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9
Jun 23

This is (obliquely) about photons from the sun

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.

Also, their website is written by ChatGPT, maybe.

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!

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8
Jun 23

I hope you can get there

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.

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7
Jun 23

Only the second half is fictional

They’re doing some work in the parking lot directly across the street. Parking being an important element of a college campus, one hopes this will be completed over the summer, but each day more equipment and fencing arrives. And, this morning, they started digging in the road.

Started, and then they stopped. No one was around, like they’d all walked off the job, they found a more valuable project to work on, or the end of the world arrived just as they began.

Maybe that’s procedure, a plan to cut a whole in the asphalt and put the business end in the ground. Maybe it minimizes hijinks and accidents.

I know, I know, that’s what the cones are for.

After we checked the air conditions — they could be better! — we went for a bike ride this evening. Today is the day I pronounce The Yankee as having recovered her legs and is now getting her form back. She dropped me at one of the turnaround points. It took me eight miles — eight! — to catch her wheel again. Or, in video form …

I set two small Strava PRs on segments in the last bit of the ride. Finally, in the last five miles, my legs woke up. I blame the air.

We return to the Re-Listening project, where I am listening to all of my old CDs in the order in which I acquired them. I’m listening to them there, enjoying the whole thing, and, to fill some space, writing about them here. These aren’t reviews, but fun excuses to play some music, and a bit of memory and whimsy, which is an important part of music.

And about that whimsy, (or, this is one of those oddly embarrassing ones) I’ll just begin our return to 1999 with a phrase from Wikipedia, “quickly faded into obscurity.”

Probably for the best really. Remember Chris Gaines, the TV character concept portrayed by Garth Brooks that went to number two on the charts and is certified double-platinum but was, somehow, considered not well received? (The Wikipedia link will give you a good primer.) Or ask this guy.

This was supposed to be a movie character, and this record was supposed to be a soundtrack. A pre-soundtrack. (We’ve been enduring silly marketing ploys for decades.) But that does look like the most popular entertainer of our time, who is from … Oklahoma. And he’s having an episode? All of this, apparently, confused audiences. Maybe the entertainment industry is right about the general audience after all.

This is one of the things about this entire experiment that was weird. Chris Gaines was supposed to be an Australian pop singer. A top-of-the-world guy. The first problem is, some of these songs are pretty great. And this one went to number 5 on the Bilboard 100 and hit 62 on the U.S. Country chart, which is probably part of the oddness. Crossover in 1999 … Garth Brooks could have done it earlier, but refused. Chris Gaines did it for him later.

Also, at the nadir of the music video era, there’s Garth Brooks, who we’re used to seeing as one kind of goofy, playing a different kind of goofy. So you can maybe see where a little of the confusion comes from.

Another issue here is that a lot of his songs sounded like they should be Garth Brooks songs. This one, a really good tune, hit 24 on the U.S. Country chart.

Interesting thing: when that song started this time through on the Re-Listening project, I was on the same place I was the last time I heard that song. Weird, right? Took a photo to document the occasion.

Another thing about this record, excuse me, the pre-soundtrack, this was supposed to be this character’s greatest hits. What’s going to be on the soundtrack if the pre-soundtrack had the hits? And how was this one of Chris Gaines’ greatest hits?

The problem, for our purposes, is that no one has uploaded a lot of this record to YouTube. There are more covers, a full tribute album to the fictional character, and a lot of play-alongs, but not the original songs. But we can watch this talented person play along to the Beatles homage.

But if you didn’t get your fill here, fear not. Garth Brooks wants to bring the character back.

“The Gaines project was a lot of time put in — because it’s not natural, you’re acting on a record — but I want to do it simply for people who love the Gaines project,” Brooks said of re-adopting the alter-ego. “And selfishly, I love the Chris Gaines record, so I want to do it for me. It challenged me as a vocalist. So I don’t know when we’re going to get to it, but it’s on the list.”

I bought this out of the discount bin, where the labels buried it in a hurry. But, given all of his accolades, and his being one of the world’s best-selling music artists, the industry owes him here. I say let’s see what Garth & Chris can do next. It’s all digital now, anyway. Except for you and me, in the Re-Listening project. In our next installment we’ll hear from what might be the last CD I bought in 1999.

You can’t wait, I can tell.

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6
Jun 23

Raise your hands high

Guess who we’ll be spontaneously seeing soon? I’ll give you a hint.

That’s from the last Indigo Girls show I saw, in Indianapolis in 2017. This will be my seventh show. Reportedly, they’re on the road with a full band right now. I’ve never seen them play with a full band. This is quite exciting. And it moves us, quite neatly, into …

The latest installment of the Re-Listening project, the thing where I’m listening to all of my old CDs in the car, in the order in which they acquired. And this installment is the Indigo Girls’ “Come On Now Social,” their seventh studio album, released in 1999. I guess this was my third Indigo Girls album, after “1200 Curfews” and “Shaming of the Sun.” I caught up on the rest of the back catalog later, and this album’s consistency was what made me commit. You wear out a double live album and then find two studio albums in a row that you lean into, hard? Caught the live act two or three times by then, too? You found yourself a band.

