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Thursday

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9
Nov 23

I’m pining for the moon

Oh I had the best of intentions of what to do with my morning. Get up! Do some work! Get in a quick bike ride! Iron clothes for class. Leave by 11:30! But you know what they say about the best of intentions … they are so often impacted by what you do the night before.

What I did the night before was to sit at my computer until quite early this morning — but still not so ridiculous as has been my habit of late — and then sleep in a bit.

Just about one of my least favorite things to do is go to bed and then stare at the ceiling. So I will roll over and then stare at the wall. But that’s not very exciting either, so back to the ceiling. It’s all so very productive. Not that I am a peak exemplar of constant productivity, mind you, far from it. But I am never more aware of that I am not doing anything until I am doing the least of it. So I go to bed when I am finally dragging around, nodding off, and so on. Which means I watch a lot of movies on Hulu, or edit a lot of photos late at night, or both. And so there I was, last night, this morning, crawling into bed well after midnight. But you know what? I fell right to sleep.

So, this morning, I did a little work, but not as much as I would have liked. Well, there’s always tomorrow morning. I did not get in a bike ride. I did iron clothes. And we left for campus on time. So what, I ask you, really suffered? Aside from my circadian rhythm, I mean.

In my classes today we went into the television studio. (Boy, where have I heard that before?) I am teaching two intro to production classes this term and today was the day that several of them were looking forward to, a few were dreading and three or four could treat it like another day in the big tall room with the glowing lights, and the smaller room with glowing lights and buttons.

The assignment was this: they had to shoot a breaking news segment, something that has already been produced by the talented people within the college. It’s a three-camera, two anchor shoot. The story is scientists have uncovered a egg at the nearby dinosaur park and, apparently, its recovery has re-started the millions-year-old gestation process.

The story itself is silly, of course. And whoever recorded the package did it in a voice that was aimed at humor and plausible deniability. He hit most of the puns and used some great B-roll. There’s even a quote from an archeologist, Dr. Amber Stone. Best I can tell, this is a fake person. Great name for that field though, right?

The segment starts with bars and tone, a slate, the opening graphic and a shot of both anchors at the desk. Each anchor has single shots and script to read. And then one anchor pitches to this package, which is nicely done and funny the first two three times you hear it. After 769 seconds of dinosaurs and absolutely no Jeff Goldblum, the shot comes back to the studio where one of our anchors returns you to regular programming, terrified that we may soon be stomped on by a giant monster from another time.

And while five or six students are doing things in the studio, the rest are working in the control, making sure all of that happens. It’s an easy enough segment, but if you’ve never done anything like this before, there is a lot going on. The production itself has been streamlined and, really, only the student who is working as the director is sweating real bullets.

Between the two classes we ran that exercise maybe 12 or 13 times. Someone did their read in a fake Southern accent. I’m not sure if that was aimed at me or not, but it sounded western Kentucky and I’m not from there, so I did not take offense.

Overall, it was fun, it was scary. It was full of mistakes, and then it got better. Then we made more mistakes. It’s a hands on exercise and it accomplished its goals. And, as I so often find myself saying, “We’re all here to learn.” I’ve been in that particular control room twice now, counting today, and today was the first time I walked into that studio. I learned a lot, too.

It was dark by the time I was done. Dark and in the 60s. So when we got back home I took off the coat and tie and put on some bike kit and set out. I rode several loops around our neighborhood, and four or five around the next one up the hill, and got in 12 miles, enough to make it feel real.

Here’s my view.

Tomorrow I’ll tie my personal best for consecutive days of riding. That streak, be it ever so surprisingly humble, couldn’t end on a technicality of class and darkness. Fortunately, I have that One80 light. I shot that on a dark road in the next neighborhood. Houses everywhere, no street lights. It’s dark. And I was doing about 17 miles per hour there, having just recorded a demo video of the light for a friend.

