Hard at Play, Back Soon

During a typical week at this blog, we get about 2,000 visitors. I’m not vain enough to think that means 2,000 people have consciously chosen to aim their eyeballs in this direction—the count surely includes lots of people who stumble over here by Googly accident, and those accidents can be mighty odd. Actual phrases that have generated hits recently include “lost my virginity in 1978″ and “how to play intro to Boogie Nights.” The TV ads for Guitar Hero featuring Michael Phelps and Heidi Klum lip-synching Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll” have also brought lots of people over—they Google the first line and hit a post I wrote with that title earlier this year. But none of that is as strange as the fact that in late 2004, if you used MSN Search and the phrase “photos of gay guys wrestling in speedos,” my old blog, the Daily Aneurysm, came up eighth.

While I’m not vain enough to overestimate the appeal of this bilgewater, I’m also not dismissive enough of its value to believe that nobody comes here intentionally. I’m fortunate to have a group of people who read regularly, comment frequently, and correct me when necessary. They raise the quality of the discourse considerably. Others read without commenting because they enjoy finding out what’s on my mind, or in my music stash, on any given day—although if you’ve been lurking a while, what’s keeping you from chiming in?

No matter what brought you here today, you have my thanks in this season of thanksgiving. We’ll be on hiatus for the next several days, because I’m going to disconnect from the Internet and spend the next few days hanging out with the family. When I return next week, we’ll revisit radio as she sounded in the 1960s, and we’ll surely begin dipping into the Christmas music.

To hold you over, here’s a track from an album you may have missed entirely: Plan B by Huey Lewis and the News. One of the most enjoyable bands of the 80s, the News dropped off the radar swiftly after that decade ended. Their 1991 album Hard at Play was a relative flop. Their 1994 covers album, Four Chords and Several Years Ago, would have been a give-up move if it hadn’t been so damn good. Plan B was released to almost complete indifference in 2001, and that’s too bad. If you liked the News back in the day, you’ll like Plan B, too.

Thank You Number 19/Huey Lewis and the News (buy it on an import here)