This is one of those things I wish I could go back in time and put this on again, turn up the sound and hear it for the first time. I’d love to have this first impression again.

I won’t do this through the whole post, but since we’ll see them in concert again soon, here’s a live version.

I want to hear that again for the first time, almost every time, because even now, decades later, I’m still finding new things to be awed by in that track.

Also, I suppose that’s the second protest song (of my generation) I ever picked up on as being a protest song (non-Buffy Sainte-Marie division.) Anyway, I’m trying, right now to read the Meridel Le Sueur essay that’s spoken into that song. But Amy Ray just buries herself and she’s beautifully, wonderfully distracting.

Always with the Re-Listening project I am trying to find some memory that matches a track, a mood that meets the album. Sometimes these things stand out. But, always, when Emily Saliers is painting a picture, it’s just an attitude. It’s a credit to her storytelling ability. Her imagery crowds out my memories. But to think of whatever this inspires in you isn’t such a bad thing, even if it is an imagination rather than a memory.

The difficulty here will be in not playing the entire album. But it’s my site, and I’ll play a half dozen tracks from it if I want to. Anyway, if you’ll overlook the VHS and NTSC analog quality that YouTube compressed here, this is a gem. For fun, I always sing the chorus as “There ain’t no way I’m gonna let this heart win,” and it changes the song substantially. That’s neither here nor there.

When the banjo and the mandolin come out … God bless the Indigo Girls.

Speaking of imagery. The other day, when this next track came on, I was at a red light. It was a bright morning. Lots of sun. But the mood here is anything but. I was initially drawn into the band for the harmonies, but then found the … let’s call it the visceral, emotional core of truth … but the thing that’s not at all subtle, not at all to be disregarded, is the quality of storytelling Ray and Saliers can put around all of that.

But then they have to pep it up a little. Here’s a little drum fill, a few horns, and an under-appreciated song from Saliers. This is the one song that charted off the album, small HAC hit that marked the end of the Indigo Girls’ crossover success. (Because the music industry is powered by corporations and so often has no real relation to what we hear, what we like or what artists play. But I repeat myself.)

Feels like a cookout song to me. Who needs a cookout?

This song references a real person, it was quite high profile in the late 1990s. Do you remember?

The hidden tracks are in that YouTube video, if you are interested. Just scrub to about the seven minute mark.

And, when we see the Indigo Girls next weekend, we’ll be having a blast.

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5
Jun 23

The cats, bike rides, video and more

Since we were away visiting last Monday we didn’t have our regular feature — the site’s most popular feature, mind you — of checking in with the kitties. And they have been sure to remind me of that omission continually. So let’s dive in.

Phoebe has thoughts on all of these notions of travel. She is not a fan.

She would much rather I stay here and admire her stretching abilities. And also give her belly rubs.

Poseidon, meanwhile, was a little more chill about it — and that’s a phrase I never thought I could use with him. Here, he’s just snoozing a day away on the top of the sofa.

He was, however, none too pleased with our spending part of Sunday afternoon on the back deck without him.

The cats, in other words, are doing just fine.

We went for a bike ride on Saturday morning. Up and away before it got too warm. We finished and it was about 80 degrees and I was once again amazed at the difference in the last moments of a ride and the first moments after you dismount. Nothing ever seems so hot as those few seconds where I am turning my bike computer off, taking off the bike shoes and trying to get inside to cooler air.

We did about 27 miles. I was ahead of her by just a few seconds when I took that photo, somewhere in mile 11 or so. She would catch up with me in the 14th mile, we stayed together for a few more miles, and then I dropped her. So, nice guy that I am, trying to demonstrate good bike date etiquette, I waited for her. Then, after mile 17 she recovered, just as I predicted, and shot herself out of a cannon.

I did not see her again on Saturday morning until the odometer read 26.59. And, even then, she was but a colorful dot way up the road.

Today, it was just me. I put in 29 more miles, basically the same route, with a slight change at the end. It was harder, I was faster, and now I’m trying to keep my shoulders from cramping up. But there’s video!

Today’s ride made this year my fourth-best in terms of miles. By the end of this week 2023 should be in third place. It’ll take some time to crack the top two, however.

Sunday scenes. This is the big beautiful maple tree in the backyard. It dominates one half of the view from the deck. It’s a good view.

And it has been a long time since I noticed this, but the way the house is oriented, and because of the features around us, we don’t see the best sunsets here. But if you look around at the right time you get a nice sliver of light coming through the front door.

The light is pointing east. So was I, more or less, when I shot that photo of the maple tree. The photo of The Yankee on her bike? I’m facing the west. The two shots of Poe? He’s pointing east-ish. Phoebe? East, then west. What does it all mean? Not the first thing.