2025: What the . . ?

[00:00:02] Welcome to Chicago Musician. (I'm your host, Shawn Stengel) [00:00:06] This is the 2025 Year in Review, such as it is. [00:00:13] Did you think I'd forgotten about you? [00:00:15] I hadn't, but. . . I don't know. This has been a year and, well, let's talk about it. [00:00:35] So, as both of you may have noticed, I haven't posted a new episode for over a year. It was, I think, December 25th last year. And it's complicated why, and even I don't know why exactly, except I've just been so horrified by what's happening in our country. The destruction of every institution that we revere, and, I mean, it's just so upsetting. [00:01:14] And old yam tits. . .when you think he's sunk to the lowest possible human cesspool of action, he does something even worse. And he keeps doing it! Almost every day now. So, you know, I didn't want to do just an episode where I'm raging and, you know, screaming at the sky. But I guess that's what the year has been. [00:01:44] But I also had some good stuff and some interesting stuff happen this year, so. . . I also got tired of myself talking. That's not that great of a trait or a self awareness trait for a podcaster, as I've found out. 'You have to speak out loud.' So I'm vocally rested, as you can tell. [00:02:07] And so I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm gonna try and do some positive, you know. . . I went to New Zealand and Australia. What's not to like about that? [00:02:19] I saw some good concerts, had friends and family outings that were pretty good. So I'll take a swing at some of those and then I'll rant about the fuck twat that's in the White House because, you know, you have to. I'm sorry, but if you're not paying attention to what's going on, I mean, that's part of the reason we're this predicament in the first place. So let's give it a whirl. [00:02:51] So let's start with the good. [00:02:54] Probably the highlight of the year, at least in the travel category, was early on for me. In February, I went to New Zealand and Australia. Went with my friend, Dawn, who does tourism for upstate New York, and so sort of followed her itinerary. [00:03:14] But we had some free time, and a nice mix of her working and me being free to do what she'd already done, and then days where we did stuff together. And let me just say, there's nothing wrong with New Zealand or Australia. I mean, Australia, yes, every critter and insect and animal can kill you and wants to. But "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln . . .", they're both beautiful countries with friendly people. It's just a long fucking ways away. I mean, that's the real deterrent and probably why they're still beautiful places because not everybody can or would go there. It's a long, long flight. But I love to fly, so that's not a deterrent for me. [00:04:07] So let's start with New Zealand. That's where we landed. [00:04:11] Maybe early February. Yes, it was early February, in Auckland. So we started in the best possible way. Dawn had already met, through previous conventions and expos and things, a lady from New Zealand named Karen who was like, "Oh, Dawn, next time yir hear, been chin and would be kemping and do the ching and the eenz." [00:04:41] So that's not exactly how she talked, but that's how it sounded to us. For like two and a half days. We struggled with the New Zealand accent. . . to understand it. But boy, Karen, she's a winner. She volunteered to pick us up at the airport. I think we arrived at 6am on a Saturday. And then she drove us four hours. We were on the north island, so almost to the northern tip of the north island of New Zealand. We meandered our way up there through beautiful. . . I was surprised. . . sort of rolling hills, cattle land, mixed in with an amazing beach to your right and then one to your left and then more vistas and so on. But they had a cabin up on a beach, Karen and her husband. They call it a batch. I didn't know if that was just a slang for beach that had become batch? Or a bachelor pad? or whatever. But they call their cabin there a 'batch'. [00:05:47] And she drove us up there. Tokurau was the name of the beach. She doesn't live right on the beach, but a nice cabin or a couple of cabins across the road from this beach. [00:06:02] Get there, we're on the beach and it's the three of us plus about five windsurfers and that's it. And this beach is maybe a mile, two miles long. I'm sorry, kilometers. (I never did get the accent, as I will prove over and over again.) But what a way to see New Zealand for the first time! It was a glorious summer day. You know, the seasons are opposite, Down Under. And she couldn't have been more pleasant company, even though we couldn't understand a fucking word she said. [00:06:40] But that was our beginning in New Zealand and really, what a way to start. We just had the greatest time. And it was brief. Karen just took us up on a Saturday and back down to Auckland by Sunday evening because Dawn had to work on Monday. [00:07:00] So my intention here in this cadenza is not to get bogged down in New Zealand and Australia the way I did with my '17 episodes in India' last year. Although, interestingly enough, I went back to India five months later. I was invited by Tariq, whose family owned the houseboats up in Srinagar. So I was invited to come to his sister's wedding, his sister who I had never met and did not know, but I guess he thought I would be interested culturally to experience something like this? And so after some skepticism and many of my friends saying "You're not", "What? You're not going to go back, are you?" It's like, of course I did. And it was really. . . well, the wedding was. . .well, that was something. I don't know that I'll do an episode oning it, but it was a Muslim wedding because I was in Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir is the name of the state, but Kashmir is what Americans would recognize, up in the north. And the wedding was. . . unusual. But the cool thing was then I took a death-defying, long, mostly in pitch black, 12-hour drive with the driver Nadeem, who was really great. [00:08:19] A cousin or a friend of Tariq's drove me to Leh, 'L-E-H', which is way up in the mountains farther east. And it's just a spectacular place. They're expanding the airport now, so I'm sure it'll be overrun with tourists soon enough, but not now. Driving, you can only get into it three or four months a year because of the snow and its remote location. So I did that, and I went back to Delhi, and this time my cousin Joan was there. And so I got to spend time in Delhi with her and do some of the stuff Gisele and I were supposed to do with her in the first visit. Check out my other episodes. You'll hear every step of my journey through India-Part One. That was the summary of India-Part Two. [00:09:05] It was an adventure and really fun to go back. So meanwhile in New Zealand. . . [00:09:12] Actually, one of the funny