Yes, I get a kick out of Billy Joel’s music, even though it was mostly beyond the boundaries (there were boundaries?) of what we played on the Morning Show during my MPR days.

I even like Joel’s lyrics, though some passionately contend that his writing and everything else about him is terrible.

This might be true. My Billy Joel opinion is more of a feeling. He meets the man-with-two-first-names rule, which is a basic requirement for pop stars (Michael Jackson, Elton John, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, etc.).

I’m not interested in writing a defense of his sound and his style, but Joel’s songs are catchy and he’s just about my age but he still looks good, which is not that easy. Plus, I admire anybody who can play the piano and sing at the same time.

But finding the courage to say I like Billy Joel in public may be as close as I’ll ever get to knowing how it feels to be a state legislator from a conservative part of rural Minnesota who is voting for same-sex marriage today. You know you’ll get slammed for it, but what the hell? Sometimes you just have to admit that fair is fair.

Plus, he’s been around so long. Here’s one of my favorite Billy Joel songs, recorded decades apart so you can have him with a full head of hair, or without.

Been to any good restaurants lately?

My favorite quote from the late Richie Havens appeared in his New York Times obituary – “I’m not in show business,” he said. “I’m in the communications business.”

Havens was a spectacular communicator, famous for improvising his way through a longer-than-expected set at the opening of Woodstock because he was already at the gig, waiting to go on fifth, and the musicians scheduled to appear ahead of him were stuck in traffic.

Maybe Richie Havens would have become famous anyway, but he got a boost from a simple matter of timing. I guess it proves you’ll never regret showing up early for an important appointment.

Here’s a song that didn’t make the cut of the video version of Woodstock, but it spoke (and speaks) eloquently to the point the anti-war protesters were trying to make in 1969.

When have you been on time when the others were not?

Hot on the heels of the Holiday of Closeness, an apartment building-sized asteroid called 2012 DA 14 will make a pass at us and it has already got our attention. The experts assure us there will be no impact, which is good news since the archeological record suggests that a small rock going very fast can have a lasting effect on living things when it hits.

Today’s near miss is the closest encounter ever detected with a space object this size. For some reason the unusual proximity of this rock has me thinking about a favorite old song.

If a boulder from outer space
drew a bead on your place
You’d avoid an asteroid
close to you

That is why, when some space debris
vaporizes the seas
‘Cest la vie. That’s when I’ll be
toast to you.

So far, our scientific advances have done little more than improve the chances that we’ll know about the next asteroid impact at least a few days ahead – just enough time to panic, say goodbye, or organize a sing-a-long.

What songs are in your asteroid apocalypse playlist?

Astrology is a bunch of hooey. There’s no way the position of the stars in relation to the Earth on a particular day has any influence at all over the sort of person you become. All you have to do is look at any one day’s host of birthday people – artists who launched themselves into a certain form of expression and ultimately wound up in very different places.

Like today’s birthday people in music. February 9th boasts:

Carmen Miranda in 1909
Ernest Tubb in 1914
Carole King in 1942.

If astrology had any truth to it, these three different performers would fit this description from astrology.com.au

You are a zesty individual, having tremendous amounts of energy. You are determined and forceful in how you deal with people. You want to express your ground-breaking spirit in everything you do but unfortunately you won’t always able to break free of the limits that are imposed upon you. Some Aquarians learn through their family life that before you can be the master of your own destiny, you have to serve. In some extreme cases Aquarians are controlled and dominated by others throughout the formative period of their lives which is why it’s so difficult for them to submit to others.

Most of that could apply to anyone. But in the case of these three, it’s not true at all. Well, OK. Maybe the “zesty” part. And all three had great chart-topping success for a time in the music business. Each eventually found some disappointment in the limitations of the entertainment industry and the fickle nature of stardom.

Two of them are always seen wearing hats. Two were listed among the most creatively and financially successful women of their time.

But only one of them attempted to shoot a music producer in a hotel lobby. And only one had a heart attack on the Jimmy Durante show and died the next day.

See? Very different.

Astrology: Is it charlatanism, quackery or just pure hooey?