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Settle in, there’s a lot of ground to cover here

My goal with my bike commute is to make the entire trip without having to put my foot on the ground. I had to unclip four times this morning, but only twice this evening. Had I been just a tad more daring I could have gotten that down to one, but that doesn’t really seem the point. Otherwise, the highlight was this little strip of road here.

They paved this in August/September of 2018 — I have photos — and again this week. The scrapped up the 2018 work on Monday, and it was a nice new ribbon today. How long does asphalt last around here?

Or, put another way, this little stretch of road fronts a Civil War era house. At this rate, it must have seen … carry the two … 36 coats of asphalt over the years.

I’m sure they had asphalt around here then. And I’m sure they treated it about the same way in those old winters as they do now: poorly.

I will not, I will not fall down the rabbit hole on this and read the entire history of asphalt, but just know I skimmed it to see how outlandish that joke was. Asphalt has been around since the Babylonians, and it was first used in the U.S. for roads in the 1870s, so not impossible, but not hardly likely for the tucked away place this was in the 19th century.

An interstate finally passed through here in 2015 or so.

But enough about construction, let’s see some destruction! I have for you, if you peer closely, an action shot of the grout removal going on at the Poplars Building. And by grout removal I mean the Poplars Building.

That’s some 60 years of stone and dust and carpet and dust and dreams falling out of that building just now. You’ll note they’ve got that screen held in place by the second crane. It comes and it goes, that screen. Seems to be protecting the parking deck. Protect the parking deck at all costs!

Sometimes they spray water on the rubble as it falls down. Some sort of safety measure, no doubt. I wonder what determines when they do and when they don’t spray.

I figure by Monday they’ll get to that protruding shaft — possibly the elevator system, I don’t know, I’ve never been in that building and it doesn’t seem safe to go exploring at this late date. If that’s what it is, I bet it comes down quickly.

The weather has been in the delightfully enjoyable 80s the last few days, which means the evenings have been a nice time to sit outside. We even had dinner outside this evening, because why not?

We were rewarded with a nice view.

We ordered Chinese. There were no fortunes in the fortune cookies.

They were just … cookies.

Let’s get back to the music! Last week I decided to start working my way through all of my old CDs when I’m in the car. Good way to mix it up. I did this a few years ago and enjoyed it, but figured, this time, that I could write about some of it. These aren’t reviews, except when they are. Mostly they’re just memories and good times.

I’m not doing this alphabetically, and not autobiographically — so I can’t tell you how I got from Deep Purple to Howling Wolf in 25 moves. And if I want to find the song “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac I have to remember that it’s in the I Never Bought It Pile. Because Fleetwood Mac was old when I was young, and people always seemed to have it on the radio, somehow. I’m doing this chronologically. Yes, I know the order in which I bought all of these things — which, apparently, impresses people. Now let’s see how many of them I’m willing to tell.

The collection crosses genres and periods in a haphazard way and there’s no large theme. It is, as I said the other day, whimsy.

Recently I finished Memory Dean’s second album, which was self-titled, but people called it the “In My Father’s House” record because of the cover art. If that sentence is a mystery, don’t worry. They’re a regional band from Georgia. A good live act. A good college band back in the day. Probably quite popular in bars. I only saw them at festivals.

A college buddy of mine basically grew up not far from them, and had followed them for some time. He gave me this record, which is a curious mix of studio and live tracks. And, if you’ll notice on the Discogs site, they refer to it as the track side and the live side. Because this was a cassette first.

In the live portion they even talk about how they’ll have tapes on sell in the back after the show! This was released in 1993 and let’s say it was produced that same year.

I found this great piece from Rick Koster, writing for the Dallas Observer, that references Memory Dean:

Rather, Memory Dean’s music is an intriguing collision of spring-break choruses, beer-fueled rhythm, and a lightly twisted lyrical sense–all of which bring to mind Flannery O’Connor and Brian Wilson harmonizing on a cypress-cloaked veranda over their morning grits.

Within that Deep South context, it’s hard to pigeonhole Memory Dean’s sound. More than just snappy choruses–there are millions of those floating around, seeking to light in listeners’ brains–the band’s songs are, on first listen, anchored in the instinctively unique vocal harmonies of co-founding guitarist-singer-songwriters Jay Memory and Bubba Dean. With naturally occurring parts that recall the low harmonies and counter-melodies of the Indigo Girls or, perhaps, Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon after a night of tequila, the fluent vocal blend lures you in just long enough for the words to hit you over the head.

