I’m putting this up front because I want to. Because it is great. Because you should listen to it.
Mark Knopfler wrote this song. “Romeo and Juliet” is a big part of the Dire Straits catalog. It’s a classic song, and that means it has been covered a lot. But this is Amy Ray’s song now. Her intensity with this puts it in a class by itself. I’ve heard the studio recording, of course, and a few live recordings, but I’ve never been seen her do this song in person. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll moment, no doubt about it.
Goosebumps.
They’re playing a few hours from here in a few more months. Maybe we should go see them again. We should go see them again.
Today we made a recycling run. Always a little smelly, but also satisfying. We stopped at the local hardware store, at place that still holds the name from way back when ice and coal were the big sellers. On the sign out front they were advertising a now oddly popular horse wormer medicine. We met the owner, Doug, and his son, who looked like a young, bearded version of Gregory Sporleder, their high school employee, who’s name I did not catch, and two cats almost as big as any of the humans in the store.
They had one of the three things we went in for. We’ll get the other two online, I’m sure.
This afternoon I took a nap, dozing off while reading a Belgian poet’s journal. My second nap in two weeks, this summer is going great, thanks for asking!
And then we went for a run. Mine was twice as long, but not as good as my Tuesday run, which was my first run in seven months … maybe because I didn’t have take off seven months. I should really look into that. The Yankee had a nice run, though.
It was 84 and felt like 90 degrees and, well, it felt like it. Good timing on our part for that run.
The sunset, off the front porch, was lovely as well.
And now, at the time of night when Saturday seems long enough to mean everything seems possible, I say to you, happy weekend!
Things here were quiet today. Not too quiet, a movie trope which doesn’t really occur in really life. It was just the right amount of quiet. If, that is, spending an hour and 45 minutes on the phone is your idea of the right amount of quiet.
The first call was one hour. And it was a long hour. Also, it was barely productive. But, I did get my email added to an account. This took an hour.
Also the poor woman who had to deal with me had her mind go blank when she was trying to suggest I look something up on “that search index.”
What is it called? Oh yeah, Google. Or that other one, oh, she said, which one is it, I forget. But you can, she said, in her proper Texan drawl, look, oh, yeah, you can look it up on YouTube.
Because I was calling 1996, apparently.
No, I said into my Nokia candy bar phone, I prefer AltaVista.
On my second call, I found myself talking to a guy from Massachusetts. He wasn’t even with the company I needed, but he assured me he is passionate about this work, and he gave me a 45 minute education on something I knew nothing about.
This makes me wonder about the extent of customer service and phone calls as reputation devices. Let’s be fair. That first woman, she might have just been having an off afternoon. Perhaps she was new. Maybe she was multitasking. It is very possible that the things I was asking her about isn’t something she does a lot, or maybe she wasn’t even well trained in that particular area. Any of these are possible, and it’s just one person and one call, but the experience leaves you with a feeling, doesn’t it? The second person I talked to, he was on top of his game, explained things in conceptual and operational ways. Patiently let me distill his knowledge and his explanation into loosely applicable analogies. Corrected me a lot. Repeated himself as necessary. It was great.
I told that guy to have a great weekend, and that, when the time came, I was going to do business with his company. He’s just the work-from-home customer rep. He’s not even in the state I’m talking about. It could be an entire one-off. But Tyler made the lasting impression today.
Weird how these things work, and how we justify and rationalize things based on them.
So a quiet day.
Also, I watched the second half of this video today.
That could be subtitled “the things you don’t read about in books.”
But if that’s too grim, this is nonsensical and fun. It is amusing to see a real pro like John Oliver get upstaged, lose his bearing and be a fan.
I never noticed, though, how Cookie Monster has no shoulders. That’s a wardrobe problem.
I wrote recently about Sean Demery in the Re-Listening project, and this one gets back to him, too. He’ll probably pop up once or twice more as we continue on, but he played this breakthrough single a lot in Atlanta, and that’s where I found it.
I’ve also mentioned how I load these in the CD player without looking at the discs. So while I can sometimes remember what’s next in the old CD books, a lot of times the disc change is an exciting little mystery. The first track on this record is the big single, and from the initial A it’s immediately, distinctively recognizable.