A little bit later I was on a road in the back part of our neighborhood, a road I’ve been on twice, I think, and it has a little downhill. I was freewheeling down that at 24 miles per hour, and happy with the light’s throw. I don’t think I would try to do much beyond that, for fear of outrunning the light, but I’m not sprinting much in the darkness and I’m otherwise only doing that kind of speed downhill. I wish it cast a bit more light to the sides for a clearer look at any critters that might be tempted to run in front of you, but that’s my only complaint about the thing.

I won’t go all over the place in the dark, like I would in the daytime. It makes me want to come up with reasons to have to ride into town in the evening, just for the experience. Night riding For some neighborhood riding, this light works great. I said, over dinner, I just need one or two more little side road neighborhoods nearby that I could mix in for variety …

She pulled up another one that I hadn’t considered, hadn’t even noticed, really. Altogether and if I did it right, I could get about 8 miles out of these quiet little subdivisions. I’ll have to check out that new road tomorrow, so I can add it into a future night ride.

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2
Nov 23

‘On your yellow bucket seat’

Today was Copeland Cookie Day in my classes. (And so was Monday.) Dr. Gary Copeland was a professor of mine. He retired soon after my cohort, and he passed away not too long after that. He didn’t get enough time with his beloved grandchildren, and no one got enough time with a widely beloved man. He was a giant of a scholar, a sweet-hearted man who always did a lot for his students.

In one class, he’d bring cookies, put away the syllabus and talk about whatever seemed important: conferences, papers, dealing with colleagues. A lot of the most important things we learned came from that non-class.

Because of that, that’s why I have a Copeland Cookie Day. I bring in snacks, put aside the plans and, for a few minutes, we just talk about industry, courses, war stories, whatever.

After classes were over we went for a run. It was too late in the day for a run. It was too late, which made it too cold. So I only did a quick mile, but I did see this part of the far side of the sunset.

I need to find my running gloves. And start dressing better than shorts and a t-shirt. ‘Tis the season, and all. Only, I have no idea where my running gloves are. I knew where they were, in a drawer, right by the refrigerator. But that was in the old house. And that was in June, in the chaos of packing our stuff when the packers no-showed, and when it was the middle of summer when gloves weren’t exactly a priority.

Where are they now? No idea, but mother nature is a necessity.

Since we’re at the beginning of the month, let’s look at the year’s cycling graph.

The blue line represents mileage I would accrue if I road seven miles a day, a basically arbitrary number I picked at the beginning of the year when I started this spreadsheet. Seven miles, on average, seemed doable.

Then I added columns, and lines, for nine and 10 miles per day. That’s why those three lines are nice and steady, daily projections are consistent, steady, reassuring.

But that purple line, that’s the one that reflects my actual mileage.

As I say so often, I need to ride more. Tomorrow, then.

But tonight, we dive back into the Re-Listening project. I’m playing all of my old CDs in the car, and in the order in which I acquired them. Right now, we’re in the summer of of 2003, when Guster’s “Keep It Together,” their fourth studio album, was released.

This is the first Guster album where the Thunder God, Brian Rosenworcel, played on a drum kit rather than his legendary hand percussion.

A bunch of musician’s musicians — Ron Aniello, Ben Kweller, Joe Pisapia, Josh Rouse and more — appear on the record, which peaked at number 35 on the Billboard Top 200. Thirteen tracks, I like 12 of them, and I love 11 of them. It’s a record that comes up a lot for me, and so the flashes of memories span, well, two decades now.

This is the first track, which was a trippy departure to hear as the first sounds on the thing.

“Careful” was released as a single, and it went to number 30 on the charts.

This was the lead single, which the label released before the album. “Amsterdam” climbers to the 20 spot on the charts. The band said, and you could never tell if it was a joke, that they wrote this just to get the label to fund a trip to Amsterdam for the video.

I think it was a joke.

Someone told me that this song reminded them of me. All melancholy and what not. I’m not sure if she didn’t understand the song or the word melancholy. Apparently, all of the guest musicians were allowed to record one pass (and only one pass) on this song. They didn’t hear the song before they played, or told chords or instruments. I don’t understand how that would even work out, but it’s a triumph. And not about a melancholy me.