[…]

Originally rivals in street-corner minstrelsy, they hooked up and began writing the sort of songs borne of two things: 1) the innate tradition of a town that gave birth to REM, the B-52s, and several other seminal ’80s “modern rock” bands, and 2) the sure knowledge that through music came liquor and sorority girls.

Koster, who wrote that in 1998 and is still working, these days at The Day, in Connecticut, overdid it — by a lot — with the Flannery O’Connor reference. And I think you sense that in the second album, even more so than Koster found it in the third album. And I think people try to sound like they overthink Flannery O’Connor because they think it makes them sound smart.

It doesn’t.

Otherwise, that piece feels spot on. Re-listening to their eponymous record, trying to figure out what it means all these decades later, I had two thoughts. First, there’s an obvious mix of bawdy lyrics that feel too clever to the authors, mixed with some surprisingly deeper material. And when Koster quotes them, they’re pointing out “Yeah, we started writing in college. We’re 30 now.”

At any rate, these days Jay Memory and Bubba Dean are a lot older than 30, and they’re still doing it a bit. There don’t seem to be an album cuts from this record online (you can’t even buy this on Amazon!) but there are a few live performances from recent years with some of these tracks.

Which brings to mind the second thing I thought. Memory Dean is the musical college companion of the entitled annoying guy with the annoying boat on Lake Lanier. Not the one that loved college, but the one that still loves it too much. He’s a little too loud. A little too tipsy. A little too much. He rents that boat. And I’d bet this crowd, with its dedicated fanbase, had examples of that guy, and his “WOOOOOOOOO” wife.

This is misnamed on YouTube. The actual song title is “Beowulf, Captain Hook & The Albatross.” See? College kids wrote that.

And while the lyrics are a little muddled in that recording, the chorus pops pretty well, and this is important. The band is at their best when they’re doing harmony. My friend said that around Georgia people called them the Indigo Boys, which naturally intrigued me.

This is “Peach State of Mind” which is a song about Georgia. This is recorded in Athens, Georgia. There will be barking from the crowd.

For some reason they sped up the tempo of the song there, compared to the record. It probably fits the bar scene better, or maybe they’re just sick of it, but that one change takes away the lament and soul of the song, which is important when you’re talking about being homesick.

I know of which I’m talking here.

This is the funniest song on the record, the crowd participation song, and one of my least favorite. I’ve sometimes wondered, when this came to mind, if they would freshen up the lyrics if they had the chance. Now I know. Yes they do. And they always pick the best low hanging fruit. They say “Rap Music Sucks,” but you don’t get here without an appreciation of the genre. And they reference “Rapper’s Delight” in an important way. It doesn’t get twisted. They don’t point out, as they do when they send up Sir Mix-A-Lot, that this is actually a good song. They just do a variation on “Rapper’s Delight.” As if, even in 1993 they were already saying that the pop version of rap is not all that it could be.

Which, for some white guys from Georgia in 1993, probably seemed prescient.

In our next installment of musical nonsense, we’re going to hear from post-peak Def Leppard. It’ll be a treat.

cycling / IU / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
10
Aug 22

They didn’t just stand there and wait

Here’s a bit of my bike ride to the office this morning. It was gray and not overly warm and somehow that made everything seem a bit slower and quiet. Maybe just knowing the quiet is coming to an end, and that far too quickly, made it seem like a quieter morning.

Classes start the week after next. This is the last big, deep breath before the regular routine returns.

I rode my bike back the same way this afternoon. For just a brief moment, one of those idle lower brain thoughts that makes it to the surface around the filters, I thought the same people I saw this morning might be there this afternoon. How neat to see them all again.

They weren’t, of course. Because they are elsewhere in the Truman Show.

When they get around to remaking that, they should go the real psychological thriller route. And if that’s somehow informed by Groundhog Day, and grounded in really normally inscrutable things, more the better, and more unnerving.

Time for our daily check on the Poplars Building. Built in the 1960s as an off-campus dormitory, but failed in that role and as a sorority house. Also as a hotel. And a “research and conference center.” It’s last duty was as administrative offices for the university. (The pool was filled in and became Human Resources.) Some 400 people could work in Poplars.