pronunciation things that happened was, at one point, we'd asked Karen, 'we need to find an atm', you know, get some cash. Which really we didn't need. Most everything you can pay in New Zealand and Australia with your phone. [00:09:31] I had a bunch of cash and I had to, you know, frantically spend it at the end because I hadn't bought anything with cash. Anyhow. So we wanted this atm. She goes, 'oh yeah, there's a ANZ over by . . .' you know, whatever. . . we're like, 'what is she saying?' Eventually I figured out the bank is called A-N-Z. The ANZ Bank, you know, like anything we have here. But they don't say 'Z' in New Zealand. They say 'Zed', but they don't say 'Zed', they say 'Zid'. And 'n' was like 'in'. And I don't know what 'a' was, but. . . So she was not saying Ay eN Zee, she was saying Ahy-in-zid. And we didn't know what she was. . . we had no idea. Like much of the journey, it was hilarious and confusing. [00:10:20] Anyhow, so back in New Zealand, we get back to Auckland and Auckland is a beautiful city. It has a really lovely refurbished and reclaimed waterfront now that's very pedestrian friendly with lots of restaurants and an aquarium and stuff on their waterfront. So let me just say this about Auckland: Nice city, really wonderful museum. It used to be their war memorial and now it's a great museum. Actually, every city I went to in New Zealand and Australia had a fantastic museum. [00:11:05] And so this was my first one and I spent several hours there. And then I used Lime. Do you know what 'Lime' is? Those scooters. That's how I got around Auckland, because it's bigger than you would expect. And there were things I wanted to see that day. Dawn was working at her tourism convention, so I was on my own. And I wanted to go to Mt. Eden, this dormant volcano where you can walk up and there's an outlook that has a great view of the city and the area. But it was a ways away. So I signed up and got my Lime scooter and scooted around Auckland. And then I also went up in there . . . what is it? Sky Tower? Sky something. . .They have a tower that you can go up into and they built it just for. . . there's no real purpose to it. Maybe it has radio signal on the top, but it's just to have a tall tower in Auckland. Loved it. Great view. I had a great day by myself. [00:12:08] Yeah. And then the next day, Dawn and I had to go to Wellington because that was her next stop. And again she had to work in Wellington. She had been to both these places before. So Wellington is really charming. And I looked on the map. I think it's the farthest south in the world that I've ever been. Like 41 degrees south, but of course it was summer, so it was lovely. Beautiful. Again, beautiful waterfront and a smaller place than Auckland, but also really charming and walker friendly. And they're known for this like funicular. Is that what it is, funicular? The thing that goes. . . a train that goes sort of at a 45 degree angle up the hill? I'm blanking on the term now. A train that takes you up to this really great view of the city. And I did that. [00:13:04] But speaking of museums, the Te Papa Museum in Wellington is just fantastic! It's a newer building, maybe within the last 10 years. And it's just a beautiful facility. And their collection of. . . oh, now I'm gonna say 'Maori', which is not how you say the native people there. But we were told it was more like morey or moldy, only you flip the D and it's an R and M, but not My-or-ree. But their Maori collection, their indigenous peoples collection, it's really colorful and beautiful and I loved it. So yeah, the museums just. . . I learned the tip of the iceberg about both of these countries, but I felt like I gained a lot. Even though I know nothing now, I still had a great exposure to a lot of stuff that I hopefully, someday, will learn even more about. So the museum is a real highlight. Another highlight in Wellington is a thing called the Weta Workshop. So Weta Workshop now does special effects and masks and swords and stuff for a lot of movies. But apparently the story is it was this husband and wife team of creatives and they just sort of hit the perfect storm of they were coming up as props people as creating this or that for the limited film and television industry in New Zealand when Lord of the Rings appeared and suddenly there was an industry and suddenly they were the thing. [00:14:48] And now they're like in Avatar, the posters of the movies they've contributed to is huge. So there actually is a workshop there in Wellington and you can take a tour of it. [00:15:02] And you can't go into actually the factory, although there are windows where you can view into what they're actually working on now. But it's a cool interactive tour where you can put on some of these life masks or the big feet or swing. You know, the swords look like they're heavy, heavy metal. And they're not, but some of them are. But I'm not even a fan of most of those fantasy, you know, movie, you know, ancient, find the ring, blah, blah, blah. I can't even describe the genre, it's not my thing. But I know of them enough to be impressed by their work. And so we took that tour before we had to get on a plane and then fly to Australia. [00:15:47] Had to got to. [00:15:49] So my time in New Zealand was brief, but. And I was only on the north island, which by the way is not even the beautiful island. The spectacular Southern Alps and stuff are on the South Island. So someday I will get back there where Christchurch and Kristianstad are. [00:16:12] Yeah, I need to get back there. Flew over it on the way out, so I saw some of those mountains, but just barely. [00:16:18] So on to Australia where we had more time. [00:16:21] So we flew to Sydney about I guess a three or four hour flight. [00:16:26] The flights we flew Air New Zealand. In fact, to get to New Zealand I flew, I don't know, United to LAX where Don and I met up. And then we flew together to New Zealand another 15 hours and now Wellington to Sydney was three or four hours. Anyhow, had a spectacular view out my window of Sydney coming in. So flew over the Opera House in the harbor and as we circled and approached the airport. So that was a pretty great welcome to Australia. [00:17:00] Might again my sucky accent. Pardon me. I try my best. [00:17:07] So in Sydney, Don had a work, a longer work schedule so I had more free time and we had almost five or six days there. [00:17:18] And here's the thing about Sydney. It's a big world class city and the harbor is spectacular. The Opera House and the Harbour Bridge are just what you imagined. No let down there. [00:17:31] But the curious thought I kept having as I'm walking around this world class, beautiful, clean city was okay, this, this is just, it's for them it's regular life. We think of Australia and everything is so exotic, but it's not to the people who are there. It's just their world. And I know that's not a very insightful insight, but it's odd to me that