Wishbone, Take Me Home. Volume Two.

Public Service Announcement.

This week: "The Entrepawneur"

Joe's absorption with a new business venture puts Samantha and David in a "touchy" situation. Wishbone, as King Midas, has the "Golden Touch" and big problems in this tale from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

When the Wishbone writers wanted to make an Oakdale episode really intense, they would simply sow a little of the ol' discord amongst friends Joe, David, and Samantha. The King Midas plot was a little weak, despite Wishbone's characteristically flawless performance as the titular character, so they were forced to pull this trick in "The Entrepawneur." If I remember correctly, Joe starts a grocery delivery business and uses his friends as slave labor to ride the bikes around pulling produce. It was like a paper-or-plastic teen Gulag Archipelago. Joe struggles with his uglier side (a common undercurrent on Wishbone) as he uses his friends like common beasts of burden.

Although the Donkeys apparently go for that sort of thing. The Donkeys are first and foremost geographically confusing - San Diego band on a Bay Area label with that i'm-so-lonesome flyover state sound. They can drag their feet in a forlorn fashion, and then put on the roller skates. Their self-titled album is marvellous. It doesn't blow you away, but if you let it, it can tug 'n nudge you to some pleasant places. They rarely stray from the guitar/wurlitzer-centered lineup and this is a great thing - they're the experts. This is the band that Matador should have signed instead of Brightblack Morning Light. My personal favorites on the album include Into The Pale, Black Cat, and In the Morning.

"Mom got killed in the fire. Sis got killed by Indians." Does this sort of thing still happen in San Diego? I gotta move to the West Coast! Oh and please, Native Americans, sirs.

Aside: I have a very low tolerance for musical loitering - when artists take five minutes to do what could be done in two. You can call me impatient, makes all sorts of arguments involving Explosions in the Sky, but I still won't enjoy long-windedness. And the Donkeys are found guilty on "Lower the Heavens" - instead of the five-minute runaround it is this should be a two-minute intense workout. "Try To Get By" follows immediately. and in a minute-49 leaves a more substantial impression than the grandiosely-labelled "Lower The Heavens." Take heed, children.

They also did some instrumental work for Owen Ashworth/Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, whose album Etiquette is equally as good as this one but didn't segue as well from "beasts of burden" and thus wasn't the subject of this edition of wishbone.