Light It UP

Did you enjoy Spirit the wonder dog? How about Yaahls and Kaahls? Oh the Curiosity landing was jake. The Milkshake won't leave without a little music and such. We do 'such' quite exquisitely. Slumber on. See ya in deux K de la thirteen. Okay now....almost midnight....here comes the new year....light the fireworks! Light 'em. Right now. Mine are lit can you see 'em?

Un-Link-Yourself

This one stopped by unannounced. Better let it in, but remember, it just wants to get out....and......rock.

RETRO TOY BLOG part three

SIMPLICITY. IS. FREE. So using the imagination, we have: toys of The Creative. Such as: a cardboard box, cardboard roll from paper towel, bubble wrap, pillows, blankets, socks, chalk or rocks, bubbles, shoe laces, nature (grass, sticks, dirt, snow, rain, clouds, sand and water), and whatever else you can come up with, how you use them is your fun. A big cardboard box makes a fort, as does pillows and blankets; a small box makes a garage for your toy cars or box shoes or whatever; socks balled up make for sock wars and if you make it big enough and bend a hanger into the shape of a basketball net and slide it under the top of a shut closet door: basketball game; chalk for the outdoor artist; bubbles for the dreamer; shoe laces for the nautical lover; and anything else in nature that you can make a game out of. Remember when those were the best game of all: hangin' out with friends and just creating something original and goofy, maybe digging in the sand at the beach or putting blades of grass together to make a whistle or trying to guess animals out of cloud shapes while lying on your back in the grass looking skyward in the summer. That feeling may be what life is really all about. Simple isn't it.

Whipped Cream Day

With your marshmallows try an Icee. Why not? Let these two merrymakers get you thinkin about the wonderful snowy whiteness of wintertime. Maybe you saw that The Milkshake was spammed, but the garbage has been taken out to the curb and is gone. No worries. Comments are disabled but you who know me know the ways to reach out. One of you had done so recently with a simple thought: where the heck is winter? Well chant this tune and it will show up. Help it out. There's nothing so great as waking up to a whipped cream day!

Living It, Believing It, Make it Work Out

Eleven billion miles from home....hope he packed a sammich or sumpin'. Voyager is 11,000,000,000 miles and 35 years out from its lanuch from earth. It was late summer 1977. Disco was sucking up the radio. The US was having a post-party hangover from it's year-long bicentennial celebration. Saturday Night Live was....fresh and funny. The Voyager's 1 and 2 took off for a trip to infinity and beyond. Now it was announced today from JPL in Pasadena that Voyager 1 has officially reached an area sort of like a particle interstate highway. The ship is joining the flow....heading for interstellar space. Below is a nice little animated video of what Voyager 1 is experiencing right now. Getcha feelin kinda starry-eyed, doesn't it? Little bit? Let's let Justin hayward, John Lodge and the Moody Blues great tune Gemini Dream rock us to deeeeep spaaace! DEEEEEEEP SPAAAAAACE....

Crud, Stuff, n junk

The Storage Wars crew is back with new epi's Tuesday on A&E. Anyone else getting addicted to their schtick? Emails and texts to the Milkshake head offices have slowed and so will the Milkshake's patter after the new year; we'll ease it down with the posts till probably late spring, but make sure to click back on the summer past to revisit some of the tunes and other crud you enjoyed....meanwhile, still to come this month is our BIG RETRO TOY BLOG part 3 (final part), and some Christmastime music and cartoon fun; and a year-ending update of the Mars Curiosity rover along with other enrapturable sciency geeky stuff n junk. ....O we are wordsmiths, are we knot?

tiny voice calls out: "is it me for a moment?"

Outta-sight was THE WHO as they quietly stepped onto a darkened stage last night, spoke not a word, and then roared through a nonstop, 90-minute, masterful freak-out of rock to the delirious delight of 10,000 screaming hard rock fans. Quadrophenia, the absolute masterpiece second rock opera (after Tommy) by Pete, was played from beginning to end. It was juicy. We were all 18 again suddenly. We were all full of possibility. We hung on every lyric and every electric lick. Then when it ceased like a firework fading out in the dark sky but leaving a ghost trace, there was a little humorous conversation by Pete and Roger, some heartfelt love for Chicago, their "home away from home", some reminiscing about the last time they visited in the 90s, a nice touch of memory toward John and Keith, and then Pete said with a bit of a grin "okay now we'll play some more shit for you." Everyone screamed. They ripped into Who Are You, Pinball Wizard, Won't Get Fooled Again and then the finale, a mind-shattering Baba O'Riley that left the crowd delirious, joyous, stunned and awestruck. In the end after many bows from the group onstage, including Pete's younger brother Nigel who did a nice job on backing vocals, and along with Ringo's son (who's about 40), and who is a fantastic drummer (and looks eerily like Ringo), the members departed and left Roger to sing a quiet ending song that was about him and Pete and their roads traveled together. Pete strummed the acoustic guitar next to him, silently, they grinned like old friends, and then it was over; they simply blew kisses to the crowd and walked slowly off arms around each other, brothers in rock legend. It was a moment we gulped in from the audience. Sort of a stunning ending watching two buddies, compadres, and survivors of rock smile, wave and thank the crowd; and they lingered just a moment, as if they too, like the fans, didn't want to depart, didn't want the ebbing glowing magic to end. No worry. It lives on. So here is 'Can You See The Real Me', which kicked off the night. What a night. Rock on with this one dialed up, not to 11, but to infinity. Blow your speakers if you must, and you should. Go and see these guys before they are gone. You will feel happiness. You will feel joy. Words written here on the Milkshake do no justice. You have to see and hear them for yourselves. ROCK ON 4EVR!