it's been going on there for a while and in a very sophisticated way since, you know, over 150 years and we just didn't know about it. And now it's very British English mixed with a Pacific Rim influence that's exotic to an American mix of cultures and also really beautiful. And a lot of state of the art buildings and facilities and transportation, all that sort of thing. [00:18:31] So I had lots of time in Sydney. I took the Opera House tour, which of course you have to really cool. Interesting story. The guy who designed it was eventually fired and never. [00:18:47] He was Danish I think, and never saw it completed, even as it was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site while he was still alive. But by then he was too weak to come back and see it. [00:19:02] So a little bit of a tragic story, but the building itself is just spectacular. I think it took them, after they designed it, it took them another three years to figure out how to engineer the iconic sails, the white shell like thing and the tiles that cover it. [00:19:23] But they figured it out eventually and the tour was great. There's the main concert hall and then a smaller, slightly smaller opera house. [00:19:34] And I think it's called the Dame Jones Sutherland Opera House now. [00:19:41] And yeah, part of what was interesting is why the guy got fired was the government changed and they wanted, I mean, politics, politics, politics. But part of what happened in that is the local architects added a few elements that really, it's hard to imagine the place without it. Like they glassed in the lobbies for these places, which I think were open air in the original design. It's kind of hard to imagine. So it came together and it is truly a singular building on this planet. So I feel lucky to have seen that bucket list. Check. [00:20:22] And the whole harbor area is just so cool. That harbor bridge where you see the New Year's fireworks going off from is really cool. I did not walk up. You can hike up on the top of it if you pay enough money and have the nerve. I did not do that Anyhow, so Sydney, let's see. I stayed in an area called King's Cross or Potts Point, a little bit out of downtown, about a 20 to 30 minute walk down a very steep flight of stairs through the botanical gardens and to the opera house from the harbor. [00:21:06] I think King's Cross was at one point like the red light district of Sydney and might still have a few too many bars and gay bars and things. [00:21:18] So it's not the most glamorous place, especially at night. [00:21:23] But in the day it's a cute neighborhood with sort of like I think New Orleans type almost architecture with these wrought iron railings. And it's an interesting mix. But there's plenty of sidewalk cafes where you can get your avocado toast and a flat white. [00:21:43] That's. The Australians are really into their coffee and the classic is a flat white, which is sort of the American latte or cappuccino with foam, depending, you know, an American cappuccino, not a European version. Anyhow, their coffee is very good and so is their avocado toast. [00:22:04] I don't know if they invented it, but it's pretty iconic now in Australia. [00:22:11] Another interesting thing, both that's true both in New Zealand and Australia is many places and functions. [00:22:22] Whether you're flying or at a building or eating dinner, there's some sort of pronouncement or announcement of their honoring the traditional custodians of country like the Aboriginal people, the original peoples. [00:22:40] They both countries have complicated, complicated relationships with the original people on these islands. I mean, we all know Australia was a penal colony. They sent prisoners and the worst of the worst or some pretty lousy people anyhow. And they just took over the place with little regard to Hawardy, who already lived there, but. And New Zealand has their Mori Maori population that also was pushed aside. And now they're trying. It's not perfect. It's really complicated histories. But here I found. I took a picture of one of these because it's. I think it's interesting. It says, the Queensland Fire Department acknowledges the traditional custodians of country and their continuing connection to land, culture and community. [00:23:31] We pay our respects to the elders, past, present and emerging. [00:23:37] So you would get a pronouncement like that or a card or something. Whether you sit down and they hand you a menu and they say we acknowledge the continuing. Well, not at a restaurant, I guess, but when you fly or they welcome you and honor the continuing connection to the land of the community. I think it's a really. It might seem trite and sort of. You get numb to it after a while, but they're trying and it's a worthy thing to do. [00:24:08] And I wish we were a little better in our country in doing that. I've seen it a few places in this country. I remember looking at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and in their lobby there's something similar where we acknowledge the land on which the theater sits as being from the people of Ojibwe tribe or something like that. [00:24:32] So there are examples of it in our country, but not enough. [00:24:38] So anyhow, I took a side trip one day while Don was working. I had friends of friends who lived in a community north of Sydney called Woy Woy. [00:24:51] Yeah, W o y W o Y A pretty easy hourish commute from Sydney by train. So I was going to go up there on train and meet this guy and his wife. And then that day the trains were on strike. [00:25:09] Fortunately, my friend David came down, met me. I could get halfway on the train before we ran out of tracks on the way up, but he said, I can come down and meet you halfway. And he took me to the a Australian reptile park, but also where I have a cute picture with the koala bear, which I couldn't hold. They're getting more and more protective of that. But I did get to touch really cute. [00:25:38] And I saw every animal that can kill you in Australia, fortunately in cages and protected me, protected from them, but also Beautiful birds and wallabies and kangaroos. [00:25:54] Dawn and I went to a really great koala preserve in Brisbane. I'll get to that in a little bit, but this was cool. And I got to see Tappan. I think that's the snake, the most poisonous venom in the world. [00:26:09] So there's all these beautiful, beautiful and ugly animals that can kill you. What a treat. And it was hot as hell. But anyhow, we met up with Tracy, David's wife, and did a little tour around the area. They live on a. There's a big. [00:26:25] What is it? Hawkesbury might be wrong. Huge river that spreads out in that part of eastern mid central ish Australia, I would say. [00:26:38] And they lived on a bay on an inlet there on a charming little house sitting on the water with a dock. And so I had a nice kind of local experience out in the countryside a little bit. And then at the end of