Do you know how long this drive is? Hint: the answer is, “Longer than online maps suggest.”
So this is a quick photo post. We are staying at my godsister-in-law’s (just go with it) tonight. Tomorrow, we do the last walk through on our new house, sign 1.2 million documents to make it ours, and then watch all of our stuff come out of a truck and into the house. Ya know, the easy part.
I am so tired.
When the bucket of the dozer needs a series of supports, you’re talking about some serious machinery.
Do you know what it is like to stare at your bike for nine-plus hours, and not be able to ride it?
Yes, there was a lot of traffic like that. But, then, somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania, around dinner time (because we’d driven through breakfast and lunch already, so why not?) all of the cars just disappeared. Everyone had gotten where they needed to be. That’s always a warm thought, especially when you’re not there yet. But the sun was getting low, which meant we were getting closer.
And it was good to see it in the mirror behind me.
We had a late lunch outdoors at Buffalouie’s, one of our favorite local joints. It’s the sort of place where the owner thinks of it all as a party, and he’s the host. He knows people. Knows their names, remembers their stories. He has the great gift of recall, such that, despite the thousands of people that come through his doors each year, he can make a mental reconnection even if you haven’t been in for a bite in a long, long time.
He has always been good to students, for he knows where he makes his money. And he’s always been helpful to the students I know, for he knows a little free marketing might be a good thing. And he’s just a decent sort. During the beginning of the pandemic he made lunches for some time for all of those little kids who were missing out on free lunches — an important part of many kids’ diets — because they weren’t in school. All of it together makes one loyal. And the food isn’t bad, either. Much better than the nostalgic dive a block away.
So we were sitting out under an umbrella on the sidewalk when the funniest, saddest, happened. Someone we know walked by, doing that thing where they stare intently at their phone so they don’t have to make eye contact, or engage with you. It was perfect.
Then I had a moment that reminded me of the early scene from “Dead Poet’s Society.”
Seize the day, boys …
Seize. The da — ahh, never mind, then.
We went to the lake to float on floats, which we did for an hour or two yesterday. And then the thunder came through. So we called it early. That just meant we got to dinner faster, takeout Japanese to celebrate another big day, and that was Tuesday. Today, the usual, which means you get more music.
Since we saw The Indigo Girls two weekends ago, and I have video, I’m sharing video. This is from 1992’s “Rites of Passage.” Oddly, this record gets dismissed by critics in the qualitative sense, but they all give it a lot of stars for quantitative purposes. No one knows what they are talking about. This is the fourth studio album from Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, and it included contributions from the likes of Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Michael Kamen, Kenny Aronoff, Benmont Tench, The Roches, Nollaig Ní Chathasaigh and more. Six or seven of the songs have become standards in their catalog, including “Joking.”
The record peaked at 21 on the Billboard charts and is certified platinum. Maybe no one knows what they are talking about, but fans know what they’re buying. This wasn’t released as a single, but there was a video. And aside from the clothes, some 31 years later everything is the same.
OK, the clothes and that TV set. But every shot they put in the TV is still with us today, too. The activism went mainstream, and time is still funny.
We continue along in the Re-Listening project, as well, with Keb’ Mo’s “Slow Down.” This is the thing where I am listening to all of my old CDs in the car, in the order in which I acquired them. This record came out in August of 1998, but I picked this up in 1999. (Eventually, I promise, we’ll make it past Y2K.)
This is the second Keb’ Mo’ record I have, a few months ago we touched on “Just Like You” for the Re-Listening project. It’s good to have a few pieces from his catalog for hinting at some musical complexity. Variation is important. Here’s the thing, Keb’ Mo’ sounds so comfortable, so confident, so at peace with himself, that it doesn’t sound much like the blues.
Peoples Exhibit A, the opening track.
Now that’s a fine song. Good and fun. But is it the blues? He won his second Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album with this record, so I’m clearly wrong here, and that’s fine. This song is about that all-too-common phenomena many of us experience, the money going out before it can even come in. There’s a certain sadness,some blues, you might say, with the concept behind “Soon As I Get Paid,” but he’s just too joyous and the guitar is too comfortable.
