Hola, Sneakers! Welcome back to Sneaky Dragon, the podcast with wings!
This week: password giveaway; health check; scene seen; lucky bowling balls; guessing game; lockdown sleepover; inappropriately metric; tube filet mignon; snowy vistas; back to back yak; going swimmingly; a testimonial; Mister Oswald; Mutt and Jeff mania; music for weirdos; the Minnie Mouse Club; the walk of animated fame; the Geef/Goof effect; commuter blues; The Matrix Resurrections reloaded; end with possibilities; too twisty; a better movie than you’re watching; boring subtext; the original Swifty; Aussie chocolates; Top 5 Apple singles; seeing Redford; cinephilia; the walrus was Coleridge; gong show; Top 5 mea culpas; Marvel movies aren’t Cimino; and, finally, fly pie.
Top 5 Apple singles (as requested by Crystal):
- Jackie Lomax – “Sour Milk Sea” – Apple Records single, 1968 – 1:35:38
- The Sundown Playboys – Saturday Night Special – Apple Records single, 1972 – 1:42:04
- Doris Troy – “Jacobs Ladder” – Apple Records single, 1970 – 1:47:07
- Yoko Ono – “Mind Train” – Apple Records single, 1972 – 1:51:47
- Badfinger – “Day After Day” – Apple Records single, 1971 – 2:01:29
Bonus:
- Nola York – “Purple Flowers” – Apple Records single, 1974 – 2:06:20
Question of the Week: How has Covid been for you? Have you had it? Any family members?
Sub-question of the Week: What do you grow in your garden that no one else does?
Thanks for listening.
For more info about the great old comic strip Mister Oswald, check out this great article by RC Harvey from The Comics Journal that originally hipped me to it.
Hey, Ian and Dave, you nerds, who are Mutt and Jeff? Well, here is an animated Mutt and Jeff short from 1916:
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I’ll answer question #1 – yes. My daughter Eve, just recently, as Dave told us last episode; fortunately as he said, she was already double vaccinated and was to have had her booster just that week, but even so, the good news is she seems to have had a mild case, although she did report feeling exhausted when she went for a walk one day.
In the early days of Covid, the person who was patient #9 here in BC unknowingly (because this was before we even knew it had got out of Wuhan) infected a former riding student of mine; she in turn took it home and her dad got it. He ended up in ICU for three weeks on a ventilator, which would have been terrifying for the kids as their mom had just died very suddenly and unexpectedly the summer previously, leaving behind an 18 year old and a 15 year old. If the dad hadn’t pulled through… well, I hate to think about it. Fortunately he has recovered, and was well supported by his work who let him work from home for a long time.
I work in a building of just under 1500 people, so we did have people get it here, or at the very least they had to take two or more weeks off to quarantine due to exposures. For the most part it was confidential and we didn’t ever really know if someone had it or if they had just been exposed to someone who did. To my knowledge none of my colleagues got it. We do work in an area with a high vaccination rate (apparently about 95%) so we generally had a low transmission rate, although some of the schools in other areas of our district were not as lucky.
One of my other riding student’s dad got it through his work. He works in the movie industry and in the fall of 2020 it swept through the set via a catering crew, so everything was shut down. He just slept for about a week straight and none of the rest of the family got it, fortunately. He was telling me Friday that their current production has been shut down due to omicron.
As well, Mary’s ex had it over Christmas 2020 into New Years’; he picked it up when he was working as a parademic. Again, fortunately he was fine afterward. It did delay his initial vaccination date.
For question #2, I don’t think there is anything we grow in our garden that is too unusual. When I grew up, we did have a variety of fruit trees that were wonderful – right out behind the house we had a huge Queen Anne cherry tree (you could pick cherries off of the porch) and in the garden we had a Bing cherry tree that my dad ended up cutting down for some bizarre reason. We also had a transparent apple tree, which is a fairly rare type of apple now, but I think it’s one of the first to come out in the season, is great to eat and even better to make apple sauce with. As well, we had another tree that had two (or maybe three!) types of apple variety grafted on it – the one , I am told, was a Russett, which was a very late maturing, rough looking little thing but it had a lovely flavour.