our day, after we'd had lunch on a beach, as one does in Australia, the trains were running again. So I took the train back into Sydney. So that was a little out of the city adventure. So again, Sydney has beautiful museums and lots of different cultural things. Oh, we got to go to. [00:27:11] I saw Hadestown there. The. It was maybe the second preview of the Sydney company of Hadestown. I'd never seen the Broadway production, so I have to say it was excellent quality and we had second row center seats. Dawn has connections, you know, so that was fun to see. I'm sure it was curated by the original people, so it was very. Well, the quality level was high and it was very much. The Broadway production transferred into a Sydney theater. So that was a fun cultural outing and I got to meet some of the tourism people and see a little bit of the expo there, which was interesting and really loud. [00:27:57] So Sydney. So the other cities after Sydney, we had to pop up to Brisbane, which north means even warmer in Australia. [00:28:08] So we popped up to Brisbane. I didn't know what to expect there. It's just a short hour and a half flight from Sydney, maybe slightly more than that. But we just had a day and a half there and Don was mostly working. So I got to stroll around. And it's really a surprisingly big city and a beautiful skyline and it has this river that runs through it and they've really claimed the space around it with parks and restaurants and it was a lovely place to walk around. And again, world class museums that were free. I just wandered into the art museum as I was wandering around and they have a beautiful theater and opera house and even Building a brand new state of the art opera house. So all in this complex right along the river. Brisbane's going to host the Olympics. Summer Olympics in. I don't know what is it? 2032 seems like a little bit of a small place to host the whole Olympics but it'll be fascinating to see. They're already building some of the facilities so they'll probably be a little farther ahead than say Athens that built the pool, you know, the day they were racing. [00:29:25] So I like Brisbane in my limited contact with it. On the second day dawn and I took a water taxi. [00:29:34] There's a river that runs through it. Hey, that's a nice title. [00:29:40] Where you can probably 45 minute ride up the river to a nature preserve where there are a lot of koalas. Is it koala? Koala. [00:29:53] Don't know koalas who by the way only eat eucalyptus leaves only apparently they have tiny brains and are super stupid but they're super cute and so we couldn't touch them but we saw a lot of them sleeping in trees and moving around a little bit. Also a lot of huge kangaroos that you could feed and wallabies and I don't know the difference, don't ask me. Also a couple of fun bird flight hawk demonstrations of local type birds. [00:30:30] It was nice. It was a place dawn had been to before so she was anxious to take me there and I'm glad we went. That was a great experience. [00:30:41] So after our brief Brisbane time we flew then down to Melbourne in the south of southwest of Sydney. [00:30:54] And as we learned, as I learned about Australian culture, apparently Melbourne is considered the hipper of the two cities, Sydney and, and Melbourne. And someone said the only reason you wouldn't live in Melbourne is because of the weather. And apparently the weather just changes with the drop of a hat. You're like why is everybody carrying umbrellas on this sunny day? Boom. Downpour. [00:31:24] So most people, the Sydney people were like, yeah, I love Melbourne. It's a little hipper, a little artsy or a little blah, blah, blah. But the weather, man, the weather. Anyhow, I love the weather. It was fine. Although I did get caught in a pretty good downpour come to think of it. Spent a couple days in Melbourne again. Oh my God, a fabulous museum and I can never say her name. I'm going to stop and look up her name, which I did. [00:31:56] Yayoi Kusama, this pretty old now Japanese woman who there was a whole large immersive walkthrough many different rooms of her art. There's Lots of polka dots and optical illusions and colorful this and that. And that was thrilling. I was at the National Gallery of Victoria. [00:32:22] Victoria Melbourne is in the state of Victoria, Sydney is in New South Wales. I'm so knowledgeable about the structure of Australian in politics. I don't know anything anyhow. I know that's the States they're in and that was a great museum. I went back the next day and saw some of the regular permanent exhibit, which was also pretty cool. [00:32:49] When we first got to Melbourne, dawn, who has to work, darn, leaves me by myself. So I'm strolling around Melbourne and one of the first things I wanted to do was go over by their sports complex where the Australian Open tennis tournament takes place. [00:33:07] Because I watch that pretty much every January, at least a little bit. And it looks so cool and you see all these great views of the skyline and it looks very attractive. So I'd love to get back there. I was just, what, three weeks late for seeing the Australian Open this year. It had happened in January. [00:33:27] So I walked around that complex, which is quite impressive. [00:33:31] There's of course a big soccer football stadium and the tennis complex and a concert hall and it's big. And then I walked. There's parks everywhere. It's a beautiful walking city. [00:33:43] We stayed in a neighborhood. Dawn wanted to stay out of the city center. She'd heard of Collingwood, Fitzroy, which is sort of the funky graffiti on everything, coffee houses, every other building kind of neighborhood, just a little bit northeast of downtown. [00:34:04] And yeah, that was fun. We had a cool contemporary ish hotel there that was right in the middle of all that. And so that was fun. It's weird mix of there's graffiti on all the buildings, some of it, you know, artful and some of it just trashing the buildings. But you'd be in this, what looks like a bombed out building next to Lululemon and, you know, then a coffee house. And it was kind of hard to explain, but it was fun to not just be in the center of the city. [00:34:39] So really enjoyed Melbourne. Much more than that to tell about. But I won't write in this telling, but we did take a day trip to the iconic Ocean Road, which, if you see any travel guide to Australia, there's usually a picture of this coastline with these big rock structures out in the water. It's called the Nine Apostles. And that's sort of an iconic look of Australia tourism at least. [00:35:08] So it was a full day because it was a ways, maybe 100 or 2 miles, 100 or 200 miles south west of Melbourne. And so we got on this bus tour, like minibus, probably 25 of us, and wandered our way down to the coast. The. The road itself was built by hand, mostly by, I think, World War II veterans, maybe. No World War I veterans, one of the World War's