August 22, 2025

I really tried. Honest.

It was June 29 when I started this episode after first hearing the new Terrance Martin/Kenyon Dixon album and the new GoGo Penguin release. I also had started to sketch out a tribute to Mick Ralphs, an underappreciated musician and songwriter that I’ve followed since the first Mott The Hoople album. I was determined not to step in that hole. It kept moving, trying to trick me but I was going to outsmart it, I even started following The Yankees again. Not watching the games but voraciously taking apart the boxscores and reading the recaps, even pulling up the highlights. I mean, Aaron Judge is a generational player. I love watching, even just reading about him makes me smile.

Aside from my family and dogs, there are only two things on the planet that have fully captured my spirit and soul for most of the 69 years I’ve managed to stay on this side of the turf. Music and Baseball. That’s it, nothing else even comes close. The “ghost runner” was the final straw for me and it still is. It has zero redeeming qualities, unless there's a T-Ball game with young children underway. Beginning every extra inning with a runner on second (in scoring position) is an abomination and has no place in MLB. Nothing will ever change my mind. We all have limits and I make no apology that this is mine.

Music has always been my North Star. Everything is better with music. It is oxygen, essential for life, at least in my world. Tower Records had it right, “No Music, No Life.” If I could pass on one bit of wisdom to everyone in the world, it would be to not take as long as I did to realize that there is no good and no bad when it comes to music. You either like it or don’t… nothing sucks. Don’t ever apologize if a song, any song, brings you joy. There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure. What is there to be guilty about? There’s stuff you like and stuff you don’t. Everything else is marketing.

I have managed to limit my exposure to the 24 hour news cycle, only watching Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow with any sort of regularity. Before you read that as “woke” or label me a left wing psycho, I am politically Independent. My first vote was Jimmy Carter and I was a registered Democrat but the minute Reagan dismantled the Solar Panels on The White House roof, I was gone. Over the years, depending where I was living, I needed to join a team in order to vote in the Primary, but once Clinton/Gore deregulated the airwaves, I was gone, daddy gone. Speaking of which, I am so glad my Pop isn’t around to take in the reality TV clown show that we have allowed our country to devolve into. And make no mistake, it is our fault. And this is how it started.

I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, but it was something akin to this. Looking over the new releases I noticed that there is now a genre called Melodic Death Metal. Huh? I can no longer trust the Alternative genre, as I have no idea what it represents and what the fuck is “Post-Rock?” Next while scanning the Baseball highlights I discover that both extra inning contests ended when a runner that didn’t earn his way on base, was gifted with second base to start the inning and scored in walkoff fashion. That is simply not Baseball. Finally, it was reported that literally hundreds of thousands of children were about to starve to death simply because the food that they needed was sitting in warehouses, already paid for but held up because of political gamesmanship. This food was allowed to spoil while thousands of children died. What do these assclowns do for fun, buy up the day old bread and light it on fire in front of homeless people instead of giving them a slice? This sequence kept repeating and getting faster and dumber and meaner. I slipped… the damn hole got me. Before I knew it, all I was capable of was hate-binging True Crime television and mumbling incoherently. Doesn’t anyone remember what happened in Berlin in the 30’s? I mean Hitler is all over the television even if they can’t read. full text at mikemarrone.com

Suddenly, there was a crack in the darkness. John Easdale, Jerry “The Rub” Rubino and “The Phlorescent” Pat Pearson headed southbound on The Garden State Parkway ready to deliver desperately needed humanity and fellowship. They pulled me from the encampment of my trusty Laz-E-Boy and the next episode of Snapped or Murder In The Heartland. Thanks, boys. And thanks to all of you for continued support, not only financially (click) but spiritually with your ears. Hope you enjoy the show.



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