Things are looking lovely in the yard. This is out front, because we like to give a nice impression to all of the people who pull up the drive. So many people don’t. And they’re missing out. But that’s OK. More flowers for us.
We’ve been running a gag with a friend about bad photo composition. This is my contribution to the joke.
But, lurking up above, the promise of early August.
The ripening is underway.
Does anyone want some peaches?
In the fall of 2020 I was interviewed by a student working up a profile of my lovely bride for a class project.
He asked me what’s it like being married to an All-American, D-1 athlete, FINA Masters World Championships swimmer, three-time USA Triathlon national championship-qualified triathlete and two-time Ironman finisher.
(Except now she’s a six time USA Triathlon national championship qualifier and a three-time Ironman.)
This, I noted on social media, is what it’s like.
A few days after that 2020 interview I said “I’m going to go spin out my bike for a bit in the bike room.”
She said, “I’ll join you for an easy ride,” and then I watched her put out about 230 watts going uphill for an hour on Zwift. Sometime soon after that we were on a group ride and she was out front. She sat up and re-did her braid while we were chasing back on to her wheel. At the first sprint point on that ride she was laughing as I tried to go by her. She was LAUGHING during a full sprint. I didn’t win that one. So we got really, really serious about the five sprints after that.
But all of that was five years ago.
Today, I set a hard pace for eight miles, and then she went around me. Then she went away from me. And so I had to chase on for about six miles, hard, to get back. Thinking about that 2020 interview the whole way.
And here is when I finally caught her. We were going up a little hill, and I was doing 26 miles per hour up the long slow hill just to stay on her wheel. Look at how casual she is here, as she’s about to get to the top of the thing.
All told, Strava says this was the fastest 30K I’ve ever recorded.
What’s it like being married to someone like that?
This week I’m reading finals and final projects and doing so under deadline. Everything has to be submitted by Friday. I’ll have approximately 130 papers to work through between now and then. But before I get back to that, here’s a bit on the weekend.
We headed north on Saturday evening to see the in-laws and dote on my mother-in-law. My father-in-law made nice steaks on the grill for us Saturday. Sunday we attended her church. They’ve just gotten a new minister. He’d been serving there in an itinerant capacity, but this was apparently his first service in the full time role.
He did a youth service in the middle of things. It’s an old church and there aren’t a lot of kids there, but the minister said, since it was Mother’s Day, he would sing a nursery rhyme that his mother sang to him. And he wanted the kids, and us, to think about it. So he worked slowly through “Hey Diddle Diddle” line by line, leaving time for the youthful reaction to what is going on in this tale.
When he got to the “the cow jumps over the moon” part, a little boy yelled out, “THAT DEFIES PHYSICS!”
We had dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant. They did not have what I ordered, so I ordered something else. But that’s fine. We’ve been going there for years, it is always terrific.
Today, my father-in-law wanted to take us fishing before we headed back home. So we went to this very nice private club, where he has an in. He brought enough waders and rods for all of us. He paired up with his daughter, and his friend, who is a big shot financial guy and a member of this club, got stuck with me.
I say stuck, because there was a great deal of teaching going on. I’ve been fly fishing exactly one time. I’ve cast a fly on exactly two occasions. (The first time being a parking lot, and I’m not sure that counts.)
Anyway, the scenery at this creek is much, much better than that parking lot.
The full cast was a challenge. I figured out how to roll cast with a little coaching. Doing a sidearm cast was the most natural thing in the world. It seems I could put the fly wherever I wanted with that method.
Anyway, I had a very patient teacher, and I needed it.
I caught five or six fish. Each of them off the hook and back in the water, though I did stop for a moment to admire the two rainbow trout I caught.
So now I’ve caught trout. I think, somehow, everyone here thinks I’ve never been fishing before. Never caught fish before. I grew up on boats and on the shores of lakes and ponds. But fly fishing is new to me. And this was fun enough, but just standing out under the trees and listening to the ware would have been a great day, too. I’m pretty sure I remember the day that I didn’t have to actually go fishing to enjoy fishing. I was with my uncle on his boat, on the river he lived his entire life on. It was peaceful. I was probably in junior high or high school. I thought about all of those experiences a lot today. I learned how to catch small pond fish and catfish with my grandfather. I learned a little bit about bass fishing from some family friend, father figure types. I learned about trot lines and how to catch everything else from my uncle.
And they were all good teachers, too. Teaching a person to fish is more than a proverb. It’s a rite of passage, I think. But they didn’t know much about fly fishing, I guess. There’s not as much of that going on in the Deep South. But up here, in New England, toss out a line and you’re liable to snag someone, like Joe, who was helping me today.
