I Had a Great Time Buying the Mac Mini! (You might like reading about it.) ronchester.org
@Ron Thank you. I really enjoyed the Patti Smith links. I loved that she had a glitch — to think that such an experienced performer can have a 'moment' like that is heartening.
@Miraz Well in my experience, Patti is just totally so authentic! I went to see her when she released her Lyrics book and she sang for us at that too. On one song she forgot the lyrics and had to start over! But not before she made a point of telling everyone how it was an example of how you have to prepare in advance for these things and obviously she has not prepared enough. She always takes FULL responsibility for what happens. People love her even MORE when these things happen. I always feel like I'm just a guest in her living room when I see her perform. She and Bob are the two best performers of my generation, but verrrry different.
@JohnPhilpin Yes, it really really is, John. Any time I talk to anyone who doesn't know all that much about Patti, I always tell them about the book and encourage them to read it.
@smokey I'm glad!! I really enjoyed making it more detailed than usual, with great links that folks could really dig into, if they had the time or interest.
@Ron Coincidentally "Because The Night" was one of my karaoke numbers this week at our monthly nerd karaoke meetup. I love singing that song.
@macgenie That's cool. If you watch the 2nd Patti video in my blog post about buying the Mac mini, the one about the aftermath of her Hard Rain preformance, I seem to recall she also talked about writing the lyrics for Because the Night and recording it for the single.
@Ron Thanks for recounting your ordering experience, and for having a conversation with the customer rep. I order most of my electronics from B&H, and your experience strengthens my loyalty to that company.
@Ron @macgenie I thought “Because the Night” was written by Springsteen? Why it, while great, seems a little out of place in her catalog.
@Agiletortoise I think Bruce wrote it, gave it to Patti, who then rewrote some of the lyrics. The Springsteen studio version seems to share more lyrics with Patti’s version (i.e. the telephone line), but live versions change it up a bit. I don’t know how much of the core block of lyrics was co-written by the two.
@tgray Yea, that sounds about right. I don’t think Patti is capable of just doing a song without putting her spin on it. E.g. Gloria.
@Agiletortoise @macgenie He wrote the music and she wrote the lyrics and then recorded it. It was a hit right away, I believe. She talks about it in this video. It's a very interesting story. That part starts around 7:00 in the video. The whole interview is fantastic.
@Agiletortoise For the record, the ‘78 live versions by Springsteen are better than the studio versions. 😁
@antonzuiker Yes, it was really terrific, Anton. He was polite and answered my questions. Then when we got to doing the order and I gave him my last name, he mumbled something, as an aside. Sort of an acknowledgment to himself that he got it correctly, as Chester. Many people are surprised it is my last name, not my first. So I queried him about it and he mentioned "that sheriff on TV a long time ago." I immediately knew what he was talking about, because we ALWAYS watched Gunsmoke every week. That's what got it started. And we just talked for a long time, He asked me a lot of questions about Dylan and was clearly interested in my answers! So I gave him a lot of information and he really liked it. There was certainly no script any longer at that point. It made my day, because of making such a good connection with another person who I didn't know. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to buy from B&H again, that's for sure. I just remembered, we also talked about the AIDS crisis that hammered our generation pretty badly. We both had really good friends who had died horrible deaths from the disease. And he made a point of telling me what his age had been when he started working there 11 years ago. He sounded proud to say that he fully intended to continue to work there, even with his age getting up over 70. I'm still happy about it, many hours later.
@Ron It was a nice, pleasing account, Ron. It's pretty ironic that in the age of artifical intelligence attempting to sort all problems for us, working towards givings us comfort, it is the good-old natural conversations that continue delight us the most. Thank you for reminding this again :-)
@amit That's an excellent point, Amit. I really do enjoy talking with people and everyone has their own stories to tell. A I has never appealed to me. Doesn't the adjective "artificial" always have a negative connotation? Wouldn't it have been smarter to call it life-like intelligence? It's live communication I enjoy the most. Doesn't everyone?
@Ron Thanks for this Ron. These are the kind of interactions that I live for in this hyper-connected world. There are other things I live for of course, but this type of unexpected interaction is quite sweet. Thanks again!
@thaddeushunt Well thank you for such excellent feedback, done the micro.blog way! Every time a writer get feedback like this, it encourages him/her to write again. That's what makes writing on micro.blog an interactive activity, not just a lonely chore of putting text on a screen.
