Author: J T. Ramsay

J T. Ramsay http://jtramsay.com

In Praise of Puerto Rico Flowers

Stopped over at Sharkey’s place last night (wel­come to the ‘hood, guy!) to pick up his new album under the Puer­to Rico Flow­ers moniker, “7.” This is just what I need­ed right now. And I know lots of peo­ple play the Joy Divi­sion card here, but I think Marc Mas­ters nailed it with the Depeche Mode nod. And I can’t be the only one who thinks this could go very PiL if the mood struck, right?

Also, can I just say how hard it is for me to get out of the house now that I’m a dad? Hats off to Sharkey and his fam­i­ly for knock­ing out actu­al art while rais­ing a beau­ti­ful baby boy. Congrats!

Oh, how about a Neil Young cov­er for good mea­sure. God, this is just such an amaz­ing tune to cover.

Charlie Turned Two!

What a won­der­ful par­ty in the park! Feels like it was only yes­ter­day that he turned one: the But­ter­cream cup­cake truck; a pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er; tons of friends and fam­i­ly and a hot day on Lemon Hill for a very excit­ed (and sleepy) one-year-old boy. Now he’s two and the changes are so dra­mat­ic it’s hard to keep up. He’s pick­ing up more lan­guage every day, express­ing him­self more ver­bal­ly than phys­i­cal­ly, which is a relief for all per­sons in his vicin­i­ty, espe­cial­ly house pets.

It was so great to see Mark and Erin out with Ele­na at almost two weeks and to see Arman­do and Rebec­ca with Lily when they were just hours from being par­ents again. Wel­come Rio! Char­lie was thrilled as ever to see his aunt Eileen and her pup­py Jax as well as his “Damma” and Grand­pa, not to men­tion my mom, who man­aged not to get too lost in Straw­ber­ry Man­sion before find­ing us on Lemon Hill. GPS is a won­der except in some urban envi­ron­ments apparently.

It was so nice to encamp on Lemon Hill for a love­ly June after­noon spent with friends and fam­i­ly and food. Bit­ter­sweet that we say good­bye yet again to our friends Tony and Katie as they embark on a cross-coun­try trip to Seat­tle for a few years. Can’t wait to vis­it! I’ve seen a few episodes of “The Killing” so I just know it’s going to be a beau­ti­ful place to live and work.

We’ve man­aged to sur­vive two years of very lit­tle sleep to raise a beau­ti­ful lit­tle boy and I can hon­est­ly say I’ve loved every minute, even when I’m awake at 4 am watch­ing reruns of “Gold­en Girls” on the couch.

Checking in on Your 2011 Philadelphia Phillies

Can I just say that being a base­ball fan in this town would be much eas­i­er if peo­ple did­n’t pan­ic every time their first place team slumped? Slumps end. Appre­ci­ate the pitch­ing that you’re see­ing every night out there. Home runs are fun, but what we’re wit­ness­ing is down­right mag­i­cal. Soak it in. Lux­u­ri­ate in it. It won’t be long before we’re bitch­ing and moan­ing about this team in earnest. I ful­ly expect my son to grow up an Indi­ans fan just like his dad.

(Con­fes­sion: I decid­ed to love a team that was even worse than the Phillies. In Penn­syl­va­nia. True story.)

That said, it’s a much eas­i­er to team to watch when the worst bats in the line­up could still dri­ve a ball into the left field seats. Stay gold, J‑Berry!

A Lesson in Accumulation

Remem­ber when you used to eval­u­ate prospec­tive friends by the books they read, the movies they watched and the music they lis­tened to? Feels like a long time ago, right?

Less than 10 years ago I would still scur­ry to book­stores and record shops, or spend beyond my means on DVD sales online. Then that sud­den­ly stopped.

Now, as I try to make sense of my home with­out being over­run by my tod­dler’s toys, I find myself wish­ing I’d made bet­ter use of the library. Where’d all this stuff come from? When did I ever think I’d read all the books I bought on whims, or watch all the DVDs I hoard­ed. Let’s not even talk about the music that accret­ed in my apart­ments over the years.

Since things start­ed going dig­i­tal in one form or oth­er I’ve been reluc­tant to go all in. For those of us who’ve had phys­i­cal media all our lives, a hard copy is a reas­sur­ing thing. Now I wish I’d tak­en the plunge sooner.

This is all to say I’m purg­ing vast swaths of my cul­tur­al col­lec­tions. If you’re some­one who still likes these things, be in touch. You get dibs.