I’ve avoided Covid so far. It might seem strange to people overseas or in the US, but until this month, I haven’t known of any friends or close relatives who have gotten it. Only two people in total since the omicron outbreak. It’s great that most people are recovering from this milder strain. But there’s still no way of knowing if you or a loved one has a strong enough immune system to fight it off. And people can still pass it along even if they’re vaccinated and asymptomatic. So before you go to a restaurant, gym or theatre, being as this is the most contagious variant in the world far, you’ve to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk? At the moment: I do not.
Proof that the butterfly effect is real!
Thursday evening: a couple of guys sit down in Vancouver and spend two hours and forty-one minutes (plus periods of silence) conducting a free-flowing, very funny conversation on a broad range subjects that have caught their attention lately, plus a few songs.
Sunday morning: a guy in Scotland startles his family by suddenly shouting ‘Tinkerbell!’ and ‘Texasville!’ at his phone for no obvious reason. That, my friends, is science.
On the Covid front, although I have several friends who’ve been infected, so far all my family has been fine, including me. By the time you read this, though, who knows?
To be honest, we’ve been fortunate in having a better pandemic experience than many people. Both Diane and I have been able to work at home, so we actually get to see more of each other than before. I realise this wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing for all couples, but we dig it! Our two adult sons are home with us and our daughter is nearby, so we haven’t had to worry about them. My mum (who’s 94) is less than a mile away so, again, we’ve been able to stay in close contact and give her support when she’s needed it. We’re all triple-vaxxed too.
To answer Brent’s question: At first, I couldn’t think of anything in our garden that no-one else grows. But then I remembered that, twelve years ago, we commissioned a unique breed of daffodil as a present for Diane’s dad on his 80th birthday.
Diane comes from a long line of fisher folk in Fife, north of Edinburgh. For generations, they named their boats ‘Star – something’. For instance, her great-gradfather’s boat in the nineteenth century was ‘Star James’. So we had the daffodil named ‘Star James Watson’ after her dad, and divided bulbs among her family.
Here’s the thing, though. After we planted three or four bulbs in our garden in Inverness, the flower grew and bloomed only once. After that, we looked for it every year, but it didn’t return – until (cue violins please) last year when we unexpectedly found a small bunch growing again, strong and healthy. It’s a small flower with a yellow rim and orange centre, so quite distinctive and certainly easier to spot than a transparent apple tree. Needless to say, it was a special moment and we’re hoping we don’t have to wait another eleven years to enjoy it again.
Hello, gentlemen. Somehow I have managed to avoid COVID despite having it in the house with me—twice! My wife had it over New Year 2021, before vaccines were available to us, so thankfully it was a mild case. Then my brother-in-law had it over this past Christmas, while we were staying with him. By then we were double-vaccinated and boosted, but I started having symptoms when we returned home. I was sure that I had it, but two negative PCR tests confirmed that it must have been a bad cold. Remember colds? Good old rhinovirus!
My wife and I are both educators, and so this whole thing has posed some challenges, obviously. I worry a lot about my 81-year-old dad, but he has been very careful, and is now boosted.
We have a kumquat tree in our garden—not unheard of, but fun. And the kumquats have been particularly delicious this year, sweet and sour.
Brief Backwards Dragon Project update: I have reached the Listening Party, and I love it so much. Most of my music listening is classical, so thanks, Dave and Mary, for reminding me that I love pop music too, especially when it is fresh and quirky. The Cassandra Jenkins track that Dave played in the final episode is a little masterpiece. Also, Ian’s Summer-of-69-chili-dog bit in episode 501 made me blow tea through my nose.
Be well, good fellows.
John
PS I mentioned my double-avoidance of COVID to a friend today, and she said: “You know, John, it’s starting to seem less like you’re avoiding COVID and more like COVID is avoiding you.”
Just wanted to jump in here (again) as I believe it was this episode that Dave so boldly stated that horses can get Corona virus. I just want to muddy the water further to say: kinda; it depends what you mean.
Basically, if we are talking Covid 19, then so far, there is no evidence that horses can/have contracted this, even when exposed to humans who have it.
However, there is something horses (and other pets) can get that is called Corona virus, but it is a mild gastro-intestinal issue with very low mortality rates. I’ll attach some info here for those of you who always wanted to learn more about horse diseases but were too shy to ask: https://cvm.missouri.edu/coronavirus-disease-in-horses-is-different-to-humans/
There are some diseases that are zoonotic (shared between horses/humans) particularly rabies (where horses catch it from other animals, usually fox/dogs, etc., and can pass it to humans if they bite the human – it is ultimately fatal to horses); diseases like West Nile can be transmitted via vectors – birds, insects – to humans and horses – the horse in this case is a dead end host. Lyme disease and salmonellosis are other common zoonotic diseases in North America.