“Jesus on the Radio” is now a crowd favorite singalong. They usually do this on stage as unplugged as possible, and if you look around on YouTube tons of fan videos have been uploaded. It’s odd that the band hasn’t done more with that fervor, he said mischievously. Here’s a version with Pisapia (who toured as the fourth member for seven years) on banjo.

There is a high quality version on the “Guster on Ice” DVD, also featuring Pisapia.

Here’s a more recent version, from four or five years ago, long after Luke Reynolds joined the band.

And, as the O’Malley family proved, most anything in your kitchen can be a percussion instrument.

Not just the O’Malleys, but all of their musical fans cover it and record it and upload “Jesus on the Radio,” too. And a few years ago the band made a supercut, and somehow, despite the changes in tempo from version to version, it mostly works. Except for that one.

I could do this all day. And I usually do, on Jesus on the Radio day, March 16th. I actually have the t-shirt. It was a Christmas gift a few years back.

Here’s the title track.

I could do this with the whole album, but I’ll wrap it up with a version of “Come Downstairs and Say Hello,” a thoroughly underrated song when it gets going, and, here, with symphonic accompaniment.

You will discover, about three minutes in, why the Thunder God is so named. It’s one of the few times on that particular record when he went back to his roots. (As I recall he was basically learning how to play a drum kit while they produced this record, partly to change the sound of the record, but, I think, also to give his hands something of a break.) Also, in the second half of that version, the brass, and certain of the strings make it sound absolutely triumphant. I wish they hadn’t come into the song until then.

I have the T-shirt featur that song too. I guess I should finally buy a Guster Is For Lovers shirt, to solidify my OG cred.

Original Guster cred, that is. I go back to the spring of 1997, when Guster Is For Lovers was one of the two things they sold.

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26
Oct 23

Enjoy the photos

On the way in to campus at midday I noticed we are at a particularly dynamic moment in the leaf turn. There are three photos below. All taken on the same road. All of them were also taken with the same time stamp. But look at these many different beautiful colors.

Slowly and then suddenly around here. And 72 degrees today, too, and even warmer this weekend. (The first sunny weather weekend we’ve had in quite some time.) It’ll be a good time to get out and enjoy all of the beautiful, colorful scenery.

There are a lot of quotes about the glories of autumn. A lot of them. And all of them are accurate, in their own ways. But there’s still at least one quote about autumn yet to be uttered …

“Why can’t this magical season stay until March?”

In class today, we watched commercials the students produced. The products varied. Some were real things, others were made up. Some were a bit spur-of-the-moment, which didn’t necessarily take away from the quality. Many of them were funny. A few were quite spectacular. Students, of an anti-commercial generation, applauded one another’s work. That was quite charming.

And then we talked about Adobe Audition for a good long while. This is the sound editing program, the Digital Audio Workstation.

I think, having watched them through the demonstration, that most of them don’t appreciate sound to the same extent that I do. They’ll come around.

Yesterday, I rode by the mysterious building with the uplifting quotes painted on the wall facing the road. I’d never notice this in my car. I probably wouldn’t be on that road in my car, actually. And I certainly would be going to fast to read them.

On my bike, though … well I go fast enough on my bike that i had to see them three or four times before I could read them all. But I ride my bike on that road from time to time, and I wanted to take these photos. And today’s as good a day as any to share them.

I think there is one or two quotes missing from this mini-collection, but these are the best ones.

The building belongs to an agricultural concern. They sell seed and seed treatments, fertilizer and application services, crop protectants and such. It’s not a local company, but a nationwide business headquartered in Tennessee. I can’t say for certain, but I assume the quotes predate the current company.

Either way, the business has quotes like this on their buildings nationwide, or the local/regional management saw this and thought, This absolutely needs to stay.

Whoever made that call, they were correct.

Main Street should maintain all of the old charm and character a town has to offer, and this little town figured that out long ago. It’s a charming thing.

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19
Oct 23

Bringing sound in sight; breaking down stories in commercials

What a beautiful day today! Gloriously warm in the sunshine. Nice and mild in the shade. Everything you want in a day you weren’t expecting.