There’s a lyric about not being able to afford the bar tab, Monday mornings, and the IRS, but it’s just happy listening, somehow. He’s got three Grammy awards for blues records, and has another a handful of nominations spread out across his 19 records. And, at 71, he’s still touring, crisscrossing the country several times between now and October. Hopefully he’s getting paid. But even if he’s not, you know what the tunes will sound like when he takes the stage.
I had an afternoon meeting today that was scheduled for 45 minutes. I managed to stretch it into an hour and 20 minutes, because, sometimes, emphasis is necessary. After that meeting, I shared a stairwell with one of the participants. Apparently it was an awkward silence moment for the other person, because we started talking about the weather.
Had I been outside? No, not since I came in this morning. Is it amazing? The other person hadn’t been outside, either. I said I would give it a try after work, when I went for a little bike ride. And then we went our separate ways from the stairwell.
And the rest of the day I spent, happily, thinking about that bike ride.
After leaving the office I stopped off at the hardware store. I heard two guys there having a good workplace bull session which devolved into a debate over which one’s argument was more semantic.
I thought to interject, you know, set them straight, but I realized that both guys already thought they were the smartest person in the room.
That restraint, I think, is real personal growth on my part.
For the record, the first guy wasn’t being semantic; he was being pedantic. The second guy was just being sarcastic.
Otherwise my trip to the hardware store was a bust. I searched online the two big box stores. No joy. So I spent a part of the early evening peering into ChatGPT generated Amazon ads.
No one is talking about how shoddy the content has become on that site, but it’s a scourge.
All of which just kept me from my bike ride. I started late, and it was sunny, but soon that normal early summer look turned moody. Clouds were coming in, from Canada, I’m sure, and it made me wonder about those air quality maps. Remember those? From, what, one week ago? Smoke from Canadian wildfires descended on the east coast of the U.S. And, to a lesser degree, it’s happening again right now. This time over Minnesota and, I suspect, here. Nowhere in-between, just Minnesota and here. Look at this view.
The timestamp says it was 8:09. And you can tell by the height of the sun that we should have another hour and more of sun. But all of that smoke makes the sun look small and weak, which often happens when you’re near wildfires.
Anyway, because of the late start and the dimmer skies and how my legs absolutely died after a half-hour, I called it a short ride. Just 20 miles, but I only had to put my foot down one time. And I set a PR on the penultimate hill, a tiny bit over a quarter-mile that I got over at 21.6 miles an hour, taking three seconds off my previous best. Maybe there’s another second or two I can get out of that, but not much more.
Let’s go back to The Ryman. You wouldn’t have to ask me twice. The Indigo Girls don’t play a lot of things that you’d slot into the country music category, but the venue has a rock ‘n’ roll wing these days. And there’s a madolin, a fiddle, a steel guitar and a banjo in here anyway.
This is from their well-regarded eighth studio album, “Become You,” which is filled top-to-bottom with great tracks. “Yield” is no exception.
All of the time I’ve seen the Indigo Girls, something like seven or eight shows over the years, I’ve never seen these songs played with a full band. I’ll take Amy and Emily on stage any day of the week, but there’s an extra energy when they’re surrounded by talented players, in a place like The Ryman. You’re going to see a lot of that as these videos continue.
Yes, I can stretch this out for a couple of weeks. It is almost like you’re at the concert with us!
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.
“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.
The long weekend was long and fun and now it has come to an end. I know this because we got in the car and drove in the reverse direction we enjoyed last Friday. Through the hills and onto the interstate, meeting a friend for a quick lunch in Nashville, and then back to the big roads to go all the way to Indiana.
Here are some of the views. These are, I believe, from somewhere in western Kentucky.
And this one too, out of the passenger window.
Near the Kentucky-Indiana border there’s a weird turn we always miss. We even make mental notes of it, and sometimes say it aloud: don’t miss the weird turn. We missed the weird turn.
So we went eight miles up the road, took the next exit and a scenic detour.
Everything looks great to start the summer.
Seasonal changes happen at their own pace, and our perceptions of them take their own time, too. In a few days we’ll grow accustomed to all of that green again.