I will not tolerate any Matrix Resurrections slander. It’s a masterpiece that easily makes my top 5 for the year. Consider this a warning.
(Nah of course I love hearing you two criticize films I love)
I would like to apologize for my previous comment that is awaiting moderation. I believe I sounded threatening. Love the show
We thought old Uncle Covid had come to visit recently but it all came up negative, just a nasty case of the crud going around. We’re all vaccinated here so even if it was Covid, we’d be no worse off than we are with this nasty cough and cold. Many of my friends have tested positive lately but nobody in my family. One of my best friends and both his kids tested positive as did his Dad, they just had to lay low for a week or so but my friend’s Dad had a series of strokes due to it. Covid affected his oxygen levels and his brain was depleted of oxygen causing a series of mini strokes. Physically he’s fine now but his mental state has taken a hit with hallucinations, dementia and memory loss, he’s undergoing a neurological rehab now, so hopefully they can strengthen his mind to where he was before the strokes. That’s about as bad as its gotten around here.
I have no garden to speak of, we’ve never taken to growing anything other than a small indoor hydroponic herb garden. My stepsons gave it to my wife as a gift so she grows herbs in this thing and dries them out in the convection oven then uses them for cooking. It’s very easy to use and gives you way more than you need.
I recently took advantage of a free trial of Apple Music and I’m hearing music I’ve never heard before! I asked Apple to play Ringo Starr for me last week and to my surprise found myself on kind of a pseudo post Beatles breakup/Beatles revival. Many of Ringo’s songs either included John on keyboards, George on guitar or Paul and Linda singing but never all together, making for a “close enough” Beatles-esque result. Then there’s the contributions from many others like Clapton, Elton John, Joe Walsh, Billy Preston and many others that kind of put Ringo into this post Beatles crossroads where all the greatest musicians congregate. When I was a kid, I can remember my Uncle playing Ringo’s albums in my Grandmother’s basement, the “No-No Song” comes to mind, so that’s where I started before letting Ringo roll with it all on Apple.
So Dave, what are your thoughts on our old friend Ringo? What is your audiophile breakdown of his work? I’ve found his music delightfully fun to re-discover and enjoy.
Lastly, watch the Jeff Bridges film “Crazy Heart” when you have a chance, its inspiration comes from the true life rise and fall that many musicians experience, in this case its country music. Also watch a stellar performance by Colin Farrell as Tommy Sweet, the huge country music sensation who comes off as kind of a Garth Brooks performance. Well worth a watch.
Until next time, same Sneaky-Time, same Sneaky-Channel! Stay well all!
Hi chaps,
I enjoyed hearing Dave’s top 5 Apple songs, though for me the list would only have been complete with Across The Universe – covered by Fiona Apple.
For a future top 5, how about songs with ‘book’ in the title – or if that is a stretch, songs about books.
Keep sneaking.
Thank you for the Top 5 Apple songs! I enjoyed listening to them, and much like Ian, I enjoyed the Yoko Ono song. I think history will view her differently than how she was viewed at the time of the Beatles break-up. After Dave mentioned once that Yoko posts positive messages on social media, I decided to follow her. He was right, so is a very positive individual.
I haven’t stopped listening, I am just a few episodes behind. Life has gotten busy, as I am sure it has for everyone.
I also agree with Dave about reading a story just for the enjoyment of the story. I enjoyed several of the Wizard of OZ books as a child, but I have a co-worker who took a college course and was taught that the series is a political statement about the demonetization of the silver standard. Why? Why does everything have to be some kind of political statement? Every book, movie, play, song is subject to interpretation because we all view media through the lens of our unique life experiences. Just because someone (who isn’t the author of the work) says a book represents something doesn’t necessarily make it so.
My family has been fortunate to not have caught COVID (knock on wood). I thought I might have a few times, but multiple tests have come back negative. So yay for vaccinations!
We grow turnips in the fall. I wonder if any of the other listeners grow turnips. My husband likes the greens, and I am a fan of the turnips themselves. As far as a flower garden goes, I grow holes. As in, I spend a lot of money and time planting flowers by the side of the house, and my little dogs spend just as much time digging and wallowing in holes.
Sorry I’ve been super remiss.