I don’t think I even looked at the forecast yesterday. Too busy doing other things. After getting set a new driver’s license I had to take the garbage to the inconvenience center, a trip so unremarkable that I spent the rest of the evening, and today, trying to convince myself that I had, in fact, taken a garbage can, a giant bin of recyclables and three big bags of weeds to the drop off spot.

Yes, I did that yesterday. And it was a lovely afternoon, too. That’s two days in a row! I spent the rest of yesterday afternoon, though, doing class prep.

Thursdays I’m on campus all day. Today, all day meant six hours or so. In class we started talking about audio, which was fun for me. Easy prep, and a good two weeks of complexities. Luckily for the students, or unluckily, I happen to know a thing or two about sound.

We’ve also been talking about commercials, since they are working on spots of their own as an assignment. This let me do my Bud spot exercise. I show the class this 2014 Super Bowl ad.

Then I do a 7:52 second breakdown of all of the shots and angles. Made a special, timed, edit and everything. Matching text and shots. The first year I did this the class applauded, which only encouraged me. When I did it for the second class today they took an entirely different approach, making me think I should rethink the spot I use for this exercise.

They found the commercial … lacking. Emotionally exploitive. Without purpose. I asked them why they thought so, and they explained it somewhat, making some good points along the way. It is some of those things. Curious, as this was one of the best received ads of that particular Super Bowl. It made wonder if commercial tastes are changing, and could they change in just a decade. Either way, they’re thinking critically, those students, and that’s a great thing.

Just outside my class there’s a large hydrangea busily giving up the ghost. Even in this vulnerable moment, it has a deep, handsome beauty to it.

Our drive home was at the perfect time of the evening. There seems to be something special about the autumnal sunsets here. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen a lot of them in the last several years, or at least it seems that way. But, as I showed you yesterday, my home office windows face west, and there’s just one house and trees across the way. It gives me a nice view. If, however, you can catch the sunset out in the open, it’s a spectacular time of year for these lovely views.

Looks like I should turn this one into a painting, or something.

But not tonight. It’s been a full day, and there’s baseball and football on, but no notable commercials.

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12
Oct 23

‘Who waits forever anyway?’

I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep this morning and that was not the plan. I figured I’d have one of those little peaceful moments and then get up and, wait a minute, my lovely bride is asking me if I’m going to get up today. Of course I am, it’s only been … 90 minutes since my alarm went off.

The good news is that my alarm was set well before I needed it today anyway. I had an apple, got dressed, finished pulling my things together and we went to campus, and arrived a few moments early, as it turns out.

I spent six hours in a classroom today. Most of that time talking about video editing software. I used these clips, just stuff I found in the yard yesterday, as examples.

That video isn’t what they saw, but those shots figured into the How To of it all. I think it went OK. Next time, maybe, I’ll do that differently. If for no other reason than I think I was beginning to talk myself silly the second time through. Things were shared. Things were learned. I got thanked a few times.

That was one of the views on the drive home, which currently takes place in that 20-minute window between daylight and the gloaming. It’s such a romantic moment, before the darkness creeps upon us. I think we were talking about sports or some silly policy or something. We were in the car, but it was still a moment, and we might have trampled it a bit.

Just three more Queen + Adam Lambert videos from last week’s Baltimore concert. I feel like I have an obligation to share the North American tour opener. Also, it’s earned me 52,000 page views in the last week … so, yeah, you milk that.

“Who Wants to Live Forever” comes out of the 1986, psuedo-soundtrack to the Highlander movie. The song peaked at No. 24 in the UK. Certified gold there, and in Italy, it never did anything here, except stick in the heads of people who liked that movie franchise.

And then there’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I don’t know how many songs have been on charts around the world across four decades and in two centuries, but this is one of them. (Yes, the opera is the original band recording. They couldn’t figure out how to do it live way back when, and that’s stayed the traditional performance version.)

“Bohemian Rhapsody” is also the most streamed song from the 20th century and, in 2021, it was certified Diamond in the US for combined digital sales and streams equal to 10 million units.

I wonder how the rights holders will re-introduce it to new audiences once more in the 2040s and 2050s.