veterans. And mostly by hand because a lot of these guys had ptsd, so they weren't big into explosions. But if you see this road carved out along the coastline of Australia, you're like, how did they build this without exploding A lot of things. I'm sure they dynamited some of it. But anyhow, it was one of the first commercial. [00:36:09] It was meant to be a tourism destination because it's scenic and lovely, but one of the first of its kind. [00:36:18] And even now it's a little bit harrowing at certain points. It's right on the. Right on the cliffs. [00:36:25] But the nine apostles, of which there never were nine, apparently, and now some of them have fallen, so there's, I think, six. [00:36:36] And you can see part of the seventh sort of crumbled in the surf, but it really is beautiful. [00:36:42] And on our bus tour, our guide, who was pretty funny and knowledgeable, he was a good tour guide for the day. [00:36:54] One of the options, he could call ahead and we could reserve. We could take a helicopter flight over the coastline and over the Apostles. Well, I've never even been on a helicopter as old as I am, something I've never done. And so I'm like, don, you want to do it, it's on me. And so we did that. And it's not a very long flight, but you get a really cool perspective. And, I don't know, helicopter. I didn't think of it as. [00:37:28] What am I trying to say? It was. It was fine. It wasn't scary. It wasn't. I guess I fly a lot, but it. The sensation of it didn't seem. [00:37:37] I mean, we weren't in a tiny little one. There were probably six of us, maybe more than that, crammed in two different rows, and they put you where they want to support. Dawn had to sit in the middle because that's how they had us distributed. [00:37:51] And I hope she could see out either side. Eventually, we sort of backed out of the way so she'd get her share of the view as well. But that was kind of a fun experience and another first for me, but well worth it if you have a chance, take that tour or you can drive there yourself. But it's a pretty long drive. [00:38:13] It was pretty hot. Unfortunately, in the countryside. We didn't See very many kangaroos. [00:38:20] It was just not. It was so hot, they would. Our guide told us, anyhow, most of them are in the shade somewhere and not moving around much, and we would be unlikely to see them in that sort of weather. So we saw a few across the way. We did spot koalas. It's like being in Yellowstone when you're driving along and suddenly there's a traffic jam or there's a bunch of cars pulled over to the side. [00:38:46] You can bet it's like a koala jam. Someone spotted a koala up in the tree. And everyone gets out and they point and you squint and you can kind of see them because the eucalyptus trees are big and high and tall. So you don't. I saw a couple in the wild. [00:39:01] You zoom in with your phone camera and you can get a better look. [00:39:05] But it's fun, fun to see a different part of the Australian landscape. [00:39:13] And I wanted to share one other a list sort of experience I got to have in Melbourne. Dawn, of course, is connected in her tourism world, and one of the people she'd previously met somewhere at an expo or done some projects with, I'm not exactly sure the connection, but she knew a woman named Kirsten Tibbles, and I'd never heard of her. But dawn kept telling people along the way that, you know, our last night in Melbourne, we were having dinner with Kirsten Tibbles, and people would almost faint. Kirsten is a chocolate expert, dessert expert in, like, influencer on Instagram, and very famous in Australia. She's been a judge many times on Australia's Top Chef, which someone said was the most watched program in the world. [00:40:09] I don't know. You never know. But anyhow, dawn had arranged for us to have dinner with her. [00:40:19] And so I'm like, okay, you know, I don't know them. Sounds great. Anyhow, so Kirsten and her husband come pick us up at our hotel, and first they take us to her studio. So. [00:40:32] So she teaches people how to work with chocolate and she's a spokesman, I can't remember the name of it now, for a very famous line of chocolate and cocoa powders, and very exclusive. But she doesn't sell product. She sells ideas and teaching top chefs. There's another guy on Instagram that's very famous with these fancy designs he makes and does them really in fast motion, and he smiles all the time. Well, he studied with her. [00:41:03] So they came pick us up. They're absolutely charming, lovely. [00:41:09] You know, she's super famous, but you can't Tell that by hanging out with her. She's down to earth and very easy to chat with. [00:41:17] So we got to see her workspace kitchen and also where she films most of her content for the online stuff. When she's creating dishes in her kitchen and there's a small studio, it's not a huge place, but, boy, she cranks out a lot of product from there. And she's like, oh, I'm sorry, I don't have anything for you to try. Oh, except for these trays of bon bons. And we. So we're going out to dinner. But I had like six or eight of these because they were to die for. They were pretty small, but, you know, oh, try this one. This is with the liqueur. This. And they were heavenly, to say the least. But then we went out to dinner and they thought it would be fun for us to get a view first. So we went up to the top of one of their very tall skyscrapers to this bar where we were just going to have a drink and something. And by coincidence, one of her former students was doing a. [00:42:16] I don't know what you would call it. It's a sort of like a small menu dessert presentation. And I suppose for $60, you can buy a ticket and have a glass of champagne and try a dessert that he made in a different section of the bar. Well, of course he sees her and then she's like, oh, hi. La, la, la, la, la. And suddenly, I mean, she's famous in Australia, obviously, because the maitre d comes over and suddenly we're getting a free bottle of champagne for us. And then the chef who's doing the tasting sends over one of each of his desserts that he's presenting. [00:42:54] All very exquisite and inventive and with this fabulous view over all of Melbourne. [00:43:03] So that was a really nice. Nice to be with celebrities, my brush with greatness. And then they took us out to dinner at this really cool French sort of restaurant in a repurposed bank that almost looked like a Gothic cathedral inside. Very swanky and nice, but they seemed almost as flabbergasted by the menu as we were. Sort of like, I don't know what that name is and what we should order, but we had the most pleasant evening with them. And I can't tell you how. [00:43:38] How lovely and gracious both she and her husband were. Her name is Kirsten Tibbles. T I B B A L L S if you look her up on Instagram, you'll see all these fabulous, fabulous desserts that she Creates or shows you how to do or it's very inventive and she's just