This month it is being scraped to death.

They made some good progress today. If you use the window rows as metrics, they’re getting one or two of those each day. Given the way it was built you have to think they can hold that pace pretty consistently. What we can’t see are the lowest parts, obscured here by the parking deck.

It is interesting, but I’m not terribly interested in walking over there and breathing in that stuff knowing, as we do now, about old building materials in the air.

Anyway, the deck is staying, but also being rehabbed. They waited until this summer to do that, rather than anytime in the preceding two years when almost no one was parking there. But, now, of a sudden, the parking lots are full, and the deck is closed “until the fall,” we’re told.

Anyway, the Poplars Building is going to be a green space for a time, until such time as someone has the time to figure out a better thing for the space.

I’m sure that fellow wasn’t on the path this evening because he was catching up on The Daily Show. He looked like a Daily Show guy, didn’t he? In that brief glimpse you saw of him? Daily Show guy, definitely, right?

There’s a needle to thread in comedy like this. Probably two or three needles to be threaded, each with smaller eyes. But The Daily Show had 10 good minutes.

I’m guessing the comic work will be better this week than in subsequent weeks. Legal processes just aren’t that funny. But this is pretty good, as is Trevor Noah’s impression of the former president’s stage style is informative.

And don’t call it a raid.

IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
9
Aug 22

Enjoy this blog reading experience

Let’s look at some buildings. This one was cool. Plus the evening sun was shining on it. This is back in Milwaukee, by the way. And according to a hasty search — Google Maps, Google Street View, Google and Wikipedia — I can tell you that this is the Associated Bank River Center.

Such a sexy, historical name. The Associated Bank River Center was completed in 1988 and, for a time, was the second tallest building in Milwaukee. (Now it is the fifth largest, after which people stop counting, I’m sure, because, really … )

The red and green are meant to pay homage to the city hall building, which you just see to the right there. (For just under two years, the Milwaukee City Hall was the tallest habitable building in the world. Oh, to be in Milwaukee in 1895, I guess.)

Anyway, back to the foreground. The Associated Bank River Center is undergoing some renovation. It is used for offices, but also for parking, making it that most convenient 20th century design, mixed-use!

A marketing subcommittee wrote this:

Associated Bank River Center brings together the best of Milwaukee. A living intersection of the arts, finance, business, tourism and dining inspiring the City, Associated Bank River Center perfectly encapsulates Milwaukee’s historic roots and points to its transcending future. Renovations to be completed in various phases over the next several years.

But, most importantly, that view, and the brown Milwaukee River.

And, also 28 stories and 820 underground parking spaces, a large conference setup, a tech lounge, whatever that is, food market, bar and health club compliment the “completely renovated lobby experience.”

Which is how you know a marketing subcommittee wrote that. No one has ever, in the history of lobbies, had a lobby experience.

Nearby, the 12-story Hotel Wisconsin was a $2 million luxury hotel. It drew a huge crowd wen it opened in 1913. Over the years, Eleanor Roosevelt stayed there, and so did Laurel & Hardy. The hotel also had a lot of retail and locally prominent restaurants inside over the years, as well. By the 1970s or ’80s it was really showing its age, and the hotel closed in 2003. It was renamed The Grand Wisconsin – which just sounds cool and you probably can’t say that about adding the word ‘grand’ to every state name – and was renovated to create more than 100 apartments.

We didn’t go inside, but now I regret it. The second-floor ballroom was, in 1913, modeled in the style of Louis XIV and some of the ornamentation and the ceiling has been restored. The lobby’s ceiling features American flag shields, badger imagery, terra cotta State of Wisconsin shields and leaded glass panes bearing the state shield, too are on display. The lobby sounds like an impressive .. experience.

This is yesterday’s glimpse of the destruction of Poplars, at IU.

We just had so much to get to yesterday, you understand.

But, so that you can chart the progress, here is today’s glimpse.

Another week, for sure, perhaps two, before this feature grows even less interesting.

And, since we were full of content yesterday, here’s the briefly delayed and long-awaited photo experience that is the most popular feature on the site, the weekly check in with the kitties.

Phoebe looks like she is about to give a speech to her adoring public.

