A day late, but we want to wish a very happy birthday to Peter Gabriel, who turned 70 on Thursday. Gabriel had obviously already staged a successful career with Genesis and as a solo artist before 1986, but that was the year that his album So was released.

I was a junior in college. Suddenly you’d walk past dorm rooms after classes and it was not unusual in just one trek back to your own room to hear the album playing in two to three different rooms. Everyone was playing it. And while it wouldn’t quite be correct to call Gabriel a has-been, he was already 36 years old when So was released and this was the peak of two musical eras that he would never step foot in: New Wave and hair metal.

So was not either of these. He was always eclectic and avant-garde(“Biko” or “Games Without Frontiers,” above) as an artist. But occasionally someone puts together an album that is so sublime with songs so unforgettable— and evocative of a particular mood— that it cannot be ignored. Suddenly Gabriel went from being “That guy who used to be in Genesis who sings ‘Shock the Monkey'” to a superstar. Rare, if never, has a rock musician ever elevated his game after the age of 35 the way Gabriel did. I can’t think of a single person.

Also, Peter Gabriel wins my unofficial Walter White Award, given to the white dude who goes bald (or shaves it off) and in so doing looks 1,000 times more badass than he used to. I’ve also always loved Gabriel because from afar I don’t think he’s very cuddly. He’s a genius, no doubt, and his fellow artists with whom he works seem to adore him (see video below) but I don’t think he gives a crap what the music community, or the media or fans, think about him. I always think of him as the Ricky Gervais of rock music.

So wound up losing the Album of the Year Grammy to Paul Simon’s Graceland, and both are excellent. So it wasn’t exactly robbery. Though we know which one we listen to more often. For argument’s sake, our ranking of the songs on So (“song”, “SO”), every one of which is worthy and half of which are classics:

1. In Your Eyes
2. That Voice Again
3. Red Rain
4. Don’t Give Up
5. Sledgehammer
6. Mercy Street
7. Big Time
8. We Do What We’re Told

A question any music fan should be able to answer: There’s one living artist you’ve never seen in concert but would love to: Who is it? For me it’s Gabriel. I’m still angry at myself for having missed the Secret World Live Tour in the early ’90s; fortunately there’s YouTube to see some of the songs. Here’s hoping that Gabriel embarks on one last tour; and if he and Phil Collins shared the stage together to ease the burden on each, who’d mind?

Ranking our five favorite Gabriel tunes:

1. In Your Eyes
2. Solsbury Hill
3. Games Without Frontiers
4. Red Rain
5. Talk To Me

Please go on tour soon, Peter. Please!

Jeux sans frontieres!

*****

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This photo of two mice fighting over a crumb taken by Sam Rowley recently won the Wildlife Photography Award. My question: if a shot taken at a London tube station is able to win a wildlife photography award, then if we were to take a shot of two parents fighting for a toy inside WalMart on black Friday, could we submit that to the contest?

By the way, people voted on line and more than 48,000 photos were submitted. It’s an incredible shot, yes, and Rowley reportedly lay on the ground multiple nights in order to land this shot. If you look closely there is a person seated on the bench in the background observing it all. Here’s hoping no mice were injured in the production of this photo.

Waking up in postcard-perfect town north of Boston yesterday. Out before dawn. Seeing snow falling (finally!). Wedging myself into the rental car and turning on NPR. This is the first song I hear. Having never heard it, I assumed it was by Jackson Browne. It sure sounds like Jackson Browne.

It’s by a band called Dawes, one of the many bands my friend Randy McDonald always tries to get me to listen to. Anyway, give it a listen.

Love the title, and the ethos of the song. I’ve been writing as a “job” for three decades, but I hadn’t been out of my apartment on “assignment” in two years. And in the past couple days, I remembered what I had missed: traveling to a place I’d never been to; learning about someone or some community I’d have otherwise not known about; sitting in a college president’s office that looks like something out of A Separate Peace. Meeting an extraordinary individual who is obsessed with being better. Finding a shoppe with the benches above. Exploration. Adventure.