Rock Royalty Coming

Pete, Roger, Ringo's son and another guy will be in town in less than two weeks. That is something. They will take the stage. The Milkshake has the vip row with peeps. Let's get ready to mod-out. Lets.

BIG RETRO TOY BLOG Part 2....ROBOTS!

Oh yes. RobotBox vs. DrinkBot. The fun of TikiBar TV. Where has it gone? Let it run as you waft thru robots.

Your dime your dance; the dream's on me, no charge

Lost in the highlight reel of your day was a memory of a moment, a brief respit, when you could relax and let your body and mind slip into the cool shadows. Hank musta felt this deep inside when he tickled the notes to shape this ehtereal blast of fizz. It is the stuff dreams are made of, spun so fine, like cotton candy sugar, into a feeling.

nuthin in my life bigger n beer, ceptin you, lil darlin

Well why wouldn't we whip our way into whovember with one wonderful whotune.

in with the cool earth

Cooling outside....but warm at the milkshake. That's what you want. Jimmy the pink crustacean of happy music goes to fin lengths to make you cheery. Let him do his thing as we rock you into "Whovember". Sure we'll bring you The Who music and discographical photos leading up to the big November 29th rock opera....and plenty of other features....but for now flow out with your first weekend of month eleven calm....in the island tongue....inna irie doti mon.

Because you're mine

One-of-a-kindness is THIS guy. Why not feature him on spooky day. Also, in the early 80s, who was the young guy working Chicagofest in the hot summertime on Navy Pier and who, lo and behold, rose out of a coffin to perform on stage each year right behind his food booth (close enough to say hello more than once)....me n Jay.

BIG RETRO TOY BLOG part 1

You've been hearing about it. You've been reading about it. You've maybe been salivating for it. ITS -- The -- BIG RETRO TOY BLOG -- in three parts. This is part 1. Note: parts II and tres will be in Nov and dec respectively. In this part we will provide some retro toys from childhood you may have forgotten about, shaded slightly toward Halloween. Part two will be titled 'Robots' and land in mid-November; part three will simply be titled 'Simplicity' and have a decidedly Christmas holiday time slant, coming in early December. There was lots and lots of music reviewed and believe me, there were some beuts! Even a Rankin-Bass 'Island of Misfit Toys' tune got a momentary listen. But in the end the Milkshake deserved something to remind us about Time. So we went to the Ramones to get us there because as we ventures back to the past we then realize our own cherished memories and also the ticking clock of time which marches on.....and........has.........come............today!

crazy some say

This wasn't what was planned for a post tonight. The first part of a three-parter called "The Big Retro Toy Blog" was going to roll out....but....when one stumbles over this cool, cool tune on a friday, one has to abide. This is certainly an '11' situation. Stand tall and brace yourself. "Ordinary World" is flying out at you.

Mono

T.B.B.T. -- I.S.S. -- A.T.A.L. -- b.l.o.o.p.e.r.s

7 Years Itchy

October 9, 2005....the day the world was changed forever! Two things happened of gigantic import on that day. One) the tv world changed when Stephen Colbert debuted; Two) the blogvironment changed when this blog debuted. Some of you have been here since the beginning (you know who you are). Then it was called 'the Insider' and for three+ years it thrived. It went dark on March 1, 2009, only to reformulate after 51 "dark" days on April 22, 2009, as the blog you sip from today: "the milkshake". The first post back in 2005 was about my backstage experience with my buddies the Ides of March. To reminisce a moment, here is a photo from that time and one of their lesser known but delightful rock n roll hits circa the late 60s. Groove it!

Stat-tastic: 2,378 days of blogging (minus 51 dark days); 500 blog posts; a couple thousand replies via text, email and comments; 88,000 views; lots of smirky fun.

Rocket Groceries

Tonight the US brought its cargo resupply missions back home to our soil with the launch of the SpaceX CRS-1 to the International Space Station (ISS). Here's a cool video of the launch:

eyes here

When you get a choice between two things: such as a video without graphics or a video of a live performance from THIS GUY, it's pretty easy to choose the live performance. To wit: As you rock out keep in mind this blog is most likely being scrutinized by minds much bigger than ours. Possibly aliens. They are said to hone in on strange noises and activities. The Milkshake, therefore, qualifies. Here's more material for them: bubbles. There. I said it. Anyone chewing Hubba Bubba's new Mystery? It's addictive . Bubbles are available under the water, airborne and now, deep space. Deeeeeep! And the icee is simply because me-is-jones'n for it. Rebl-On 'Shakers.