Those guys got signed in high school, they were 20 when that song accidentally blew up. The single topped the Modern Rock charts and took over Billboard’s Heatseekers new artists chart. The record went platinum. They pushed out four more singles, but most of them didn’t resonate with me.
But this one, it’s got a catchy little hook, and it’ll stick with you all day, and into tomorrow, if you aren’t careful.
Also, look how impossibly young those guys are.
They released two more records before splitting up in 2004. While the first went platinum, the second was certified gold. But the third disappointed, commercially. A few years later they got back on the road. There was an EP in 2021, and a full album in 2022. I listened to a little of it. Still noisy. Not really my type of noise anymore, though. I saw them on the summer festival circuit in their big boomlet. But they’re not touring right now.
eve6 isn’t a very good band. they got lucky and had like a hit and a half like twenty years ago and sold some records but who cares. they’ve had all the terminally predictable ups and downs of every other band thats been chewed up and spit out by the machine … eve6 thinks music industry people are the worst people in the world and this includes label people, lawyers, publicists, managers, radio program directors, music supervisors etc. thanks for taking the time away from your fake slack job to read this.
Counter-counterculture, I guess.
There’ll be a lot of music here in the coming days, and some of it will be in the form of the Re-Listening project. The next installment here is from a soundtrack. And it’ll probably be brief. You’re welcome for that.
Be it noisy or loud, have a great weekend, at the decibel level of your choice!
Whatever work it is they are doing in the road by my office, they are only doing first thing in the morning. I showed you, yesterday, how they cut a small hole into the role. This morning, they’d dug out a bigger, longer channel. This was what it looked like when I went to work this morning.
And it looked like that all day, too. No one came around for any more work, or to move the big yellow machines.
That patch asphalt, whatever it is actually called, was still tacky this morning. I was tempted to find a good stick and scrawl in a message, see if they’d leave it. (I’ve never written anything in a construction medium.) By this evening, it was solid. I wonder if they’ll leave the roll of tape and the drink bottle in hole when they fill it in tomorrow.
We went to Menard’s this evening. There’s no real story here. We picked up some cat litter and storage bins. The woman that was working the cash register was so slow that they opened three other registers whenever anyone fell into line behind us.
And, plus, she has three cats. One sleeps by her feet. One by her hip. One at her had. She had the robotic kitty litter cleaner. And she liked it. While it worked. It died a year-and-a-half in, after the warranty had expired.
If all else fails, I said, sometimes the old ways are the best..
No one got the reference. Just as well.
I began to understand why she took so long to ring up customers.
In today’s installment of the Re-Listening project, we go back to November 1999 for a new record from a California band. The point of the Re-Listening project is to revisit all of my old CDs in the order that I acquired them, so sometimes I am listening to something that was released earlier that I am just catching up on. But in this case, I know this record was newly released when I picked it up for at the time I was a big Counting Crows fan and I would not have wanted to wait.
I’ve felt, for some time, that I have more of less outgrown the Counting Crows. The Re-Listening project has largely reinforced that feeling. But today’s installment might be the exception to the rule. I think it’s because they’re finally displaying a bit of irreverence, and humor. After spending the rest of the decade being a mainstreamed line of emo, this was a, well, positive move.
It went double platinum, and the album, “This Desert Life” peaked at number eight on the US Billboard 200. It all started with the first track, the first and most successful single.
A friend of mine was a huge mark for Counting Crows, the sort that knew everything about every song before it came out. This, being 1999, was a bit more difficult then than now. But he put in the time to find these things out, and he’d share the interesting bits with people that would listen and so I knew some of the interesting things early too. One night that October, before the album was even out, but when the single was just beginning to get airplay, we were at a restaurant eating chicken fingers and playing foosball. There was a guy in the corner playing pop covers as a solo act and he did “Hanginaround.” We were leaning over the foosball table at the time, my friend and I, and we stopped playing, straightened up, and did the clapping refrain part in the third verse. The musician was surprised. Everyone else in the place thought we were weird. My friend and I, however, were very impressed with ourselves.
That song hit 28 on the US Billboard Hot 100, topped the US Adult Alternative chart and peaked at number five on the US Adult Top 40 which, I guess, is why they waited 10 full months before the second single was released.
