What Gives?

I'm in Napa today, hanging out for the 4th. As many cities do, they have a 4th of July festival. And so they have street vendors, kids' activities, and they hired a band to entertain the assembled throng. A really bad band of guys in their 40s and 50s, playing lame Chicago-style blues. Old white guys playing bad blues, that's pathetic.

Napa is a strange city. I would expect it to be more like San Luis Obispo, upscale with some sense of uniformity to it. But Napa really seems to be a lot more low-end than even say Petaluma or Santa Rosa. Napa reminds me much of Monterey: one or two really nice streets, a cute downtown and then a lot of shop turnover in the downtown area, and a lot of small blue collar businesses on the periphery. But all in all, aside from being located in some of the most valuable agricultural real estate in the world, it is unimpressive. The town deserves better.

I go on a wine tour tomorrow. I don't particularly like wine, or wine snobs, but sometimes I do things just to do them.

One last note ... for some reason, I was researching the chart history of Nilsson's cover of the Badfinger song [and perenial chart topper] "Without You" [a song cobbled together by the two suicides in the group, Pete and Tom, who really couldn't live, if living is without you.] What I found interesting is that (a) the song was a number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and (b) the songs that preceded and succeeded it in America were "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young, and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack, two great songs, brilliantly done. In England, the songs that preceded and succeeded it were "Son of My Father" by Chicory Tip and "Amazing Grace" by the Pipes & Drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. Ah, they do things differently across the pond, now don't they.