Hello from my folks’ farmhouse out in the countryside of Upstate New York. It’s been mighty frigid here in my native North Country since I arrived home last week. At one point, ‘round midnight on a recent evening, the temperature dropped to around -22 degrees. Daytime temps hovered at zero for several days, with wind chills from the Canadian Arctic making critters outside hide and remain silent and those inside huddled near the fireplace, waiting out the cold.  

Hello from Room 322 at the Fairfield Inn, located in Binghamton, New York. Exactly one year ago, I stayed in this same room. No joke, this is where I was placed. And, oh, how much has changed and, well, come to pass in this last calendar year since I laid down in this bed, since I opened up the drapes and looked out the same window onto the interstate traffic below. 

In truth, there are two camps when it comes to Texas singer-songwriter Willis Alan Ramsey: you’re either completely obsessed with his music, with his tunes becoming a pillar of the soundtrack of your life, or you’ve never heard of him. 

I only met Bob Weir once. It was backstage at the long gone Gathering of the Vibes music festival located on the shoreline of the Long Island Sound in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was the summer of 2009 and I was 24 years old, myself an aspiring journalist for a now-defunct music magazine. 

Editor’s Note: This is the transcript of a recent voice memo Garret left for a friend of his on Thursday, Jan. 8, in the aftermath of the incident in Minneapolis, Minnesota, between a protester and an ICE agent. To note, both Garret’s father (U.S. Immigration) and grandfather (U.S. Customs) were career officers for the federal government (now retired). In 2003, Immigration and Customs combined to form ICE due to the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

Good afternoon. You’re probably slaving away at your [office] desk doing your favorite thing, which is working inside under fluorescent lighting, I would assume. [Laughs]. Oh, man, I don’t know where this message is going to go, but I just was wanting to vent about…[well], it’s almost hard to vent anymore, because it’s like every day is just this chaotic frustration of things outside of my [front] door and things across the country and things around the world. 

Late Monday morning. While taking a sip of my coffee at the Main Street Diner in Waynesville, I scanned the room at the tables filled with faces enjoying warm meals and hearty conversation. It was at that very moment when I started thinking about this anonymous postcard I received several years ago. 

It’s Thursday. Early afternoon. In the original plan for this week, I would, in my mind’s eye, be cruising along right now somewhere in southcentral Upstate New York, probably just east of Binghamton on Interstate 88, onward to I-87 North to my parents’ farmhouse on the outskirts of Plattsburgh. 

In the midst of eating my third hard-boiled egg of the morning, I overheard the young couple at the next breakfast table mention to their server that they’d gotten married this past Saturday. 

Taking a sip of my second cup of coffee, my gaze went from the newlyweds to the nearby roaring fireplace, then out the big glass windows onto the picturesque pond on the side lawn of the majestic property. 

By the time this newspaper hits the streets on Nov. 12, it will have been 70 years to the day since Marty McFly was accidentally sent back to the future (1955) in a time machine created by Doctor Emmitt Brown in Hill Valley, California. The film was “Back to the Future,” which just celebrated its 40th anniversary. 

The title of this week’s column is a lyric from a song by rising singer-songwriter Angela Autumn. The melody, “Electric Lizard,” is an incredibly haunting number, especially the solo rendition (just her and guitar) on the EP under the verbiage “Live from NYC.”