Drive to visit with Pop in Adams, stopped along the way in Savoy for a 2-mile hike in the Hollow. 

"Non Black Lizard / Vintage Crime #07 for 2025...

"The Tower of Swallows" (Polish original title: Wieża Jaskółki).

The Witcher Book 6 / The Witcher Saga Novels Book 4.

Written by Andrzej Sapkowski in 1997 (2016 English).

7.3-miles in Worthington on snowmobile trail, from Littleville Lake along the corridor towards my stopping point on Wednesday.  I didn't make it to the intersection, but it was close, and a very enjoyable ramble in warm sunny weather. 

This would have been slightly east of the Gross Hill area.

Rock and Roll Heaven...

David Johansen, Lead Singer with the New York Dolls and as a solo performer, passed at age 75.

The New York Dolls first two albums are classics, favorites of mine.  

The reunion records are worth listening to as well.

• New York Dolls (1973)
• Too Much Too Soon (1974)
• One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006)
• Cause I Sez So (2009)
• Dancing Backward in High Heels (2011)

The first two solo albums, as well as the live record "Live It Up" are fantastic.

David Johansen (1978)

In Style (1979)

Here Comes the Night (1981)

Live It Up (1982)

Sweet Revenge (1984)

I really appreciated Johansen's early solo records as well, especially the first "David Johansen" with favorites being:

• Funky But Chic
• Girls
• Not That Much
• Donna
• Frenchette

That Live Record "Live It Up" and it's first side with is remarkable:

1.     "We Gotta Get Out of This Place/Don't Bring Me Down/It's My Life"

2. "Frenchette"

3. "Reach Out (I'll Be There)"

4. "Is This What I Get for Loving You?"

5. "Donna"

What Played in Ed's Head -- 

Music listened to for the time-period January 1st through January 31st, 2025:

JMH early shift.

PT Later.

6.2-miles on the snow (loose, melting and slippery) in Worthington just past Knightville Reservoir.

Up and over Hickory Mountain and Little Canada area on snowmobile trail to Fisk Road (probably, an old Forest Road). 

"Non Black Lizard / Vintage Crime #06 for 2025...

"Animal Factory" written by Edward Bunker in 1977.

JMH early shift.

"High Points" along trails during January 2025... 

Working on it...

• Metacomet Ridge, Cowles Park, East Granby, CT
• Laurel Hill, Tariffville, CT

PT early.

Drove to Worthington (parked at Liston's) and made my way past Porter Road and Dodwells Road to make the connection from Route 9 in Cummington.

Total of 7.1-miles on decent snowpack. 

On the drive to visit my Mom and Pop, I stopped in Charlemont to tackle 3.7-miles on the snowmobile trail from Route 2 (at the Parking Area for Hawk's Cemetery, just southeast of "Hail to the Sunrise") to the Legate Hill Road crossing. 

Bill Fay passed away early Saturday (February 22nd) at age 81.

I first heard Bill Fay's 1971 record "Time of the Last Persecution" a decade or more ago.  I thought it was simply incredible upon my very first listen.

Fay was born on September 9, 1943 in north London, where he lived throughout his life. He attended college in Wales, studying electronics, where he first began writing songs on the piano and harmonium.

His first single, "Some Good Advice" / "Screams in the Ears", was issued on the Deram label in 1967, and was followed by two albums, Bill Fay in 1970 and Time of the Last Persecution in 1971. The recordings did not sell well, and Fay was dropped from Deram soon after the release of his second album. They were re-issued in 1998, and then again in 2005.

Despite returning to the recording studio in the late 1970s, Tomorrow, Tomorrow & Tomorrow, the follow-up to Time of the Last Persecution was not released until January 2005, following the reissues of his earlier works.

Cult status and comeback

Fay's work enjoyed a growing cult status in the 1990s. His first two albums were re-issued in 1998, an event which Bill Fay described in 2012 as follows:

Up until 1998, when some people reissued my albums, as far as I was concerned, I was gone, deleted. No one was listening. But then I got the shock that people remembered my music. I was doing some gardening, and listening to some of my songs on cassette, and a part of me thought they were quite good. I thought, "Maybe somebody will hear them someday." That same evening, 14 years ago, I got a call from a music writer telling me that my two albums were being reissued. A shock is not gonna get much bigger than that, It was astonishing to me. I won't ever really be able to believe that it happened. That's how I feel about it. I had come to terms with the fact that I was deleted, but that I had always kept writing songs anyway and that was good enough.

