Aug 292009
A great acoustic cover of Billy Jean by Michael Jackson, who would have been 51 today.
This show has been postponed due to a prior date cancellation!
Cliff Eberhardt
Cliff Eberhardt knew by age seven that he was going to be a singer and songwriter. Growing up in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, he and his brothers sang together and their parents played instruments. His dad introduced him to the guitar and he quickly taught himself to play.
At fifteen, Cliff and his brother Geoff began touring as an acoustic duo, playing the Eastern club circuit until Cliff turned twenty-one and moved to Carbondale, Illinois. There he found space to develop his own voice within a vibrant and supportive music scene that included Shawn Colvin. After a couple of years there and a short stay in Colorado, Cliff moved to New York in 1978.
Because the clubs were great (the Bitter End, the Speakeasy, Kenny’s Castaway, Folk City) and the company amazing (John Gorka, Suzanne Vega, Lucy Kaplansky, Julie Gold, Steve Forbert, Christine Lavin, and Shawn Colvin), New York was an ideal musician’s boot camp. Though he put in long hours as a taxi driver, Cliff worked steadily on his music throughout the 80’s, doing solo gigs and studio work, and playing guitar on the road with Richie Havens, Melanie and others. Singing advertising jingles for products like Coke, Miller Beer and Chevrolet (“The Heartbeat of America” campaign) allowed him to devote more time to his songwriting.
Aug 152009
Some of my neighbors are turkeys, and some are downright squirrelly. This little guy gets around.
Aug 132009
So I’m reviewing my site visitor logs this morning, and I see a bunch of hits from Baton Rouge Rocks, a bulletin board site. Somebody in Lousiana put my URL down as the 3rd suggestion for a “top” Toups. I wonder though, what does being in the top of people who share a last name actually mean? Nothing? Probably. Don’t know the guy, or why he suggested I might be the third top Toups, but hey, any publicity is good publicity as long as it doesn’t land me in jail.
I’m not much for the popularity game, but hey…
Aug 122009
I’ve been harassed intermittently since 1990 or so by a wacko in Salt Lake City. For why, I haven’t a clue. Obviously I tweaked something in the guy’s twisted psyche to the point he felt the need to strike back and take me down a peg or three. (Good luck with that, Stalker Boy.)
When I still lived in the city of salt, I used to keep a log of the late night phone calls I’d get from this guy. Nearly 100 calls, as I recall. I’m sure it was a guy because of the obnoxious noises that came out the earpiece as I held it a foot or two away. (No woman could ever make such noises.)
I won’t tell you what kind of sounds because I don’t want to encourage any copycats. At any rate, the guy dropped a lot of quarters in payphones to let me know his, uh, feelings.
I even received a couple of letters and Christmas cards from the guy, reminding me that I am a “looser” and that my music sucks. Alrighty then.
I move to Montana. 11 years go by with no contact from the weirdo. And then, last week, a letter arrived in the mail from Salt Lake from somebody whose name and address were unfamiliar to me. (Turns out they were fictitious.) The content of the letter?
“You’re still a big looser, cause no matter where you go there you are!”
Anonymous cowards, in real life and the Internet, are a sad lot. The only thing sadder is an anonymous schmuck who tries to unhinge people with a tasteless bag of stupid psychological tricks.
Good luck with your strategy to bring me down, Stalker Boy. I don’t have those kind of buttons to push. 
The latest letter is in this post. I’ll be scanning and posting all of Stalker Boy’s “contributions” to my well being so that his handwriting (and pathetic spelling) is exposed for the world to see. Maybe someone who knows him will recognize the signature handwriting traits and rat him out.
Aug 022009
This morning I woke up to the sounds of elk calves calling their mothers, and the fathers were close by. They were so close I heard the branches breaking as they walked through the forest just below the house. I counted three 10 point bucks in a herd of about 50 elk.
