The New Monday at Toad

Toad in Porter Square Cambridge has a new Monday residency, Jen Kearney & the Lost Onion.

We caught the first set at 10pm. Jen plays keyboards and sings, while the drums, guitars, and trumpet blow out the windows. We would say something about finding the lost onion amid the layered sound but we would not know what we were talking about.

We will be back.

The Blue Dog Balance of Power

The conservative Blue Dog Coalition is ostensibly part of the Democratic Party but could be regarded as a third legislative party that holds a crucial balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.

By Party, here is the breakdown in the House:

Democrats	258
Republicans	177

But a number of Democrats identify as members of the Blue Dog Coalition, which has its won leaders and whip. The Blue Dogs can perhaps best be thought of as a third party that is currently aligned with other Democrats on many issues but which can and often does align with Republicans on others.

When split into three parties, the Democrats do not have an outright majority of 218 in the House:

Regular Democrats	206
Blue Dog Coalition	52
Republicans	177

Moreover, there are a number of Democrats who are not officially members of the Blue Dog Coalition but tend to vote with them. So the exact balance of power is difficult to peg.

The coalition with the Democratic Party is an uneasy one. Iowa Blue Dog Leonard Boswell faced having his rural congressional district carved and divided during redistricting after the 2000 census. He responded by moving to Des Moines and won in that district. Then he was primaried in 2008, being forced to run against a more liberal Democrat, Ed Fallon. But he beat Ed 61% to 39% in the primary and fought off Republican Kim Schmett in the general 57% to 42%.

The Blue Dogs even have a muse, cajun artist George Rodrigue. His Turn Out the Lights, the Party's Over (2008) appears above.

House Health Care Vote

Health care insurance reform passed the House on Saturday night 220 to 215, with members voting mostly on party lines, Democrats for and Republicans against. However, 39 Democrats joined the Republicans in voting No:

Bobby Bright Age 57 Blue dog coalition member Alabama 2nd
Parker Griffith Age 67 Blue dog coalition member Alabama 5th
Artur Davis Age 42 Alabama 7th
Mike Ross Age 48 Blue dog coalition member Arkansas 4th
Betsy Markey Age 53 Colorado 4th
Allen Boyd Age 64 Blue dog coalition member Florida 2nd
Suzanne Kosmas Age 65 Florida 24th
Jim Marshall Age 61 Blue dog coalition member Georgia 8th
John Barrow Age 54 Blue dog coalition member Georgia 12th
Walt Minnick Age 67 Blue dog coalition member Idaho 1st
Ben Chandler Age 50 Blue dog coalition member Kentucky 6th
Charlie Melancon Age 62 Blue dog coalition leadership team Louisiana 3rd
Frank Kratovil Age 41 Blue dog coalition member Maryland 1st
Collin Peterson Age 65 Blue dog coalition member Minnesota 7th
Travis Childers Age 51 Blue dog coalition member Mississippi 1st
Gene Taylor Age 56 Blue dog coalition member Mississippi 4th
Ike Skelton Age 67 Missouri 4th
John Adler Age 50 New Jersey 3rd
Harry Teague Age 60 New Mexico 2nd
Mike McMahon Age 52 New York 13th
Scott Murphy Age 39 New York 20th
Eric Massa Age 50 New York 29th
Mike McIntyre Age 53 Blue dog coalition member North Carolina 7th
Larry Kissell Age 58 North Carolina 8th
Heath Shuler Age 37 Blue dog coalition leadership team North Carolina 11th
Dennis Kucinich Age 63 Ohio 10th
John Boccieri Age 40 Ohio 16th
Dan Boren Age 36 Blue dog coalition member Oklahoma 2nd
Jason Altmire Age 41 Blue dog coalition member Pennsylvania 4th
Tim Holden Age 52 Blue dog coalition member Pennsylvania 7th
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin Age 38 Blue dog coalition leadership team South Dakota
Lincoln Davis Age 66 Blue dog coalition member Tennessee 4th
Bart Gordon Age 60 Blue dog coalition member Tennessee 6th
John Tanner Age 65 Blue dog coalition member Tennessee 8th
Chet Edwards Age 57 Texas 17th
Jim Matheson Age 49 Blue dog coalition member Utah 2nd
Glenn Nye Age 35 Blue dog coalition member Virginia 2nd
Rick Boucher Age 63 Virginia 9th
Brian Baird Age 53 Washington 3rd

Note that 23 of the 39 Democrats who voted No are members of the conservative blue dog coalition, including 3 of 4 coalition leaders. Another 29 members of the blue dog coalition voted Yes.

1 Republican voted Yes on the Democratic reform plan :

Joseph Cao Age 42 Louisiana 2nd Cao was born in Vietnam and is the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress.

1 Republican voted No on both the Democratic reform plan and the Republican substitute plan:

Tim Johnson Age 63 Illinois 15th Johnson is a West Point dropout.

The Store That Isn't There

We have been somewhat perplexed watching what has been going on at the old Crate and Barrel location on Brattle Street.

For a while it looked like a new store was opening, with colorful displays of housewares you could see through the big windows. And then came the signs saying that you can't come in.

As near as we can figure, the iconic firm Design Research (D/R) had a store at this location in the 1970s, before making way for the more commercial Crate and Barrel.

Now with Crate and Barrel gone, they have reclaimed the space temporarily as a window showroom. You can walk by and look but you can't go in except by special invitation. We suspect this will continue until a paying tenant is found.