I’ll let you decide the tone and tenor of this speech. You can be assured her audience will be rapturous with delight, either way.

And, last Thursday, Poseidon tried his hardest to make sure we accidentally took him with us.

We did not. There was no room in that suitcase for stowaways.

adventures / Monday / photo / triathlon / video — Comments Off
8
Aug 22

Milwaukee; we were in Milwaukee

Seems so obvious now, right? It was in the photos and everything. And if you looked up the Roosevelt story, or tried to figure out that tree joke, you would have figured it out, or given up, in short order.

We were in Milwaukee for the USA Triathlon National Championships. The Yankee raced twice. On Saturday she competed in the Olympic distance triathlon, a 1,500-meter swim, a 25-mile bike ride and a 6.2-mile run. Here are a few quick clips, where she is rocking the bright kit of her sponsor, Team Zoot:

This was her third national championship event, and she finished just barely outside the top 100. Pretty great at a national championship level. (She was 33rd in the swim and 79th on the bike. In the nation!)

That was on Saturday. On Sunday, she competed in the sprint distance national triathlon, her fourth national championship event. This particular national championship was abbreviated a bit because of approaching weather. That just made it faster and more fun. A few more clips, and you’ll see her in her coach’s team kit, Dream Big.

In Sunday’s super-sprint she finished inside the top 100, and in her individual legs she was 34 in the water, 69th on the bike and 99th in the run. And she doesn’t even like the run.

Also, she had those surgeries, and these are second and third races she’s had while still recovering from those. (She just finished the official physical therapy about 45 minutes ago.) So, it was a successful weekend of racing. Quite impressive. A lot of fun. And it was all in Milwaukee.

Here are some photographs.

This is the pier at Discovery World where they started the race. On Saturday they did a mass start by age group. So if you were a male 25-29, you started at the same time as all the other guys in that bunch. On Sunday, because of the weather and the logistics, they did a self-seeded time trial start. Four people went in at a time based on their self-reported swim times. It is in no way official or make-or-break, but it has the benefit of being slower, which spreads out the field, particularly on the bike course. This was important on Sunday because they shrank that route in a concession to the weather, but they didn’t have fewer athletes. It’s all about spreading things out. And, theoretically, the staggered time trial start does that. Also you just watched people jump in the water for hours. Discovery World sounds pretty awesome. And the front of the building will be a banner here, soon.

Here, The Yankee is coming out of the water in the Saturday race. Barely off the ramp and already making muscle poses.

And her finish on Saturday.

Here’s a big from Sunday, where she is showing off one of the medals she won.

This is really cool. This is Madonna Buder, who is known in the sport as the Iron Nun. (Yep, she was a nun, and last year she crashed on a training ride and fractured her shoulder, collarbone, and got four fractures in a rib. Nun means the one thing, but the iron part of her nickname has several meanings.) She has opened six age groups for triathlons – meaning she was the oldest in the field each of those times, starting with 50 and over. She’s also the world’s oldest female Ironman finisher, a record she’s held since she was … 82! She’s done some 45 Ironman races.

Buder was smiling all weekend, constantly. She’s a celebrity. Everyone knows it, and they all think they know her. She’s probably met all the long timers. She did her first triathlon at 55. Yep, she has been doing this for 37 years, including those 45 full triathlons and some 350 more at shorter distances. This weekend, now a fresh 92 years young, she was doing the sprint at the national championships. She’s getting a little help up the ramp and hill from the swim, which an awful lot of people did. I also saw her heading out on the bike, and she was in perfect control.

You’re intrigued now, so here are some of videos.

She was in a Nike commercial a few years ago. One of the best Nike commercials of all time. Just watch it.

Here’s a brief interview she did in 2020.

And here’s a longform piece on her, from 2019.

Sunday, she ran, ran, across the finish line.

adventures / Friday / history / photo — Comments Off
5
Aug 22

Where are we now? One thousand words of hints

Let’s drag this mystery out a bit more. Last night we drove late into the evening, before checking into a hotel, our base of operations for the weekend. But where is this?

Here’s a hint. This is a tree I stood under to avoid the midday sun.

The peeling bark, characteristic of the species, and the brilliant contrast of green leaves and a blue sky aren’t giving it away? They are good clues. Not a clue: my standing under a tree, seeking shade. My skin is so fair it will turn red anywhere. So while that’s no help at all, the bark might tell you something. Give it another look.

