If I become a rap or hip-hop star, will I need to change my name?

I've been getting some odd email over the last couple of months. Well, I get odd email all the time, kind of goes with the territory. The thing that made these seem out of the ordinary though was the fact that people kept asking me about hip-hop and stuff like if I was touring or what.

So, today I did some research and Googled Dan Vado Rapper and this is what I found

Seems like there is a young rapper from Brooklyn who goes by the name Vado. Coming from the Italian the word vado means go, in Spanish it means to ford (like fording a river) so the name is I think based on the notion that this guy is a mover, or a shaker, or maybe both.

According to his Facebook page Vado's real name is Teeyon Winfree and he hails from Harlem.

I decided to do a little checking around and see what other things my namesakes are up to. I found


















Anyway, I already knew about the two other Dan Vado's floating around in the world. One I am actually related to (my Uncle's son) and the other is a guy who pops up from time to time and is kind of, well, odd. I guess if you count my uncle (whose name was Danillo and whom I am named after) there are three other Dan Vado's, but my uncles passed away a number of years ago.

I tried to get the Creative Labs people to give me a Vado when they released it, promising to talk it up, they said no. I bought one, it is cool but would have been cooler had they given me one for free, and to be honest the Flip is better.

The image of the El Vado motel is actually the desktop to my phone. There is a town in New Mexico called Vado along what used to be Route 66. The motel is now apparently a crack den that people have been trying to get closed for years but which historic preservationists keep trying to save. Last I heard the place was going to be renovated in some way.


Anyway, it's a small world. I listened to a little of Vado's tunes on his web page, but not being the target audience I can't tell you if it was any good or not.  Neither am I the target audience for the Vado Hayride album, but you gotta love an album with song titles like Lookin Better Every Beer and You Don't Have to Go home Honey But You Can't Stay Here.


 I do know this, I am no longer the Vado with the corner on cool.

Neil Young feud with Lynard Skynard and it's place on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brian Finale

Last night Conan O'Brien closed an ugly chapter in late night television history as he closed out his run on as the Tonight Show host after a paltry seven months behind the desk. O'Brien took the classy route out, given the opportunity to say anything he liked about NBC he chose not to bag on them but instead thanked the network for taking a chance on him and for 20 years of mostly good times.

But Conan's last show may help close a debate that has nothing to do with the Tonight Show, NBC, Jay Leno or anything else. Conan may have given rise to another opportunity to discuss an old chestnut of whether Neil Young and the members of Lynard Skynard had some sort of feud going on and whether there is still some sort of division there.

Conan's last musical guest was Neil Young who came on and sang "Long May You Run" a song which according to Neil Young is about a car and a girl but when you hear it feels like it about so much more. Later in the show after Conan gave his farewell speech the stage curtain's opened and Will Ferrell, dressed in full southern rock regalia led the Tonight Show band on what may be the best ever version of Lynard Skynard's Free Bird I have ever heard (full disclosure here, I was a teenager in the 70's and every fucking cover band on the planet was doing Free Bird back then, I learned to loathe that song).

Now you may or may not know but there was a much ballyhooed alleged feud  between Neil Young that came about when Neil released the songs Southern Man and Alabama. Both songs painted the southerner with a pretty wide brush, perhaps too wide as it seemed that Neil (who is Canadian) was basically saying EVERY southerner was racist and responsible for past transgressions which the average southerner had nothing to do with.

 Skynard, led by front man Ronnie Van Zant released what is commonly known as a response song called "Sweet Home Alabama" which has been in subsequent years seen as a defense of racism and a condemnation of Young and people like him. Young is called out in the song with the lyric "Well I hope Neil Young will remember/  Southern Man don't need him around anyhow".  "Sweet Home Alabama" was labelled a racist song and Skynard as a band were tagged as being a bunch of ignorant bigots themselves. They didn't help dissuade anyone from that notion as in concert a Confederate flag would unfurl behind the band as they played the controversial song.

But, were they and was the song racist? Van Zant seemed to confuse the matter. In one interview the Skynard lead singer is quoted saying "We wrote Alabama as a joke. We didn't even think about it - the words just came out that way. We just laughed like hell, and said 'Ain't that funny'... We love Neil Young, we love his music..." but in another interview with Rolling Stone he said "We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two," in essence supporting the notion that southerners did not need some Canadian guy telling them what was wrong with their world.

The meaning of Sweet Home Alabama continues to be debated, with people mostly taking whatever view they are predisposed to take. For my part I have no real opinion, I think the song is not for me and while it could be racist it also might not be and we can't condemn the song or the band based on how people interpret it or use it. Remember when Ronald Reagan used Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" during his campaign. Springsteen objected not just because he did not support Reagan and did not give the campaign permission to use the song, but because whoever decided to use the music obviously missed the point of the song and did not listen to the lyrics beyond the chorus. Neil Young himself had a song sort of adopted by people for the wrong reason with "Rockin' in the Free World" as it is often quoted in a sort of jingoistic way when the real meaning of the song was criticism of Bush the First's social policies.

If there was a feud between Young and Van Zant and the other members of Skynard it was either over-blown or patched up.  For his part Young was quoted saying about Skynard and about the song "Oh, they didn't really put me down! But then again, maybe they did! (laughs) But not in a way that matters. Shit, I think Sweet Home Alabama is a great song." In the same interview in Mojo Magazine Young says he was going to give the song Powderfinger to Skynard along with a couple of other songs.