Sure, writing is something I’ve always wanted to do (writing is just typing with hopefully more panache; I don’t want to oversell it). But if you were to ask me why I don’t regret having chosen this quasi-profession, it’s weeks like this one (which I used to experience all of the time, lucky me) that remind me. It’s the travel. The people. The adventure. It’s a little bit of everything.

Starting Five

1. “Just A Little Bit Outside” Breathless headlines on various sites (e.g. “NASA tracks a 1KM rock that could kill millions on rapid Earth approach“) declare that an asteroid is coming perilously close to our planet (one can hope). After clicking, you learn that the asteroid, about the size of a 30-story building, is going to pass by tomorrow a mere 3.6 million miles away.
2. But Here’s Some Real Danger For You Scientists just recorded the warmest January in the 141-year history of keeping weather data. Here’s a pro tip: The GOP doesn’t care. But your ski lift operator does.
3. Buzzer Beaters During locker room interviews yesterday, Houston Astros players insisted to a man that they never used buzzers. And why should we believe them? And if that’s true, what was going on with Jose Altuve insisting to teammates as he approached home plate to not tear off his shirt? And how come they knew enough not to do so?
4. Zion’s New High: He’s only 6’6″, but with that build and that energy rookie Zion Williamson has become a raging bull in the paint. Zion had a career-high 32 last night in a loss at OKC. After 10 career games Zion is averaging 22.1 points per game in just 27.1 minutes per game. He’s also shooting 57.6% from the field. One negative: He needs to improve his free throw percentage (65.4)%. FWIW, there are 19 players averaging more ppg than Zion but all of them average at least 30 minutes per contest.
5. Corruption Unlimited: If Roger Stone gets off with a light sentence, or is pardoned, then we are all living in a corrupt banana republic. Stone threatened a witness, he pled not guilty, he was found guilty on every charge (seven, I think), and now William Barr, in response to a Trump tweet, has said that the four men he assigned to the case asked for too harsh a punishment. When what they did is exactly what happens in every criminal case in the country (not to mention that the suspect threatened a witness). Consider the Rubicon crossed. And once a population understands and observes that justice no longer matters, guess what happens? Everyone starts breaking the rules. Or requesting or granting favors. There’s no more Dad in the house. This is what the Republicans have wrought.

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1. O.J.: Made In America : Okay, this felt more like an ESPN 30 for 30 on steroids than a film, but it was tremendous. It’s not just a murder documentary, it’s as significant a document of historical record as anything that Ken Burns has done. Essential viewing in terms of American history post-Watergate.
2. La La Land: One of the all-time Hollywood critics’ backlash films of ever, right up to the point where they thought they’d won the Best Picture Oscar only for their own producer to realize Warren Beatty had read the envelope incorrectly. Anyway, I liked it. Minor amendment: I LOVED the first 30 or so minutes of it. The first two songs are energizing and dynamic and the meet-cute song is magical.
3. The Witch: A colonial era horror folk tale. The sense of doom and foreboding comes as soon as the village gates close behind our ill-fated family. And what’s up with that goat?
4. Sing Street: From the same folks who brought us Once, a sweet story about a high school loser who forms a band and gets the girl. In Dublin, early Eighties. You’ll enjoy this if you grew up John Cusack films back in the day.
5. Hell Or High Water: I don’t know how come Chris Pine isn’t a bigger star, especially after a film like this. Still can’t believe his dad was the sarge in CHiPs. Pine is a young Redford/Newman combo type in this modern-day Western and Jeff Bridges as the retiring sheriff is at the very, very top of his craft. This is an A-minus No Country For Old Men, and there’s no shame in that.

Also liked Hacksaw Ridge and The Nice Guys and would have put them on a longer list. Never saw: Moonlight.