The Bob and Tom Show

I had dinner at my father Bob Neill's house (left) in Amherst last night with his wife Laura and my brother Tom, who is 13. They, like me, get all worked up about things that they like. My father writes classical music reviews for a website called Positive Feedback. The name of his column; Notes of An Amateur, (a sample column) indicates at what level he feels qualified to write about music, but I always get fully engaged in his reviews. He has a belief, I suspect, in a class of music experts who are the only ones truly schooled enough to speak with authority. He may be right, but the voice of the experts can often only be appreciated by the real classical fanatics. Bob writes for the curious music lover in language that anyone can relate to. He also sells high end audio via his business Amherst Audio.

Last night he turned me on to French cellist Anne Gastinel who rips it up with some Shostakovich in this video.


Tom Neill is equally passionate but about video games. Go figure, right? He's past the point where he takes it all so seriously and is developing the Neill tendency to skewer what we love the most. If you do anything for long enough, the humor becomes too conspicuous to resist. He's grown out of Yugio and now watches a spoof of same with the amateur creators dubbing in new dialogue. Here's a guy talking about how it works and copyright law. Not essential viewing but hey, you decide. Tom turned me on to The Irate Gamer, and has his own show in pre-production.

Here's a sample episode.
Above, my father when he was my age now, with me when I was Tom's age. Check out the plaids and Keds. These were the Brady Bunch days.