The photos from the album McCartney are seared indelibly into my consciousness. They capture so many golden moments in pastoral, domestic family life. As a child, the album was often propped up in front of our record player and I would get lost in each image, staring into them one by one while simultaneously absorbing the music crackling through the stereo. I wanted to live in those pictures and actually still somehow feel, although clearly my family was different from the McCartneys, like they capture the mood and feeling of the best, most nostalgia-raising days of my childhood.


Must be why listening to the album these days takes me right back there, to my earliest years, only now I can listen to the album with my own thoughts and images of love, family and the pastoral. This new, more complex listening experience that comes with McCartney now that I am older has deeply enriched an already fantastic album for me.

McCartney was Paul's first post-Beatles album and he came at it sounding as confident as ever, making singularly fab songs such as "Every Night," "Maybe I'm Amazed," and "Junk" sound so simple, so easy. Though there are some patchy bits where the record veers into instrumentals, I see those portions as time to process some of the other songs, moments to wrap up my mind in my own memories while still listening.

 Hollywood Amoeba Music instore man of the moment Paul McCartney is among the many artists scheduled to be contributing to an upcoming Fats Domino tribute/benefit project. Entitled Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino and scheduled to be released by Vanguard in the Fall, the collection will feature numerous artists doing covers of the New Orleans great's music, including Elton John ("Blueberry Hill"), Randy Newman ('Blue Monday"), Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers ("I'm Walkin'"), and Willie Nelson ("I Hear You Knockin'"). According to the Goin' Home project's creative consultant Tim Donnelly, McCartney will be covering Fats Domino's "I Want To Walk You Home." The CD compilation, executive produced by Bill Taylor, will be a benefit for the Tipitina Foundation, whose goal is to "save the music culture of New Orleans."

  Big props to San Jose competitive hot dog eater Joey Chestnut, a 23 year old engineering student, who took the title the other day when he became the new reigning champ in the Nathan's famous hot dog eating contest in Coney Island on July Fourth. At the annual event, which makes food eating a competitive sport, he deposed the reigning champ, Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, when he ate a world record 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Damn!  And he's a skinny dude which, he said in one interview, is how he can manage to eat so many dogs -- by staying fit and in shape.