Van Zant for his part admired Young and often wore Neil Young t-shirts when performing. The shirt that Will Ferell is wearing during his cover of Free Bird is the same Neil Young shirt that Van Zant wears on the cover of Skynard's 1977 album Street Survivor. The singer also wore the same Neil Young shirt (which was the cover of Young's Tonight's the Night album) on tour.

The stories get weirder and stranger and not really verifiable. Neil Young claimed that Ronnie Van Zant was wearing a Neil Young shirt when he died. It as rumored that the Skynard frontman was also buried in a Neil shirt and that fans had dug up his grave to try and verify the fact. While Van Zant's grave was desecrated police said there was no evidence that the coffin had been opened.

So, there on the Tonight Show you have Neil Young paying tribute to Conan, then going off to perform on the Haiti telethon all on the same day that he found about the death about longtime friend and producer Larry Johnson. That is a class act and a pro by definition.

Then on comes Ferrell complete with pregnant wife and adding the like of Beck and Ben Harper to the Tonight Show band to perform Free Bird, a a Lynard Skynard song about someone escaping a relationship that is going nowhere and was probably doomed from the start. Sporting long hair, Tonight's the Night t-shirt and pulling out a cowbell during the solo. Behind the entire band was a giant American flag (as opposed to the Confederate battle flag that Skynard would have used) and it almost seemed to fly in the face of of the whole Young/Skynard thing. I mean Conan O'Brien is a savvy guy with a good knowledge of his music and pop culture history. No way would he have okayed something that might have offended Neil Young.

As much s I can't stand Free Bird, it was a perfect way for Conan to go out.

The Royal Hawaiian and the Shirley Temple

I have been to Hawaii several times in my life, but the only time I went to Oahu was on my honeymoon 25 years ago. I had wanted to stay at the Royal Hawaiian hotel but for reasons out of my control we ended up staying at the Shearaton next door.

The Royal Hawaiian (also known as The Pink Palace of the Pacific and, alternately, the Pink Lady) is an odd structure for Hawaii. Opened in 1927, the Spanish style architecture is not what you would expect for a beachfront Hawaiian hotel. One of the first hotels established in Waikiki and l quickly became the place to be. The six-story building sports 400 rooms and cost over $4 Million dollars to construct. It was the first place to ever to be called"The Western Whitehouse" as FDR conducted a bit of presidential business inside it's walls. The architecture, a mix of Spanish and Moorish design, was said to have been influenced but the arabian movies of Rudolph Valentino. Pink was kind of in at the time, so I imagine that the decision to paint the place pink was a no-brainer.


But the thing that I find most fascinating about the Royal Hawaiian Hotel is it's claim to be the birthplace of the Shirley Temple. Now everyone should be familiar with the Shirley Temple, basically just ginger ale mixed with some grenadine. Nothing really special, kids get it all the time. But the drink back then must have been radically different than what we serve now. First thing in our current high-fructose syrup society most bars and restaurants do not serve actual ginger ale, instead what you get is a mix of cola and something like Sprite or 7-UP.  And don't even get me started on what passes for grenadine these days.

Grenadine was originally prepared from pomegranate juice or something similar. The most popular brand of grenadine is a corn syrup nightmare called Rose's which I wouldn't feed to hungry ants.

So, to imagine the Shirley Temple as was prepared at the Pink Lady you would have to imagine something totally different. If you wanted to try and approximate it you would need to do some searching for the right kind of ingredients. First place to start would be the Ginger Ale.  My research indicates that the closest thing you will find to real ginger ale is Vernor's which is made and bottled by Dr Pepper/Seven Up Inc. and is produced close to the recipe originated by James Vernor that was a mix of 17 ingredients including ginger and vanilla. I have had it and it is good, however something that I have heard which might be better is Fever Tree Ginger Ale. I have not tried it, but it has been highly recommended to me.

If you live in San Jose, CA then try stopping by and getting the ginger ale at E&O trading company, restaurant in downtown San Jose. They brew their own ginger ale and man, it tastes like real ginger and is one tasty soda. Too bad they din't bottle it.

For the grenadine, try making your own. It's pretty easy (I say this never having done it, but it SOUNDS easy). Grenadine can be created by simmering pomegranate juice for 15 minutes on the stove, then adding superfine sugar.



I guess the easy thing to say is "Why bother". I mean, this is a drink for kids right? Well, I firmly believe that kids need to be trained to expect higher quality at an early age. I mean maybe the decline of the Shirley Temple had something to do with the decline of the tropical drink. As things got sweeter and sweeter people just started taking all kinds of liberties with their drinks. If you accept some combination of cola and Sprite mixed with a sickening red syrup as a Shirley Temple, then is should come as no surprise to you when the Mai Tai you ordered ends up being Hawaiian Punch mixed with Bacardi (I've seen this, I know it happens).

I think it is worth, at least once, to mix up a proper Shirley Temple and whisk yourself back to the days of the Royal Hawaiian. I can feel the ocean breezes now.

The Price is Right -- The Price is WRONG, Bitch.

One of my favorite expressions is the one that goes "I'd rather be lucky than good", The video below is a clip from The Price is Right game show that kind of illustrates that.



For those of you who do not watch the show, the object of the game at this point is to guess the combined retail price WITHOUT GOING OVER. So, the poor guy who clearly has been salivating for a brand new Porsche gets danger close to the right price but loses out because he went over. The doofus who clearly had no idea of the retail value gets the prize for randomly guessing at the price.

Lucky? Good? Hey, maybe it's all the same. I think the Porsche people should give this guy a car.