Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Friday / memories / music / Re-Listening / video — Comments Off
09
May 25

Let’s listen to some music

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?)

Hootie isn’t touring this year, but Darius is.

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!

adventures / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
08
May 25

And then it became our home

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.

adventures / collarbone / cycling / Wednesday — Comments Off
07
May 25

A group ride

The grading and sharing of notes continues. And it will continue throughout the day, and probably most of tomorrow. So I’m on schedule, I suppose, but this could go faster. Feedback, however, is time intensive. I try to be as specific and useful as possible. And though there are some recurring themes that allow me to, occasionally, use a bit of copy-and-paste boilerplate on How To Fix That Particular Problem, a lot of this is bespoke.

Here’s the real problem. Canvas, our learning management system of choice, shows me a student’s PDF or DOC file or whatever in one frame of a browser, and, in another, it gives me a tiny little box to type in. Experience has taught me that typing in little boxes does wonders for my creative typographical errors. So I spend a decent chunk of time on each one just trying to read through what I wrote — unlike here — in the hopes that it makes sense. That it is applicable. That it is thoughtful and, dare I hope it, professorial.

It’s grimly humorous to me that I’m in a place where I can evaluate and score someone based on their typos, and I’m working in these tiny little text boxes that give me ample opportunity to sound almost literate.

Also, my feedback ranges from 200-600 words. And I have 60-some of these to work through. So, yeah, it takes time.

But I have an advantage today. Our neighor invited us out for an early morning bike ride. It was short, but also early enough that I’ve had more time in front of the computer screen, joy of joys.

Anyway, that’s our neighbor in the front right. He’s also an Ironman. And a bionic man.

Behind him is his friend. This guy had moved away to Florida, but recently returned to spend more time near his grandchildren. So he’s retired, but busier than ever maintaining two homes. He spent most of the ride telling me about the furniture he’s buying online and refinishing, and the work they’re doing to their house here. They seem the sort to buy it and leap right into it. Makes sense, make it yours! I don’t seem to be capable of that. People lived in this house before me, and that’s something to be respectful of and all. But this guy, he and his wife purchased a home from an elderly couple and it obviously needed to have some updating so they’ve just ripped out the floors and are walking around on the slab right now while the flooring people do their work. Also, he can tell you about the table and chairs he bought on Facebook Marketplace, what they’re worth, down to the penny, and what he bought them for.

He was, perhaps he still is, a big time amateur racer. And so as we went over roads he’s known for years and is now getting reacquainted with, he was telling me about things that happened on each of them, including when we crossed over one bridge where he crashed out and broke his collarbone. So naturally I had to tell our collarbone stories. And then we found ourselves on that freshly painted ribbon, zig zagging our way through quiet little neighborhoods from whence people were starting their day.

At the end of it all, we got to a stop sign and the retiree said thanks for the ride, and turned left. The rest of us went straight. When we got to our neighborhood we thanked our friend for the invite and went up our drive as he continued on down to his home.

That’s the way it is, riding with other people. You get to know these specific slices of their life. You could ride with them dozens of times, knowing only these little bits about them. And if you see them in their secret identity clothes around town, you might not even recognize one another. But then you see them on the next ride.

Small groups, like this, make for a fun ride, so I hope we get to do it again soon.

But, now, back to Canvas.

photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
06
May 25

Look at those faces

Everything is coming due for my students, so my full time job is, this week, more than a full time job. One class submitted their finals yesterday. At midnight my other classes submitted some important work, a draft of their social media audits. The final is due next week. It’s a tight turnaround for some. If you’re on the right path, it’s just a few corrections or tweaks here or there. If you’re going the wrong way, there’s a fair amount of work to be done to get on the right track before next week’s final submission. I don’t envy them that, but the schedule is the schedule, and out of my hands.

What I can do, however, is get them feedback with time to spare. My goal is to get all of that in their hands by Thursday, because the final project is due next Monday night. Also, their final exam looms on the same schedule. A lot happens late in that course, and it’s an excellent primer for people headed into fast-paced working environments, but it can be a lot. So I am reading quickly, typing furiously, and then holding Zoom meetings about it with students who are interested.

Zoom meetings that students ask for, most of whom don’t turn on the video function of Zoom. So it is a phone call. How do I know? Because I’ve made phone calls before. (Haha, he’s old! — editor) Also, because they’re often doing that on their phone … except I’m on video … and that’s tiresome to contemplate.

Anyway, let’s quickly fill the space with the site’s most popular feature, our weekly check in on the kitties.

I invite you to take a moment to just look at this face. Fall into those deep swirling eyes and contemplate the vastness and the minuteness of the universe. And also the mischief he is dreaming up.

I tell him all the time, “It is a good thing you’re so charming, Poseidon. You should spend more time on that, as opposed to causing trouble.”

Because he can be one of those things, but he chooses to do the other.

Phoebe is, on the other hand, always charming.

So the cats are doing well. But they’re not doing any of this grading for me. So back to the salt mines I go.

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
05
May 25

Now we come to it

Final papers are in for my international media class. I’m trying to get ahead of them so I can stay ahead of my other grading. While one class is finished, another has a tight turnaround on some important work. This week, from my perspective then, is about giving good feedback in a timely manner, so that it is useful to the students.

So this is brief. More brief than normal. (You’re welcome?)

Just riding around the neighborhood on Saturday, in reality is about six neighborhoods, gave me an easy bit of exercise, and a brief glimpse of the sheep and one of their faithful companions.

Sometimes that dog is sleeping as I go back. Occasionally I cruise through there and he’s working. Every now and again he races me — usually he lets me win. But, today, they were all huddled together and something behind me caught his interest.

We recently discovered the local creamery. My lovely bride says I found it, but I have absolutely no recollection of that. They have three flavors of custard, and last night, a night that was sticky and warm enough to make it quickly look like a potential drippy mess, I tried the creamsicle.

They only accept cash. And while I respect their stance on traditionalism at this creamery, that will limit my abilities to visit there. Who has cash? Probably this is a good thing. It is only four miles away, and I can’t always be lucky about eating it before it gets everywhere.

The local bike shop does a ride to the creamery in the earliest part of the summer. It’s a neighborhood thing, and we’ll join in. Because there is ice cream.

But, first, there is grading. So let me get back to that.