No? Need more? OK then.

I saw this on a wall in a hotel near ours.

Let’s have a closer look at that plaque.

I know this story, perhaps you do, too. I hadn’t put it together that we’d be so close to this moment of American history. This would have been on that trip, at the train station, but not the actual moment.

There are plenty of photos of Roosevelt’s trip — he was a former president and campaigning for the office again after all — including one taken just before he was wounded.

It was October; there was a chill in the air. Roosevelt was moving from the Gilpatrick Hotel to a nearby auditorium, where he was to give an evening speech. It’s dark, there’s a crowd, and among them is a man named John Schrank. He’s a bartender, a lay Constitutional scholar, a bad poet, a New Yorker. A short man with red hair, round cheeks and thin lips, he blends into the crowd, and manages to work his way right up to the car where Roosevelt is waving to a crowd.

Schrank has been waiting for this moment for a month. He’s been trying to get this opportunity in any of the eight states and big cities Roosevelt has visited in the last few weeks. He’s been waiting in this town all day. He’s been waiting here, specifically, for hours. He’s not going to fail now. He got to within six feet of the former president, fingering the revolver hidden in his vest. In a surging moment of adrenaline, amidst the noise of the crowd, he squeezes off a round.

The place looks like this today.

It did not look like that in 1912.

Before he could fire again Elbert Martin, a man who grew up about four hours away from here, threw his body at the shooter. Martin was a high school football player, and in every photograph he looks the part. He’s a stenographer, has a law degree, and is also Roosevelt’s security.

Others leap in to help, wrestling the attacker to the ground. They’re holding him by his throat. The gun has skittered away. Roosevelt staggered back, catching himself on the car, and sees his shooter.

Roosevelt says, “He doesn’t know what he is doing. Don’t strike the poor creature. Bring him here. Bring him to me.”

They’re now face-to-face. Martin puts the gun in Roosevelt’s hand. The crowd didn’t realize the former president had been shot. He didn’t know it either. Some people thought the round went wide, but there are immediately chants to string the man up, but police take him safely away. Roosevelt gets in the car and taken to the auditorium where he’s supposed to speak. An aide notices the hole in his coat. Reaching under his overcoat, Roosevelt feels blood, but says it is a minor wound.

At the auditorium his personal physician gives Roosevelt a closer look. The round from that .38 went through Roosevelt’s coat, and through the doubled-up 50-page speech, and his metal eyeglass case, before piercing his chest. Roosevelt refused his doctor’s plea to call off the speech. “This may be my last talk,” he said. He was intent on delivering it.

The man who introduced the president told the crowd he’d been shot. There were gasps in the auditorium, but at least one man shouted “Fake! Fake!”

So that’s been around a while.

Roosevelt came to the stage, unbuttoned his coat and the people could see his bloodstained shirt. He spoke, wavered, spoke some more. Along the way he delivered the immortal line, “It takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose!” The crowd ate it up. He asked his very worried physician how long he’d been talking, and the doctor said 45 minutes. The former president said he’d speak for a few minutes more. The crowd laughed again.

Later he did go to the hospital, and they sent him to another one, to see a renowned specialist. Roosevelt, who had first come to the presidency when William McKinley was assassinated, was cheerful, and walked into that second hospital, smiling, cracking jokes, waving. He had X-rays at the second hospital — not available for his predecessor. Roosevelt’s doctors decided he was lucky. The bullet did not go into his rib, did not hit anything vital, and the man was in good shape. They didn’t operate.

He would, of course, go on to give many more speeches. He lost his campaign for a third term in office, but continue to build the legend of Roosevelt, the great man, until his death seven years later, in 1919. He carried the bullet in his pectoral muscle the rest of his life.

Schrank pleaded guilty. He said he was afraid Theodore Roosevelt was trying to establish a monarchy by running for that third term. Schrank died in custody in 1943, at 67. Over the years he talked with more reporters than you’d imagine possible today for a would-be assassin. Those interviews make for curious reading. He had apologized to the city — figured this out yet? — and was later pronounced a model patient at the ward where he spent the rest of his days. His body was donated to a medical school.

We drove by it last night.

So where are we?