When I saw the open letter to Luke Wilson on Steely Dan's Web site, all I could think was "This is a Yacht Rock episode waiting to happen." Over the course of its 10 episodes for "untelevised TV network" Channel101.com, Yacht Rock captured my heart and made me laugh with its combination of strange-but-true music trivia and low-budget lampooning of soft rock's biggest stars (Kenny Loggins [pictured], Hall & Oates, Toto, the Doobie Brothers, the Eagles and Michael McDonald), each episode narrated by All Music Guide critic "Hollywood" Steve Huey. Where else can you watch an aggro John Oates (a fictionalized version, natch) call someone a "California vagina sailor"? Word on the street is that more episodes are due soon, so stay smooth.

I've been spending a lot of time lately digging potatoes. Red potatoes. Last April I paused from my hectic and sometimes stressful musical life long enough to plant a big vegetable garden for the first time. And it's been really good. I never realized how relaxing and meditative garden work can be. It's given me a whole new awareness about the importance of taking time to just enjoy life. I'll probably be digging potatoes during this time of year from now on.

Independent community-based media: It's something this country could use more of. I'm writing from the West Coast, where I'm helping photograph a Prometheus Radio Project "radio barnraising." The West Philly-based organization is helping a community in Oregon build a low-power FM station from the ground up. Prometheus works towards creating a more diverse and democratic media. If you're tired of hearing the exact same radio shows on the big corporate stations everywhere you go in this country, you might want to check out the work that they're doing at www.prometheusradio.org.

Although my recorded-music listening is almost exclusively computered or iPod-inated these days, I still have hundreds of "compact discs." A sort of peer-to-peer Netflix for music, Lala facilitates the legal trading of these casualties of the downloading era. You list the CDs you're willing to part with and the ones you'd like in return. If someone wants my copy of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, I ship it directly to her in a prepaid envelope, complete with the sparkly purple cover art. Then someone else sends me Wolf Parade or Love's Forever Changes or something else I crave. It's $1.75 including shipping for each CD on your wish list. A nice bonus: For each traded disc, the company gives 20 cents directly to the CD's artists, theoretically bypassing the music companies.