This One's for Bryce

May has not been a good month for quality media in the Bay Area. First there was the retirement of Dennis Richmond, and now even worse news. Bryce Digdug is retiring from blogging. While I've not had a chance to talk to him about it personally, I suspect this may be more on the order of when Cher and Streisand retired from touring, and people misconstrued that it was a complete retirement from showbiz. Or it could be a Prince-like move, and we'll soon see a site called "The blogger formerly known as Bryce Digdug".

Whatever it is, we'll miss his blog presence, but he's assured me that he might occasionally guest blog here when I'm in Ouagadougou or Bilbao. As a tribute, I thought I'd post one of Bryce's favorite songs, "Tapedeck" from Ronee Blakley's Welcome album. Not only did she introduce this classic in Altman's Nashville but she went on to costar with Susan Blakely (yes Blakely and Blakley on the same bill) in the legendary tele-movie The Oklahoma City Dolls, one of the best films ever made about a women's sports team in the Midwest.

Ironically, when I moved to San Francisco, in a desperate measure to conserve space, I let go of my senses and gave away my copy of Welcome to the Community Thrift Store on Valencia Street, only to buy it back a few months later. What goes around, comes around.

So, if you see a distinguished gentleman driving a tractor (in his case a 1978 John Deere TZ328) wearing a top hat and with Verdi and the Cowsills blaring from his tapedeck, chances are good that it's Bryce. Say hello, or check out his past appearances here as a guest star on Junk Thief TV.