Scott Randall

The old antique store sat just off a quiet highway in Indiana, the kind of place where time seemed to collect in dusty corners. Back in the 1980s, I wandered through its crowded aisles without any plan in mind, just enjoying the hunt for forgotten treasures. Shelves sagged beneath yellowed books, rusty lanterns, and furniture with stories etched into every scratch. Then, tucked against the far wall, I saw it — a beautiful 1923 Victor Victrola.

Alex Van Halen could be using the help of A.I. to make some New Van Halen music available to fans everywhere. But there’s a catch. It started, like most great rock conversations, with a cup of coffee and a big “what if?” Jim O’Brien and I were sitting around, talking shop for CSX Rock Talk, when the subject of Alex Van Halen came up. Alex had mentioned in an overseas interview that he was sitting on a trove of unfinished material with Eddie—“threads” as he called them.

(Cindy Ord/Getty Images ) State Dog? This is a good question to ask as we have a State Rock, the Petoskey Stone. We have a State Bird, The Robin, apple blossom (flower), eastern white pine (tree), brook trout (fish), white-tailed deer (game mammal), and the Petoskey stone (gemstone). Why don’t we have a State Dog? Michigan does not have an official state dog, though a resolution to designate “shelter dogs” as the state pet was proposed in 2021.