You’ve never seen anyone so determined to help someone else catch anything before. It was kind of him to spend a coaching me up. Never put the first line in the water himself, but he was urging me on at every turn.
It’s a well-stocked creek. The biggest challenge, for me, was getting the fly where I wanted it to go. The biggest challenge for him was patience, and finding new ways to tell me to stop breaking my wrist. He was great, though. And it was kind of my father-in-law to make the arrangements and take us, of course.
But, really, I could have stood there listening to the water all day. He loaned me some new waders. State of the art, he said. They were comfortable and kept me dry and not at all cold. He said they cost $900, making them easily the most expensive thing I’ve ever worn.
And that’s how you know I won’t be taking up fly fishing anytime soon.
It’s Friday, you should always do something fun on Friday. Some of us might not have conventional work weeks, and that’s great. Your Friday could be any day of the week. That just means you have two Fridays. Mark them both accordingly. And, today, we’re going to do that with a bit of music.
So we’ll return to the Re-Listening project, in which I am very behind. The Re-Listening project, if you haven’t been paying the closest attention, is where I am listening to all of my old CDs in the order of their acquisition — well, mostly, I’ve got some of the CD books confused. It’s a great trip down memory lane. And, I figured, I could write about it here. It seemed like a good idea at the time! Pad out the site … add some music … have a memory or two. And mostly it is a good idea. Unless you don’t like my music. Some of it is a little obscure. Some of it regional. Some of it is very obvious. None of it is astounding. So let’s just assume you like some of it, that it was a good idea when I started this a bunch of years ago now.
You know what has always been a good idea? This next album, which not a lot of people heard, and that’s a shame. The band Mr. Henry released two records, their debut in 1998 and “40 Watt Fade” in 2000, each on minor labels. Their blend of Americana was at the right place at the right time for alt radio. And while it was released in 2000, I picked it up in 2007, and it has never, ever disappointed.
I think I listened to it three times in the car this go-around.
This is the first track, sneaking that organ in there was pretty genius. The chorus here is probably the most reductive thing on the record.
By the third track, the choruses get much better, but the lyrics throughout are pretty generously full of imagery.
At which point it would be easy for me to embed the entire album. Here’s the brilliance of the fourth track, for instance. If you ever needed a ballad for hurtling down the highway in the middle of the night, they’ve got you covered. Once you get around the distortion in the twangy guitars they’ve really got something here. Though it feels like it needs another lyric.
It’s weird how I append that to non-specific memories of so much music: there I was, speeding up the interstate from here to there …
Just to prove I’m not playing the whole tracklist, we’ll skip ahead to the seventh offering, which is fundamentally a perfect song for the period, plus it has an unironic accordion.
In a similar vein, but somehow even better, if that’s possible, is this one, which trades in cliches, lends the record it’s title, offers an acoustic guitar driven chorus and more of those nice little harmonies the band was figuring out. Also, it sounds like a bunch of motivational posters.
Don’t worry, I’ve found the pattern on some of my musical preferences. I haven’t named this one, but maybe I should call it the Tim O’Reagan genre. He’s not in this band, but this sound, a sort of wearily optimistic traveler’s lament, is his sound. Also, there’s a lyric in here that’s so obvious, but still blows me away, decades later, and typies the album for me.
U-Haul chases big county lines
No FM reception
just a box of B-sides
There’s a real lament in there somewhere, and an obvious word play. Maybe the only one you can make there. But it surely does work for me.
So Mr. Henry split up sometime after 2000. There’s not a lot out there. The lead singer, Dave Slomin is now working on a new project, which is called Waiting for Henry, in a not-at-all confusing way. Waiting for acknowledges Mr. Henry. The bassist is playing with The Gravy Boys, which have released four Americana records. The drummer, Neil Nunziato, just published an Instagram post saying the band will play a one-night-only show in New York next month.
Maybe it’ll go well and they’ll figure out something for the future.
The next album is a Hootie & The Blowfish disc, a band which I enjoy mostly un-apologetically. Their South Carolina sound appeals to my South Carolina sensibilities. Anyway, “Musical Chairs” debuted in 1998. For some reason I didn’t buy it until 2007, apparently. It peaked at number 4 on the Billboard charts and was certified platinum, but music people were disappointed. Music people are only interested in unit sales, and have no appreciation for the come down that the hottest acts experience. And Hootie and the Blowfish came down somewhat. Their 1994 debut was certified platinum 22 times. The 1996 followup went platinum three times. So I guess the writing was on the wall with the music execs. But, come on, how can you expect anyone to even approach that again?
Anyway, they hadn’t tinkered with the formula, and if you liked it in ’94, you would have enjoyed this in ’98. Or ’07, or today.