charming. You'll enjoy just being in her cyber presence, I can guarantee you. So that was quite a highlight and unexpected cherry on top of a very good trip. [00:44:13] So that was the end of our trip was in Melbourne. It was. I highly recommend it. It was lovely to go in February which is still their summer but just slightly towards the end of their high season. So not as overrun with tourists as December, January. But I'm dying to go back. You could go. I mean Australia is huge and 92% of it is completely empty in the middle. But there's other parts to see. I'd love to see Perth way on the west coast and or just, you know, return to Sydney. I'd like to see Adelaide. I wanted to go to Tasmania just because it sounds so otherworldly. But that would have taken up two full days of our Melbourne time. So I didn't make it this time. [00:45:02] Maybe next time. [00:45:04] But oh, I forgot I wanted to mention something about Sydney. We did have a chance to take a ferry out to Manly Beach. [00:45:13] You board by the Opera House and it's a 20 minute ride or so over to Manly beach which has a fabulous little neighborhood around it with overpriced gelato and art. [00:45:26] And then there's the beach which is just wonderful. [00:45:31] And I also made it out to Bondi beach which is where, you know, maybe the most famous beach in Australia. [00:45:39] Unfortunately, you know, now with that hideous shooting there, I know exactly where that was. [00:45:47] And I'm just so ashamed that our American gun culture is bleeding over into other nations. And I mean Bondi is just a spectacular, beautiful beach. They did the Olympic volleyball tournament, I think there. They built temporary stands and stuff. But also you can continue an ocean walk on the cliffs and then around to several more beaches on that part of the coastline. And it's so lovely and just so shameful that it's now marred by that awful incident. [00:46:26] But those nonetheless, they're beautiful places and if you have a chance, make sure you get to one or both of those if you can. [00:46:37] So that's the good trip for 2025 and a pretty good one at that. [00:46:44] Other than that, what was I doing? Well, protesting, you know, I went to Hands off. I went to no Kings. [00:46:54] Good to be amongst other like minded people who haven't lost their minds. [00:46:59] And yeah, those were. It's sad that those are necessary in our country now, but they are. [00:47:09] But I'm not going to rant about him Yet I went to, as usual, some concerts and plays and stuff. I enjoyed seeing the Cyndi Lauper farewell tour. That was fun. Girl can still really sing and she's pretty quirky and as you would imagine. But I was surprised how much voice she still had left. And I got to see Wynonna. [00:47:34] Oh, Wynonna Judd. Not that I'm a huge country fan, but I've always liked Wynonna. And that girl can still sang. [00:47:42] She really can sing. And she had a really good band around her. So that was a really good concert in Gary, Indiana, just around the corner from Chicago. Here they have a hard rock casino. Oh, God, Casinos are disgusting. You can still smoke there in Gary, Indiana, in the casino. [00:48:03] That was bad. But not in the concert venue, thankfully. [00:48:08] I really enjoyed. [00:48:10] My friend Dario, who stays with me in the summertime, is the principal clarinet in the Grant Park Symphony. So I go to that frequently. That's in the outdoor Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago, the Frank Gehry designed pavilion in Millennium park, not too far from the Bean. [00:48:29] But they do excellent concerts. I really enjoyed, surprisingly, their Broadway concert this year, which is usually nice, they farm in three Broadway soloists, usually a soprano, a belter chick, and then some guy to sing Phantom. [00:48:46] But this year was a little bit better. They used the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra Chorus. The symphony, of course, but also the chorus. [00:48:54] And to me, that really lifted the pieces that they did. You know, I. I think pieces like you'll never walk alone with a soloist is just unsingable. It's just sustained and long and slow. But with the chorus, walk on, walk on. [00:49:12] Anyhow, I really, I thought their use of the chorus lifted that concert into another level. And it was, it was really good to keep up my sense and my appearance, the facade of legitimacy as a Chicago musician. I did do my annual day of work this year. [00:49:30] I played the Broadway in Chicago preview concert again at Millennium Park, Pritzker Pavilion. [00:49:37] Broadway in Chicago is the Producers. They present the season of six or eight touring shows that come through the downtown theaters. So every year they do a preview of the incoming shows and they fly in the cast from the tour or from Broadway. Then we do a number or two from several different shows. So I've been lucky enough to get hired to play that the last couple of years. [00:50:01] And this year we didn't get rained out or lightninged out or we got to play the whole damn concert. And it's fun. It's what a venue to look out from that stage and see 8,000 people sitting out There on a beautiful summer Chicago night. [00:50:19] That was pretty fun. And in spite of what the orange president says, Chicago is not a war zone. It's one of the great cities of the world. And I still love living here. So shut the fuck up, you idiot. [00:50:37] Had a nice family time up in Minnesota with my brother and his oldest son and their kids. We went up to the farm, as we call it now, in somme s a u m a tinier than tiny little town where my dad grew up and where we still own a house in the tract of land up there in northern northern Minnesota, just off of the Red Lake Indian reservation up by gigantic red lake north of Bemidji. [00:51:10] And we had access to some ATVs, so we went tooling around, and the kids loved that. So that was a nice family time this year. [00:51:21] And what else happened to me? Oh, it's weird. [00:51:26] Now we're verging into the bad. [00:51:29] I've had cataract surgery on both eyes and several years ago on the first eye. And the doctor's like, well, you're a little young to have cataract surgery. I'm like, yeah, but here I am. [00:51:42] So I don't know if that's. It's great that you got it early. I don't think so, but it is a miracle surgery, and apparently maybe the most performed surgery in the world. They're pretty good at it. [00:51:54] Anyhow, one of my eyes had gotten a floater in it a couple of years ago. And they're like, well, if it's not really bothering you, I wouldn't go in and do something, but if it is, well, it reached the point where it was bothering me. [00:52:09] And I thought, I don't know whose miscommunication this was, but I thought it was gonna be like my other eye had gone in and they'd sort of lasered out a little bit of crud on the edges. And then my vision was clear again. [00:52:23] Well, this wasn't that I