Albums

Bill Fay, 1970

Time of the Last Persecution, 1971

Tomorrow, Tomorrow & Tomorrow (recorded 1978–1981)  2005

Life Is People, 2012

Who Is the Sender?,  2015

Countless Branches, 2020

Compilation albums

From the Bottom of an Old Grandfather Clock (recorded 1966–1970) , 2004

Still Some Light (recorded 1970, 1971, 2009; Coptic Cat, 2010) / compilation of early 1970–1971 studio recordings and 2009 new material home recordings

"Non-Black Lizard / Vintage Crime #05 for 2025...

"Out the Window" by Lawrence Block, a Mathew Scudder short.

Morning Shift at JMH.

From the Archives...  On this Day:

1st Annual Moby Dick Marathons
February 19th, 1995 - Lanesborough, Massachusetts

The 1st Moby Dick Marathons were held.  This was my 5th marathon, with the 28-miles completed in 5:01:00.

It seemed like a good idea, but there are reasons why the event didn't last, especially as a 28 or 30 miler.  Bitter cold, difficult, no aid,  February on Greylock....  seems like there would be many additional "whys".

This run was really special for me, it cemented my friendship with Paul.  We ran the entire event together, and began to dream up our snowshoe series.  Paul and I ended up roaming the woods together for a very long time, we see the same things in nature.

This day had temperature's near 50-degrees!  We completed the first 15-miles in 2:20, and the second 13-miles in 2:41.  What a day -

My Dear Friend Paul

 

 

From the Archives...  On This Day:

2nd Annual Moby Dick Marathons
February 18th, 1996 - Lanesborough, Massachusetts

I completed my 9th marathon, the 2nd Annual Moby Dick.  It was a run on snow, and Georgie H and I wore snowshoes.

The event began at the Greylock Visitor Center in Lanseboro, Massachusetts, and ran up the snow covered road to the summit of Mt. Greylock, then down to North Adams, and back.

Covered the 28-mile version in 6:16:43.

The breakdown of splits were as follows:

Visitor Center to Summit - 1:54:33;

Summit down to North Adams on Notch Road - 1:08:12;

3:02:46 at the "half-way" point of 15-miles.

1:53:58 back up to the junction with the final mile to the summit (avoided summit on return).  This placed us at 4:56:44 for this point;

Final descent on Rockwell Road in 1:19:58 to end out at 6:16:43.

ODE TO REAL COLD MEN

So I thought I had seen and done it all vis a vis running in strange places for insanely long distances.  Then the farmer called to remind me of Mount Greylock and his plans to conquer the beast in sneakers.  I looked out the window that morning and groaned.  True dead of winter stuff here, folks.  Driving through northern Massachusetts I looked over at the grin on this guy’s face and knew I was in for it.  I mean he’s Fitzcarraldo, the windmill dude, Dr. Strangelove, all of the above when he gets this look in his eye.  I knew there’d be no stopping him on this quest.

We arrived at the visitor center around 9 in the morning and dodged obnoxious snowmobiles as we walked toward the hospitable lodge.  I sat on the couch and admired the pretty park ranger while Ed ran his hands over the diorama of the Mountain, mentally tuning his Zen state for that morning’s fun.  No kidding now.  This was really the last place on earth I wanted to be.  At least that’s how I felt when I saw that Ranger Sally had a wedding ring.  Then our fellow ghouls straggled in and I could see that this was a for real event.  So I disappeared into the bathroom to write some graffiti on the wall and hoped against hope that Ed would forget I had driven up with him.

SADDLE UP, EASY RIDER!  His voice shook the stall.  I fell off the seat.  Here we go again.  Fortunately the crew had left 5 minutes earlier in pansy ass sneakers.  We Bulls would be lashing Snowshoes for this trek.  Only problem was that I had never worn snow shoes.  It wasn’t a pretty sight.  The first 7 miles to the base of the summit were, however, quite beautiful.  Ed and I even managed to smoke Dion, Joe and the boys.  I should have relished the moment.  It’d be the only Moment that day.  Because Lord Greylock was readying some payback for the proud.