I’m surprised how well this song holds up for me. I think it is the guitar distortion. The minimalism of it still seems fresh, somehow.
Perhaps then, as now, this was my favorite track on the record. Oh my, the many highways and several county roads where I turned this up too loud, and the parking lots where I stayed an extra two minutes to get to the best part.
And the hidden track, which never got enough attention, I think. As the youth say today, it’s a banger.
I guess the last time I saw them live was 2001 or 2002 or so. I think they were supporting “Hardy Candy,” which is the next entry in their catalog. They’re playing in Indy at the end of next week, but I’m not going. I think I had my fill. But they will show up a few more times in the Re-Listening project. Up next, though, is a band with an X-Files inspired name because, no matter how often I do this bit, I can not get out of the late 1990s.
This evening I asked my lovely bride, who is now fighting off a head cold, if she would be offended if I left her on the sofa and went on a bike ride. It was my first ride in a week or more, somehow, and I hate when that happens, because I hate how those breaks make my legs feel.
But the light under these trees, on a gray and overcast day no less, was magical.
This is the same road, but coming back out from the dead end.
So that was one of the highlights of today. One of ’em, anyway.
One of the highlights of the weekend was Saturday morning. My lovely bride, who was not fighting a head cold then, was off in a local sprint triathlon she does every year. It’s close enough that there’s no travel involved, but she still has to get up early. And, thankfully, she lets me sleep in for this one.
But I had errands to run, so I set an alarm. I set an alarm for Saturday morning. (Oh, the indignity!)
First, it was to the recycling center. It’s a task that always seems bigger than it is. We sort as we go, so it’s just a matter of putting four big tubs in the car, wrangling in whatever cardboard you can get in there, and then driving two miles to the conveniently located recycling center. The hard part is remembering which of their giant bins is for steel, and which is for glass and aluminum. (I think they move some of them around.) So it’s easy enough then, which means I’ve now built momentum.
After that, I visited the Surplus Store. It was a special, overstocked Saturday sale, and you never know. So I did two laps, saw nothing I wanted or needed, and then hit the third chore of the day: a drive across town to replace two tires on the car.
The tire shop I use is on a road filled with mechanics and auto parts places. It’s an area I have no real need to go to on a regular basis, so I use a maps app. As luck would have it, they were able to fit my car into their schedule for the day. Moved the front tires to the rear, put two new tires on the front. The same thing I did three years ago and not all that many miles ago, actually, so now I have almost matched tires.
I got hungry as I waited, so I opened up the maps app to see if anything was in walking distance. There was a Steak ‘n Shake, another restaurant that uses apostrophes incorrectly, but they’ve got good milkshakes, so all is forgiven. I started walking that way. Along the way, I called an audible, because there was also a Mexican restaurant nearby, a bit closer, in fact. I went there. They had sweet tea, which is why you always ask. I had huevos con chorizo, and a tea. The waiter, a kind, older gentleman with reasonably good English kept calling me buddy. It amused him that I ordered mostly in Spanish, but I did not know the phrase “tortilla de harina.”
Finished my lunch and walked back to the tire shop, trying to recall the last spontaneous thing I did like that. Trying to remember the last time I ate alone.
It was before the pandemic began. One of my favorite things to do has always been to sit and eat and read. Only we don’t go out to eat anymore, except when traveling, really. Surprisingly, I don’t miss dining out, something I’d long seen as one of my bad habits. But there I was, being spontaneous, and eating out, and doing it alone. It was, I realized, a big day.
Which was just before I realized I need to liven things up.
Can do! Just you wait and see.
Anyway, I have new tires now. And The Yankee made it back from her triathlon, her first since her big, horrible crash last September. Two weeks prior she finished her PT, but she still projected as being a few months away from a full recovery.
She won her age group.
I spent a few minutes yesterday finally updating the art on the front page of the site. Same style, different decoration. There are a dozen new images for you to enjoy, though, all from our trip to Andorra in March. They look like this.
So, if you like mountain views, click that link, and enjoy.
Which brings us to the site’s most popular weekly feature. It’s time, once again, to check in on the kitties.
Here’s Phoebe, enjoying yesterday afternoon on her blanket. We have four blankets like this. This one she’s claimed as her own. And if it isn’t out, there’s a whole ordeal of silent staring and judging.