Could unmanned stores that never open except for private parties be the next big trend in retail? Having no sales clerks would definitely cut down on costs, but wouldn't sales suffer too?


But instead of a sign of the future, this may just be an ode to the past. We don't remember Design Research on Brattle street, but judging the baby boomer crowd at a recent reception there, older Cambridge residents do.

All the pretty textiles are also a reminder that New England used to be a textile center, back in the not-so-distant days when Berkshire Hathaway made fine men's shirts.

There is a Kennedy Connection here. The photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy on the December 1960 cover of Sports Illustrated shows her wearing a dress purchased at D/R.

You can still shop the Marimekko product line at 350 Huron Avenue in Cambridge. Customers are admitted Monday through Saturday 10am to 6pm (Thursdays until 7pm).

Note: click pictures for full resolution.

Lyle Lovett at the Orpheum Theatre

Just when you think Texas is all about pickup trucks and high school football under the Friday Night Lights, Lyle Lovett rolls into town with his two tour buses holding his large band, his small band, and four male backup gospel singers.

Going into the Orpheum, you walk down a narraw alley past the parked tour buses. At the appointed time, Lyle just followed the audience in, emerging into the orchestra seating through the audience entrance. The show got started around 7:45 pm and carried on for two and a half hours through 10:15 pm. Lyle and his bands cover every manner of music and play the audience too.


A little blurry? I guess you had to be there. It was great!

Goodbye Brother Blue

Brother Blue, the legendary storyteller of Harvard Square, has passed away.

You would often see Brother Blue walking through Harvard Square in his trademark blue garb with his wife Ruth. In recent years he did more audiencing than performing, but that was appreciated too.

The official biography is that Hugh Morgan Hill was born in Cleveland, Ohio, served in the army in both Europe and Asia during World War II, and was honorably discharged as a first lieutenant. Then he then earned his bachelor's degree in social relations from Harvard University, a master's of fine arts in playwrighting from Yale School of Drama, and a doctorate in storytelling from Union Graduate School.

The unofficial biography is that Brother Blue never held a "standard job" and made his living telling stories. He was an unofficial professor at Harvard University and its oldest unofficial undergraduate too.

He passed away this Tuesday at age 88 after a short illness. While the illness has not been publicly identified, I'm guessing it was what I am now calling the Blue Flu. Wife Ruth reports that just before he died, he told her a love story.

Rosanne Cash Is On My List

I have been listening to Rosanne Cash’s new album The List. Rosanne is the daughter of Johnny Cash, and the 12 Songs on The List are from a list of 100 essential country songs her father wrote out for her on a yellow legal pad in the summer 1973, the year she graduated from high school. The grand tour of Europe is the American ideal for fresh graduates, but can’t compete to spending the summer on a tour bus across America with Johnny Cash.

The album is very low key, and each of these great songs gets to speak for itself. Here’s the song list:

1. Miss The Mississippi And You – perhaps the first of the give up the big city and go back to the country songs. Jimmie Rodgers does a version with his famous yodel and Emmy Lou Harris does a great version too on her album Roses in the Snow.

2. Motherless Children – an A.P. Carter classic that has been covered by everyone. Don't ponder too long on the lyric "sister does the best she can but she really don't understand."

3. Sea of Heartbreak (featuring Bruce Springsteen) - Johnny Cash himself did a version of this song on Unchained but it was Don Gibson who made this a classic.

4. Take These Chains From My Heart - Hank Williams made this song famous but you may know the Ray Charles version better.

5. I'm Movin' On - the Hank Snow classic, covered by everyone from Elvis Presley to Willie Nelson. No, this is not the song by Rascal Flatts.

6. Heartaches By The Number (featuring Elvis Costello) - this song was a hit for Ray Price and Dwight Yoakam also does a nice cover.

7. 500 Miles - made famous by Peter, Paul, and Mary. You can hear the whistle blow 100 miles, but not at 500 miles from home. That's damn good hearing.

8. Long Black Veil (featuring Jeff Tweedy) - this ancient folk ballad was written in 1959. Johnny Cash did the definitive version on At Folsom Prison but Mick Jagger (with The Chieftains) did it justice too, as has Neko Case, and Hazel Dickens. Nobody knows but me.

9. She's Got You - Patsy Cline crossed over with this song. And I've got versions by Loretta Lynn, LeAnn Rhymes, Michelle Branch, and Red Molly.

10. Girl From The North Country - this has the reputation in some quarters as Bob Dylan's best song on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (everyone has a right to their favorite), and Johnny Cash sang it with him on Nashville Skyline.

11. Silver Wings (featuring Rufus Wainwright) - a Merle Haggard original. I'm guessing this was the song rattling around in Johnny Cash's head in that summer of 1973 and since has been slowly fading out of sight.

12. Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow - This was Maybelle Carter's song and the slightly humorous version by her daughter June Carter Cash at the Louisiana Hayride is good too, but check out Natalie Merchant on The House Carpenter's Daughter.

OK, that’s 12 but what are the other 88 songs? We may have to wait for 7 more albums to find out.

We do know that in a interview Rosanne has identified two as Battle of New Orleans and This Land is Your Land (good choices). The Porter Wagoner song Satisfied Mind is the Itunes bonus selection (unfair). And Sweet Memories featuring Chris Thile appears only on CDs sold at Barnes & Noble (double unfair).

Rosanne, if you think I'm going to two different places to get all the bonus tracks, you're on my list.