This might be my favorite song on the record. Every time it plays, I will play it again. And maybe more. That’s the memory: the re-plays. There’s just a lot going on there to appreciate in two minutes and 21 seconds.
Any song that name-checks an Aunt Inez will get my appreciation. Especially if you just casually drop in where she’s from. I think that’s just a rule in our part of the world.
This could also by my favorite song.
I feel like a dare was involved here. “What if we put Darius in a leisure suit and gave him a lounge act vibe?” It amuses me.
The hidden track could also be my favorite track on the disc. So there are easily three favorites, and some other strong stuff on here, too.
I think I saw Hootie and the Blowfish when they were touring supporting this album. Probably an ampitheatre show, maybe in Atlanta. (Why is 1998 suddenly so fuzzy?)
And so are we. Touring that is. Lower New England, specifically. It’s a quick Mother’s Day trip for us. And a happy Mother’s Day to all those who celebrate, as well!
Two years ago today, at 12:14 p.m., I took this photo. It was one of those moments where your life begins to change.
That was when we saw this house for the first time.
It was the first one we looked at on our house-hunting visit. The one that the rest got judged against. And it was a hot market. The sellers had put up a few teaser photos on the weekend, a promo of the full listing to come on Monday. As we drove over we looked at the rest of the photos, which were great, if over-saturated. We called our realtor from the road and told him to add this one to the list. We were, I think, the second people in, but we were not the only ones that wanted it.
Somehow, we won the day.
You’d like to think of these as happy moments, but house shopping and waiting out bids is a special kind of tension. But the place, itself, is just as comfortable and relaxing as a home should be.
Since I’m well behind — but when am I not? — let’s return to the Re-Listening project.
The Re-Listening project, for anyone still here after such a dynamite introduction, is where I’m listening to all of my old CDs in the car, mostly in their order of acquisition, and writing about them here. I say mostly because these discs are all kept in CD books, if you remember those, and I got a bit out of order. Anyway, we’re in 2001 at this point. And so what we’re doing here is talking about music from more than two decades ago. But not so much about the music, but whatever might come with it. These are more memories than reviews — because who needs reviews? — but, really, an excuse to put a little music here, while padding out the space.
So we go back to the by-now over-commercialized realm of alt and roots rock. What I mean is that we’re beginning today by talking about the second studio album by Train. One of the better songs on the record was the lead track, and third single, which settled at 21 on the US Billboard Adult Top 40 and peaked at 40 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. And if ever there was a song you shouldn’t listen to after YouTube’s compression algorithms work their magic, this is it.
Anyway, I was working at a place that was playing a lot of Train. And I think I saw them twice on this tour. They played a two-night stretch at a now defunct venue in Birmingham, and I saw them on the second night, an amphitheater instead of a small concert hall. Also, we ran into these guys at breakfast the next morning. Let’s say they had had a long night. Later that year, I saw them at a bigger venue.
One of the deep cuts is a personal favorite.
It got mixed reviews at the time, this record, and you can still hear that unevenness today. Nothing on here is bad, but not much really stands out, which is I guess what everyone wanted at that point. Everything pretty well holds up with the passage of time. But, for the most part, it is, and was, pretty much what we’d come to expect from the band.
Still went double platinum, though.
Train are still touring, and they’ll return to the U.S. this summer, though it’s not the same band, if that matters. Over the years 18 people have been a part of the group. Pat Monahan, the vocalist, is the only founding member of the band left.
Up next, Athenaeum’s “Radiance.” This was an alt pop band from North Carolina, a group of guys that got together in the 8th grade and then played together for 15 years or so. This was their debut record, and it made it to 46 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, a minor success in 1998. I bought it much later. The record was powered by this single.
You go through the first four tracks and think, “Here’s a band with a good rhythm section, one distortion pedal and a few clever lyrics. Probably the kids not challenged or interested in school.” And then they change it up a bit on track 5 and fool you.
I haven’t listened to this in a long time, and that’s the reaction I had this time through, and I bet I had a similar thought when I first played it.
I’m in a chat with a younger member of my extended family where we share music back and forth. We’re getting pretty close to understanding each other’s tastes at this point. Every now and then I send him something and he slips a knife in between my ribs. “Yeah, that sounds like the 90s.”
How do you argue that?
Also, this sounds exactly like the 90s.
I have a feeling they played a lot of school dances. I bet this was a big hit when it came time for a slow number.
The band folded in 2004. Some of the members are still making music, performing, or as songwriters and studio musicians. One of them is an associate professor at Clemson.
And now we’re two albums closer to being caught up. Probably still a dozen behind …
