By the way, and just for the record, the summaries I’m currently doing of Bob’s “Theme Time Radio Hour” shows are not intended to be anything like complete representations of the show. They are just playlists along with some references to things that strike me personally as notable on a first listen. There’s a whole lot left out in the way of jokes, stories etc.

For what it’s worth, I think Bob is enjoying doing the shows this season even more than he did first time around. Before, after all, he was a novice, albeit a highly precocious one. Now, coming back after the break, having perhaps internalized what he learned, he sounds as smooth as a pro, and that’s freeing him to have even more fun. That’s how it strikes me anyway. I’m certainly enjoying the shows more than ever. Even the guest spots are better, and/or less intrusive. And the records Bob plays continue to be wonderful, surprising and inspiring.

James Joyce once said of his book, “Ulysses,” that he intended it to be such an accurate portrait of the city of Dublin that, were Dublin to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth, it might be completely reconstructed from the pages of his book. It sure was a good line, and one that has added to the legend of that book, deserved or not.

I’m going to say that were all of what we think of in the broadest sense as recorded popular music of the past one hundred years to suddenly turn to ashes, and all the related histories, books and memories of it likewise, but were just the recordings of “Theme Time Radio Hour” to remain, posterity would be able to come to a pretty darned good understanding of what it was all about just by listening to these shows. And it would be minus all the negativity, too.

They would also have a pretty good Mint Julep recipe and a ton of other fascinating trivia. I’d really like to be around when they dig up these shows.

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