had to go and do, you know, full on check into the hospital and do surgery in a room and blah, blah, blah. [00:52:34] And I guess I was told that their plan B, if it went a certain way, they have to put a bubble in your eye and, you know, ready, go. [00:52:46] It seems like that was about all the information I was given other than, oh, if we do this bubble, then you'll have to remain, you know, face down for 48 hours. And I'm like, okay, fine. Well, they put in the bubble, and then I'm supposed to be face down. But the part they didn't explain at all is this bubble in your eye is like a black, solid disc, basically covering all your vision in your eye. For me, it was my left eye. [00:53:21] And they're like, yeah, it dissipates over time. [00:53:25] Okay. Time unexplained to me was like a day or two. [00:53:30] It took 13 days for this bubble to disappear. In the meantime, it's in the middle of your vision. [00:53:39] After, I think, four or five days. It shrunk enough that I. If I tilted my head down, I could sort of look over the top of it. You can't really look around it. It's a bubble floating in. Ugh. [00:53:53] Anyhow, the miracle of surgery, you know, it corrected the vision in that eye, but I was surprised. No one told me I would have been fine. If they said it takes two weeks, it'll clear up, and it's, you know, you can't see around it for a few days. And no one really said that to me. And when I told them I was upset about that, they're like, well, yeah, that was basically. They're like, well, that's. Yeah. [00:54:19] Anyhow, so. But now I see clearly. [00:54:25] It is kind of a miracle. It's weird to think of old times when if you got cataracts, you just sat on the back porch and died because you were blind. Not. Well, whatever. But I did read. I don't know. I know too much about this now. I read that the ancient Egyptians did eye surgery, and their method of anesthesia was they would put ice cubes on and freeze the eye and then slice it open and do. I'm like, really? [00:54:54] Really? [00:54:55] I think I might have rather died of cataracts than someone slicing open my eye next to the pyramids. [00:55:04] I don't know. Okay, how is that for a sidebar? [00:55:07] So let's get to the shitwad that is our president. [00:55:14] I mean, really, I've had this anxiety all year long. It's sort of shut down my ability to podcast and just function in the world, but it's just horrific. This vilest, pettiest, little egotistical, narcissistic, fraud con man. [00:55:37] Somehow we reelected him, which I guess, if you believe he really won, I don't know. I don't think for $373 million, Elon just passed out postcards encouraging you to vote in Pennsylvania, but can't go down that rabbit hole. But look at this. [00:55:56] His cabinet full of drunk former Fox News hosts who are in charge of our world. [00:56:03] What the hell? [00:56:05] I mean. [00:56:06] And this clown show of Kristi Noem And Hegseth and Homan, Stephen Miller, Russell Vogt. I mean, those two guys are dangerous. But there's so many that are clown. It's a clown show. And you see their Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden. And I just cannot fathom anyone, let alone people I know and. Or am related to, looking at them going, yeah, that's my crowd. [00:56:33] That's who I want running our country. [00:56:37] I still can't fathom that on any level. [00:56:44] So let's talk a few examples. Who would ever imagine that our president is on the side of Russia and Republicans, Republicans, as I call them, do nothing. Suddenly, whatever our dear leader tells them is what? Like, there is no question. Russia attacked Ukraine. We are an ally of Ukraine. We made a deal with them to give up nuclear weapons and we would protect them and Russia wouldn't attack. Okay, now suddenly, you know, our president wants so badly to be Putin. He wants to be Kim Jong Un. He wants to be Viktor Orban. He wants to just have power. He doesn't give a rat's ass about governing. He's about chaos, getting rich and staying out of jail. And we all knew that. And still supposedly 77 million people said, yeah, that's better than the black lady who's educated and thoughtful and kind. [00:57:48] You know, he wants a Nobel Peace Prize, and he's bombing countries randomly without congressional approval or oversight because, of course, they're too feckless to do anything. Is there any bigger little wiener in the world than Mike Johnson? Oh, what a hideous little, I think, closeted gay man. [00:58:13] And not that there's anything wrong with being gay, but closeted and evil is not a good description. [00:58:21] You know, their whole family, grifters, oh, artist wise. The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy center for the Performing Arts. Could there be anything more vile than that? Oh, yeah, there could be the Epstein files. But as far as art and artists, I've played the Kennedy center several times, and it's such a joy. It's such a treat. It's our nation's, you know, performing arts center. The musicians there are just wonderful people. And the venues, it's so thrilling to perform there. I got to perform. I conducted the national tour of Crazy for you back in. I don't know when that was 95 or 96 when we were there and my parents came, got to see me conduct in the Opera House, and they sang, sat next to Janet Reno, the Attorney general at the time. So however long ago that was. [00:59:17] But the. [00:59:20] Oh, my God, he's just ruined it already. And those last Kennedy center honors. [00:59:27] What a joke. What a. [00:59:30] Just. It's nauseating. This man who I've seen a meme years ago and it was like, here's all the performers who performed in the east wing of the White House. Oops, that's gone under Obama. And it's the list of the greatest performers in the world today. It's thrilling. [00:59:49] And the list of who performed in Trump Won the Marine Band. End of list. [00:59:56] That's. That's who he had performing in. In the White House. [01:00:01] The man has no interest or knowledge of the arts, but it's in the Project 2025 playbook, in the Nazi playbook. Take over the arts, control the media. You know, just those of you who didn't believe Project 2025 was a thing, that's exactly what they've been doing for nine months. What is it, 10 months now. It's a horror show. I just, I can't. [01:00:28] There is no justification for this. There is no argument that says this is real. There trying to destroy our country. [01:00:38] And at least 32% of us, they say, yeah, man, great. [01:00:45] You think he can't sink any lower? And then Rob Reiner and his wife are killed by their addicted or mentally their son. Allegedly. [01:00:56] And Trump makes it about him. It's about him. [01:01:01] How much lower can this guy go? [01:01:04] His Christmas greeting is Merry Christmas to all except the radical scum left of the. You know, we are not the radical left. [01:01:13] It is. We are dead center. I'm dead center. And the right