She also enjoyed a bit of window time this weekend, looking out over the shrubs, watching the birdies and the squirrels.
Poseidon found a new box, and so, of course, Poseidon had to get in the box.
He was not successful in this case, though he did push it all around the floor for a while.
I am not sure what is going on with this pose. It took me a while to figure out which paw was which. But he looks cozy, I guess?
The cats are doing just fine. And if they understood Mondays, I’m sure they’d wish you a happy one.
I cleaned out the garage Friday morning. But let me back up to September.
In September, the gas guy visited the house. He was there to replace the meter. Only there were flowers in the way, so he left us a nice note, asking us to remove the flowers, so they don’t get damaged in his work. This was about 45 minutes before The Yankee’s crash, so I got around to doing the flower removal — they were all weeds, anyway — in November. But I’d misplaced the note with the phone number in the interim.
Last week that door hanger floated to the top of a pile of papers, so I made the call, and we scheduled the guy to come back out. They were perfectly pleasant. No beef was offered for the delay. And the guy would be out Friday.
Are there pets? Is anyone sick? Will someone be home to provide the technician access to kill, and later, restart the pilot light?
So he was scheduled to come Friday. He needed access to the pilot light. All of that stuff sits in a custom corner of the garage. The only problem is that the space around it is perfectly suited to be a place to store extra things. So Friday morning I moved out the cars and slide a cabinet, a shelf and various other small things out of the way.
Friday evening, since I had all of that stuff out of the way, I did the annual air filter replacement, a procedure that is some months overdue.
There are 21 steps to removing the old air filter and putting in a new one. I know this because that is the number of instructions there are on the air filter box.
I felt a bit like these guys.
With that job done — there’s a light with a pleasing blue glow on the front of the air filter system that tells me I’ve been successful — I could put all of the things back into their proper place in the garage. In doing so, we decided five old paint cans could be recycled.
So on Saturday I took them to the waste disposal facility, where I met a man most pleased to do his job, as bubbly as a government employee working on a Saturday shift could be. He happily accepted two of my paint cans, chummily explaining that they had an ingredient deemed hazardous. He could not take the now ancient house paint. Not hazardous, he said. Well, he could take them, but he’d have to charge me $5 a can. Now if I’d brought any of my leftover uranium, he said, he could take that straightaway.
Wouldn’t you know, I left that in the backyard.
But the garage is now cleaner, five paint cans and a handful of junk cleaner, anyway. That’s good progress.
But enough about my Herculean attempts at decluttering. Let’s get right into the most popular weekly feature on the site, the check-in with the kitties. They’re doing great!
Phoebe has developed a real affinity for this blanket, and only this blanket. If someone is using this blanket and she is offered another blanket, she will not be pleased. Phoebe is a blanket snob.
The cat tunnel is usually more of her brother’s territory, but this weekend Phoebe got interested in it. And then she realized her blanket was up on the sofa.
Recently, we told Poseidon a good joke. How many cats does it take to change a light bulb?
He took it literally.
And if he had thumbs, the answer would be one. He’s very observant. He watches enough to understand that door knobs are important, but can’t figure out how to manipulate them. So, I figure, he can’t be too far off on the concept of light bulbs, either.
Electricity is beyond him, you might think, but he’s helped with plenty of plumbing fixture projects. The other stuff that magically comes out of the wall can’t be too much harder for a smart cat.
I think I’ve only had one wiring project with him in the house. He slept through that, so he’s not yet an apprentice in the electrical arts.
Between Saturday, Sunday and today I got in five Zwift rides. I managed to record five Strava PRs on four of those rides. Three of them were on climbs. Two of those were the same climb. I am not a climber. The other two were on sprints. I am also not a sprinter.
Here’s a bit of video from one of the weekend’s rides. Please note how my Zwift avatar always remembers to hydrate.
Apparently this is the island where aliens first visited. You eventually ride through the front wheel of the lead alien bicycle rider.
I thought, Wouldn’t it be great if the road bent back around and you rode through the back wheel of the second alien bicycle rider? And just a moment later, the road bent that way.
After close encounters like that, you sneak away as fast as you can.
So after tonight’s ride, a few days off, because of work schedules and such. But!
The 2023 Zwift route tracker: 60 routes down, 60 to go.
