I watched a documentary on Squeeze last night. I liked Squeeze. I never saw them solo, only when they toured with Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Those were the days when Dave Bell and I would see Elvis Costello whenever he came around. Usually at the Capitol Theater in Passaic NJ.

The English Mugs and Spoons tour hit Passaic as well as the Palladium on 14th Street. Squeeze were always very good, though we did get tired of hearing Tempted and talked about throwing toothbrushes at Paul Carrack as he sang those opening lines.

We never got close enough, much to Paul Carrack’s relief. Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook wrote together but not together. Difford would hand off the lyrics to Tilbrook and a few days later the song was completed.

Difford wrote some amazing lyrics and the music Tilbrook created drew comparisons to Lennon & McCartney; in fact, it was said that Tilbrook sounded like Paul McCartney (true) and Difford sounded like John Lennon (sort of).

It would have been nice to hear what Paul McCartney thought of Squeeze, and it’s probably on record somewhere out there on the internet. A portion of my high school years are soundchecked by Squeeze songs.

If I Didn’t Love You is playing right now and I am drawn back 46 years to my senior year of high school and graduation, my escape from education. It was a good documentary on YouTube, less than an hour with interesting talking heads, including Mark Knopfler oddly enough.

About Mark Knopfler, there’s a family on YouTube. A Dad, a son on guitar, another son on drums and the daughter on bass; the Clark Family. They just covered Sultans of Swing which I remembered to be a good song, released during the years of new wave, though Dire Straits were not a new wave band at all. I was surprised that I knew all the words to Sultans of Swing.

I get daily emails telling me that Kevin Wagner remembers me. Well I remembered Kevin for a long time, I guess the chapter closed after seeing the Colin story on Ted Lasso. I searched for a long time, looking up Kevin in Orlando FL which is where I last heard he was. I looked up his girlfriend or wife, Ann as well but found nothing which was fine.

Last night I did a search for Simon Williams, a flame from years ago. We hooked up for a number of years, usually a good time, and always dysfunctional. Powders and card games were involved in the middle of the night.

I did a search and found him. He’s married now and I decided not to contact him, some things are best left in the past. He’d probably want to forget about the whole thing anyhow.

I learned my lesson a couple of years ago, chatting with Ignatius MacKenzie on the social media. It seemed like a good idea at the time and as it ended I regretted it. It had been over 30 years and I forgot what an asshole Ignatius was.