I’m not sure if it is time to transition the title of these assorted notes posts back to how I labelled them before March. Not everything in these is about what is going on with Covid anymore. At the same time, our lives are going to continue to be pretty boring for some time and much of what I share here will be affected, at least indirectly, by the state of the world.
youtu.be/KRa8ZH_iO… Prince and the Revolution, live, 3/30/85 This is my weekend assignment, so I’ll make it yours, too. For this weekend only this concert is streaming for free. Superfans insist it is one of the greatest Prince performances ever, and it came at the absolute height of his popularity. Find a way to spend two hours with it.
I’ve seen the article I’m linking to below passed around a lot this week, so many of you have probably at least seen it. I highly recommend reading through it. Erin Bromage is a biology professor who explains how things could go over the next few months, as we being to reopen while still navigating the back side of the curve. As states reopen, and we give the virus more fuel, all bets are off.
I’ve felt a lack of enthusiasm and motivation the past few days. School is winding down. M is done Friday. C and L are done next week. Assignments have already dried up and they’re just running out the clock. A few teachers seem to have checked out, too, which makes it tough to motivate the girls. The news has devolved further, making me less and less interested in paying attention to what’s going on, and making my blood pressure rise when I do check in.
Point B - Drew Magary God damnit, Magary has done it again! (I feel like he would like that opening line.) If you can’t immediately place the name, Magary is the all-around excellent writer responsible for things like his annual take down of the Williams Sonoma Christmas catalog, the best mailbag on the internet (once on Deadspin now on Vice), his weekly NFL columns, his political/culture/food writings on various outlets, and his long form profiles for GQ.
Happy Friday, y’all. It’s a Wordpress/Spotify Fuck Up Week so here’s a link to the playlist. “Melancholy, MA” - The Sheila Divine I just discovered this week that TSD, a band I loved almost 20 years ago, put out a new album last year. I listened to it and was impressed with the first 4–5 songs before it lost steam and meandered to the end. Those good songs don’t match their classic ones, but they’re good enough to throw into the rotation for awhile.
It is so sad what has happened to Sports Illustrated over the past decade. SI was required reading for people my age who were into sports for most of our young lives. When I was a kid, Thursdays were the best day of the year because that’s when the new issue of SI would usually land in the mailbox. The magazine was full of great game stories, features on the most interesting athletes in the world, and usually one long-form piece that you would want to read again as soon as you finished it.
Chart Week: April 23, 1983 Song: “One On One” - Daryl Hall & John Oates Chart Position: #7, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for three weeks. Sometimes I come across anecdotes on AT40 that make me giddy. For example, I first heard this episode a few years back while in the car one Sunday morning. I heard the story I’m about to share and started hooting in excitement.
It feels typical for this stage in life here on earth that anytime there is good news, it is heavily balanced by awful news. The worst, early hot spots are all calming down. Italy and Spain are taking steps to return to normal. The New York City/State area are trending in a positive direction. Across the US, many restrictions are being relaxed. All that is countered by the brutal reality that we are likely moving back toward normal too early and too quickly.
A full month of being locked in had the expected effect on what I’ve been watching on TV: I consumed a shit-load of content! I thought about breaking this list into multiple entries. Instead I’m going to put on my editing hat and pare these down as much as I can. I will put the items I write most about at top, and share progressively less as we move through the list.
It’s going to be a beautiful weekend here in Indianapolis. I hope wherever you are the weather will allow you to get outside and enjoy a nice day or three as well. Here is a soundtrack for your weekend activities. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Sun Baby” - The High Violets I loved this band in the mid–00s and thought they had disappeared. I was just reading up on them and saw they released a highly regarded album just four years ago.
I shared earlier this week that I’m paying less direct attention to the news over the past couple weeks. I am, though, still reading plenty of deeper pieces on where we are at and where we are headed. I still have several articles in the queue but I thought these two pieces were very good and worth sharing. They take a look at the structural issues in our country, largely political, that the Coronavirus crisis has highlighted.
A big step back toward normalcy today: S went back to work. She’s on a limited schedule, just two days a week and only seeing two patients per hour, all of whom are age two and under. She’s also not back in her office as it remains closed for the time being. This will be the plan for six weeks or so and then there is a phase 2 and 3 in the works before her practice is completely open again.
Last Tuesday CBS aired a very important program. Officially titled Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince, the show as a tribute to the late Prince, who died exactly four years ago from its initial air date. The show got such a great reaction that CBS re-aired it Saturday night. I recorded the Tuesday broadcast and watched it Thursday afternoon. It was outstanding! These tribute shows can often go off the rails, become mawkish, or serve more as vehicles for the performers than the honoree.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Runaway Dog” - Retirement Party Seems like there have been several songs I’ve shared lately that have a strong, mid–90s vibe. Not sure if that means the grunge years are coming back. Add this one to the list. Especially in the rhythm section this has the feel of a Belly song. “Wash it Away” - Black Lab This wasn’t really grunge era - it was released in 1997 - but it is a forgotten gem from the ’90s alt-rock scene.
I worked my way through my stack of library books a few weeks ago, so it’s down to the Kindle and re-reading a few books I have around until the physical library opens again. Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name - Vendela Vida With the transition to Kindle books, I’m finding recommendations in odd places. Someone on Twitter recommended this book about a month ago, when it just happened to be on sale.
This is more of a random tidbits post. Nothing real earth-shattering in it. More mundane details of life in April 2020. I think we’ve reached the point in our house where we are all a little pissy with each other. Last week did not help. Damp, dreary, cool. We were stuck inside all last week due to the chilly, wet weather. My mind kept reaching for something that would get us out of the house: a practice or game, a birthday party, a sleepover, a dinner with friends.
Chart Week: April 10, 1982 Song: “Genius of Love” - Tom Tom Club Chart Position: #37, 12th week on the chart. Peaked at #31 for two weeks. (Administrative note: this is the second RFTS entry from this chart week. The first is here.) This entry is both about the song and about the radio station on which I heard it the most as a kid. Tom Tom Club was a side project of married couple Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, members of Talking Heads.
I’m going to try to mix these up a little more than I have been lately. The focus will still be on sharing new(-ish) music. But I’m also going to throw in a few more older songs each week, just to stretch this out a little and make it feel a little more like my old podcast. If I could figure out a way to put my own vocal commentary between Spotify tracks, I would re-launch that podcast.
First, some great news. I have not shared here that a good high school friend of S has been in the hospital with Covid–19 for over three weeks. He was in the ICU on a ventilator for over two of those weeks. Based on the updates we were getting, we think he was very close to death on at least two occasions. We know the hospital chaplain paid him a visit three Saturdays ago and believed that would be his final visit.