edition of Contender/Pretender. we look at who is the real thing or fake. In the case of Michigan State, getting blown out 56-7 at Ohio State is a black eye on their record. Ohio State we can say is the contender, we don't expect that to change next week. Iowa State falls at Oklahoma 28-21. Wisconsin outlasted a stubborn Nebraska team 35-28, which the Cornhuskers could make things interesting for Iowa next week in Lincoln. This might have the hawkeyes on upset alert. And Oregon got blown out by Utah 38-7, throwing the Ducks in Pretender land. This should get Cincinnati into the top 4 for the playoffs. No more excuses of the so called entitled teams.
(There goes Charlie for another TD Kickoff Run: Daily Iowan, Photo Credit)
(U Of I Athletics: Photo Credit, Charlie says bye bye)
Iowa won 33-23, to which Brian Feranenz's conservative play calling annoyed the home town team with plenty of boos. Illinois lost Bret Bleimana to COVID protocol, which meant his homecoming to Iowa City was not going to happen. Illinois did enjoy a 10-0 lead before Charlie Jones, ran the kickoff back 100 yards for a 10-7 and then Arland Bruce IV took it in 2 yard that the Hawkeyes regained the lead. Outside of Tyler Goodson's 132 yards rushing, the offense was lackluster. Caleb Shudak hit four field goals and Jack Campbell had a pick six interception. Iowa has won 8 straight against their Eastern neighbor and 13 of the last 14 meetings. This concludes the Iowa games at Iowa City, next up, The Cornhuskers in Lincoln on Friday.
Arizona State back to their usual shit self again. Their Pac 12 hopes of winning the division now history as Oregon State Beavers dropped the Plastic Forks 24-10. The Beaver defense dominated this game and The Plastic Forks place kicker missed two FG. Wouldn't matter much anyway. Jack Colletto ran through the defense for a 47 yard TD run and game over. Oregon State finishes with a 6-0 record at home, first time since 2000. Next game is the battle for the title hopes with Oregon. Arizona State will try to rebound against Arizona, to which Washington State blew them out 44-18 Friday Night.
For Iowa State it has been a very disappointing year and having a few breaks going against you. What was supposed to be a great year turned south and then to lose on the last play of the game with a long Texas Tech FG and then coming up short to Oklahoma. I tend to forget that these kids worked their ass off in practice and then go up against other teams that do the same. That would apply to Arizona State, who one week look like world beaters and next week can't put their pants on . And then the ire of watching your fave team get blown off the field. Or watching so called power teams play cupcakes and blow them out just for the sake of reaching the College Playoffs. Georgia played a cupcake team, Norte Dame played another team. In the case of Iowa, Brian Feranez's playcalling is why fans boo.
Steve Smith, former fullback for LA/Oakland Raiders, died from ALS. He was 57.
Of course, in December will be the congratulations and self back patting for 20 years of blogging of what used to be known as Crabby's Corner, later R S Crabb Top Ten and Record Views, before going generic with Record World. I find it strange that I continued to do this blog, even after the usual farewell bullshit that has never happened, I always seem to come back. In 20 years, times have changed and the world went from CDs back to vinyl LPs and managed to keep buying LP's despite the fact that Vinyl is a lot more expensive than CDs. The 180 gram virgin vinyl is bullshit marketing but even this area has gotten new record stores in the past five years, namely Analog Vault. Best Buy, I never go into all that much anymore. But even in a era of CD's now regulated into the small area at the big box stores, there's Collector's Choice to get the new music, if Target or Wal Mart doesn't have em.
(It's Jane Dillon as your eye candy girl. Jane has been the go to girl in Eye Candy)
Still, 20 years later and I never gotten much recognition in the music blog field, even after the Mining Company shut down and My Space was a waste of space. The best blogs were at the latter and most have been disposed into the big black hole in internet land. I do have a couple of followers that continue to read the latest and the lamest and I usually have this as a reference to myself, but the ratings and views continue to make me laugh. In fact, three of the top ten are the so called final blogs that threatened the end of this 20 year ride. In fact, Jane Dillon was a toddler when I did the original post back at the Mining Company. Blogger has been the go to place for me since 2008, just before My Space lost its cool and meaning. In reality, the old My Space did its job before it got too full of itself. Even Justin Timberlake failed with My Space. I gave up on Twitter, Facebook was bad enough but at least I could chat with folk about music over there. But Twitter served no purpose.
Maybe a 100 years from now, if Blogger is still around, perhaps these archives will get people to talk about forgotten music, or look at the eye candy of the month or check out the extensive 45 collection that broke out big time, right before the vinyl revival. I suppose I have reviewed enough new music to come up with a best of 2021. Which will be compiled right after Neil Young and Crazy Horse new album.