has swung so far around to the right, they can't even see center anymore. It's disgusting. [01:01:23] The radical left. [01:01:26] Everything is a projection. Every accusation is a projection by this regime. It's an authoritarian regime and we're just barely hanging on. [01:01:38] Just barely. The courts are still protecting us somewhat. Except for the completely bought and sold Supreme Court. [01:01:47] Don't even get me started on that. [01:01:50] I'm so disheartened. [01:01:54] I think we might survive this. I'm not certain of that. But so far I do not see the path forward. No one is stopping this man. He just mows down the east wing of the White House. And we're horrified. [01:02:09] But he did it. [01:02:12] His whole approach is, I'm just going to do it. Come and stop me. And so far, the, you know, completely without testicles. Republicans in Congress are. [01:02:26] I guess there really is no Republican Party anymore. It's maga. And MAGA is just. [01:02:32] They're pleased as punch with what's going on. [01:02:36] The destruction of this country by the evangelical white nationalist Christian. [01:02:42] I don't know, the mental gymnastics you have to do in order to convince yourself that somehow Trump is sent by. By God. [01:02:53] By God. [01:02:55] You know, I don't really like him and how he talks and what. Or what he does, but I agree with his policies. Really? Can you tell me a policy? Because he really doesn't have any. It's very much like his health care plan, which is coming in two weeks and has been coming in two weeks for 15 years. [01:03:17] It's just smoke and mirrors. He's a snake oil salesman. And that you can't see through that. It just is galling to me. [01:03:29] So I have this anxiety hanging over me sometimes. I'm walking around and have a perfectly good life, you know, taking care of dogs and doing whatever I want. [01:03:39] And I'm like, why do I feel like this anxiety today? And then I see some news headline, I'm like, oh, yeah, that shithead is still in the White House. [01:03:50] And now his whipping boy is Minnesota, you know, because there's Somali people there and they're, you know, they're evil trash. Can you imagine the President of the United States that I still, like, throw up a little bit when I say that in front of this guy's name. But anyone talking like that about any people, let alone people that you are the president of, calling them garbage and scum. And, you know, this whole. [01:04:25] I mean, Minnesota. You think Minnesota is the state, the worst state in this. [01:04:32] It ranks in the top five in almost every category as livability and education and healthcare and. [01:04:39] And that's the problem state, you know, not maybe Mississippi or the hellhole that is Florida. [01:04:48] I'm just, I'm sad for our country. I mean, Chicago is under attack, the Gestapo, ICE is still around here, you know, rounding up the, quote, worst of the worst. Yeah, my ass. The gardener, the woman selling tamales over on Kedsey and Lawrence. What the hell? And if you really want to be disheartened, go on threads or Facebook or anything that posts something, a news story about ICE and read the comments. And there's people like, yeah, get them all out. [01:05:27] Yeah, it's. [01:05:30] What's happened to our country? [01:05:32] What's happening to our country? [01:05:34] I'm not convinced that we're going to get to 2026 and have legitimate elections. If we do, we've got a pretty good shot. [01:05:47] People are tired of this, but I think it's a pretty big if. [01:05:52] What is. [01:05:53] How are we going to stop this moron? [01:05:58] I mean, he's just, you know, this bitcoin shit and selling pardons, you know, Their outrage about, you know, the fraud in Minnesota. He just pardoned people who, you know, were convicted and sent to prison for fraud, but he's pardoning them. He pardoned. Who was it the president of Honduras or something, who only sent $400 million worth of drugs into the United States. But sure, he said he liked Trump. So there you go. Pardon. Get out of jail free. The hypocrisy. [01:06:34] MAGA doesn't even know what hypocrisy is, because that is the definition of them. Everything they accuse us the other side of being is exactly what they're doing, and there's no shame in it. [01:06:49] I'm scared for our country, and I'm. [01:06:52] I'm mad as hell that this is what I'm living in towards the end of my life. And hopefully I hope we can get out of it. But the damage that's being done won't be fixed overnight, even if somehow we shovel this guy out of the White House, which, by the way, he has no intention of ever leaving. [01:07:11] You can see that. [01:07:13] And what has he done to the Oval Office? My God, it's like the tackiest set ever for a scene for from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. [01:07:23] I'm tired of this Bullshit. So, anyhow, 2025 was not the best year, certainly not in our country. [01:07:35] And yet we trudge through, we go through. I mostly worry about people who are not engaged, who are just letting this go by like we're in a normal time. We're not. [01:07:47] We're not. [01:07:49] And as good as it feels to be at the no Kings protest and see, you know, hundreds of thousands and millions of people across the country engaged, you know, the other side is just laughing and going like, yeah, let him march. We still do whatever we want to. We'll still bomb, you know, fishing ships off or seize ships off of Venezuela or, you know, so I got to stop on this. [01:08:16] So I guess I'll end. Well, it's not exactly on a pleasant note, but I have to say something about my little puppy that I lost. Finally, after 14 and a half years, in the beginning of December, we lost little Libby, the light of my life, the light of a lot of people's lives, and I would like to just remember her a little bit in this. And I want to see if I can. [01:08:51] We'll see if I can do it. I had a little song that I used to sing to her, just her and me. No one else ever heard it, no one else knows it, but I, I. I wonder if I can. I'll try and sing it for you a little bit just because I miss her so much and I'm heartbroken. [01:09:17] You're so pretty Libby Lou. [01:09:23] You got me and I got you. [01:09:27] Yeah, you and me and me and you. [01:09:31] You're so pretty Libby Lou. [01:09:39] You're as pretty as can be for as far as I can see you're the only gal for me. [01:09:52] You're my pretty little lippy me. [01:10:00] So what you going to do Libby Lou? [01:10:04] What you going to do now? [01:10:09] Oh, what you going to do Libby Lou? [01:10:13] What you. [01:10:21] Well, friends, hug the ones you love extra hard. [01:10:29] Thanks for indulging me in that. [01:10:34] I did sort of find out that I like to do this, so I'll try to crank out a little bit more regular menu of episodes in the upcoming year and let's hope it's a good one. [01:10:50] So for now, Happy New Year 2026 and take care. [01:10:58] I miss you, Libby.