Leaving the protection of the trees below the summit was like getting hit in the chest with a sledge hammer.  Naturally, I wore my 1930’s issue wool hunting uniform and I was soaked in sweat.  50 mph gusts of arctic wind sift through those fibers and find your very white blood cells in no time.  I knew my number was up at the summit, mile 8.  Bob Dion joined us at the top, allowing me a chance to pullback from the duo a little while I waited for the downhill section.  So I waited and waited and waited.  Mile after mile after mile and the damn mountain wouldn’t go down.  Truly dispiriting.  So I did the old, walk, trot, jog, walk thing until I met up with Ed and Bob coming back up the turnaround.  They looked like Chechen Rebels home from a night at the front.

“You don’t want to go there.  Don’t do it,” they warned.  I would have gone, really would have done the upright thing, finished the steep section, real man and all that.  But they had good food.  I thenceforth trailed them like a beggar, picking up scraps they’d toss over their shoulder.  Believe me you lose your pride pretty quick out in no man’s land.  That’s why they call it no man’s land.

It was a mutually beneficial run from there.  Bob and Ed set the pace just ahead, providing me with a little motivation to put one weary foot in front of the other.  And I gave them that healthy fear of failure, of being passed by a highly competitive opponent breathing down your neck.  Yea right.

At the junction leading back to the summit, we stopped to discuss making the extra 3 mile run to the top and back.  I fiercely argued that we had to go the extra yardage and finish the quest or we couldn’t live with ourselves.  Ed said something about bad luck visiting a mountain top twice in a day. Bob kept looking down the hill with an insane smile on his face.  I decided that this crew really didn’t have the je ne sais crois necessary to reconquer Greylock so I took command and ordered my men down the mountain.  Of course I trailed at a good healthy distance in case either of them fell by the wayside.  A really good healthy distance.

Bob and Ed bounded down the hill like kids at the final bell.  I stayed behind and ran to the summit on my own.  And I did it extremely fast.  Extremely.  Extremely enough that I ended up finishing the race in about 7 hours.  The latter hour of which found me crawling on my hands and knees as women in thongs and fine tan lines whizzed by on flaming green and red snowmobiles.  I must have looked pretty scary because nobody stopped to pick me up.  By the time I hit the parking lot, Bob and Ed were fast asleep in their cars inhaling carbon monoxide.  I pulled off my socks in Ed’s truck and watched as my toenails came off in the process.  Seems the crusty buggers had snagged on my wet wool socks.  I hadn’t felt the pain because of the frostbite.

So here’s a healthy Bronx cheer to those of you who decided to opt out of the Greylock quest.  I’m going to say that you really missed out on the time of your lives, a unique opportunity to test your primal bounds, to run with the wolves, to gasp on the edge of being, to wake up around oh....  11:00 on a Sunday morning, lounge on the couch in the sunroom and browse through the paper, enjoy a piece, two pieces of cinnamon raisin toast, take a nap, take another nap, watch an old movie with a pint of ice cream and some cute thing.  Ahhhh heck.  So maybe I made all this up.  But maybe I didn’t.  If any of you get a mouthful of hair when some freak streaks by you this coming season, just look down at his mangled toes.  You’ll know where you should be next February.

Shift at JMH, along with DMR's later in the day.

Rock and Roll Heaven...

Paul Richard Buckle, drummer of the rock band the Jam, passed away today.

Although the Jam's creative output came to be attributed primarily to Paul Weller, its rhythm section of Buckler and Bruce Foxton (bass guitar) were integral to its sound

Digging out the cars from all the snow and ice, difficult weather.

Started unpacking, laundry, etc. Back to normal for us both! 

"Non-Black Lizard / Vintage Crime #04 for 2025...

"The Hobbit" by JRR Tolkien

Made it as far as Charlotte, NC late last night, cancellations into the northeast forced a stay-over.

Caught an early flight (luckily) and made it back to CT by late morning. 

Half our luggage is still out, but with a promise to be delivered later today or tomorrow.