open.spotify.com/user/224a… “You Amaze Me” - La Force. I’m not sure how to describe this song. There are hints of neo-R&B, but I wouldn’t say it’s a modern R&B song. There’s a healthy amount of indie rock to it, but it also doesn’t sound like standard indie rock fare. Nor is it straight, modern pop. Regardless, this ode by Broken Social Scene member Ariel Engel to her husband, fellow BSS member Andrew Whiteman, is excellent.
Time for an end-of-the-week update, as it has been an interesting few days. I’ll share the good first: we actually have some movement in getting our house connected to the internet and world of cable television! Thursday morning L came and found me and asked, “Who is that creepy guy in the backyard?” I looked out and, sure enough, there was a creepy guy pushing one of those bicycle-wheel measuring things across our backyard.
Our internet-less summer continues. Joyous times. We checked in with the fine folks at the Comcast store on Saturday. Golly, they sure had no idea why our request was still just sitting there without anything being done to it. The guy who helped us was the guy who put our initial request in three weeks ago. When we asked him, “OK, who do we talk to to get it moving?” He responded, “My manager.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Cuddly Toy” - Roachford. For years I couldn’t remember the artist that sang this song, which I listened to on an endless loop the week I graduated from high school. I had the cassette single of it - holy time warp, Batman - and someone swiped it from me when I got to college that fall. When the wonderful world of “file sharing” arrived, I kept trying to find it, but was always looking under the wrong name.
Dear readers, I apologize. Between all the craziness of week one in our new home, I’ve not been able to sit down and share some updates with you all. And I realized last night that given part of Monday’s post, some of you may be worried about C. I can happily report that she is back to normal, acting goofy, annoying us with her hyperactivity, and generally being herself. We never determined, with complete certainty, what caused her issues last week.
What a weekend. Thursday, we closed on the new house. Which I believe I mentioned. What I did not mention was we also got an offer on our old house that day. It was not a good offer, thus my failure to mention it. But, we had no other offers, we were moving in two days, so rather than just reject it, S and I decided to see how much the potential buyers wanted to dance.
Since Comcast can’t get their shit together and get us cable/internet, this is a test post to see if I can post from the iPad when using my iPhone’s hotspot. Cuz I gots to crank out the content, fools.
Hmmm, based on my test post, it looks like Spotify playlist embedding might be working again. Naturally I had a post based purely on videos lined up for today… Funny thing, all three times we’ve purchased a house, the third week of June has been involved in the transaction. Fifteen years ago we bought our current home in May, but moved into it the week of June 16–21. Six years ago we closed on the lake house on June 22 and headed down immediately after.
“Good arms vs. bad arms will win hands down, down…” Ten years ago today I was going through my normal morning routine of scrolling through my RSS Reader’s new article queue while the girls watched Disney shows when I came across a blog post that changed my life. The I Am Fuel, You Are Friends blog, which was one of my favorite music blogs at the time, published an interview with the lead singer of a young band from Scotland[1].
I had been sleeping better for the past couple weeks. Well, kind of. Instead of lying awake for hours making and remaking 1000 mental lists related to our real estate adventures, sometime about 10 days ago I began falling immediately and deeply asleep, not waking until morning, and then feeling as though I had only slept for half an hour or so. I’m not as exhausted as I had been, but neither am I feeling 100% rested like I normally would have 8–10 hours of deep sleep.
So frustrating that Spotify and Wordpress still don’t appear to be working well together. So I guess I’ll stick to videos for the time being, until I can figure out why playlists no longer embed. youtu.be/BmRovgZsv… “Africa” - Toto. The song that blew up the Internet a couple weeks ago. I have mixed feelings. It’s pretty faithful to the original. Which makes it seem a little lazy to me. But, then again, why try to remake what has been a classic for over a quarter century now?
I haven’t posted anything about Anthony Bourdain. Although he didn’t impact my life as much as Scott Hutchison did, Bourdain’s suicide still struck me deeply. I watched his shows for years, read several of his books, and was a fan of his overall approach to life. I’ve written before about the irony of my love of travel books given the general lack of traveling in my life. Bourdain lived a life, at least the one that we saw on screen, that I would have loved to have lived.
I’ve long documented on the pages of this personal website (aka weblog, aka blog) that Mother Nature is a bitch. She proved that to be true once again this weekend. After six weeks of hot, dry weather, she decided to unleash a torrent of heavy rains on central Indiana. Just in time to, more or less, ruin our weekend at the lake. We had about two good hours Saturday, between our first guests arriving and the first storms hitting, and then maybe 45 minutes Sunday between storm waves, to take kids out on the boat for tubing and boarding.
Welp, appears something between Spotify and WordPress is not working these days. So only a video for today. youtu.be/Naf5uJYGo… “Hey Ladies” - Beastie Boys. A classic. Free James Brown.
The first week of summer was exhausting. Not because we did a bunch of fun stuff. Rather because it was spent putting two houses onto the market. Our main home went on the market last Tuesday, although the sign didn’t go into the yard until Wednesday. So there was a seemingly endless list of cleaning and straightening and other tiny projects to make the house gleam as much as it can.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Sugar & Spice” - Hatchie. Man, Hatchie’s five-song EP which came out a week ago is sneakily one of the best things I’ve heard this year. “An Air Conditioned Man” - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. Speaking of Best of 2018, based on two early singles from their up-coming album, RBCF are poised to become one of the great bands in indie rock. “Sleep All Summer” - Neko Case. Funny how I included the original Crooked Fingers version of this last week and today Case’s new album arrived with this cover, complete with vocals from CF’s Eric Bachmann.
I’ve never checked out the infield portion of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the 500 mile race. I’m likely too old to do so. Or at least too old and with too low tolerances for drinking in the heat. But it’s good to know that even if tamer than in its glory days of the 1970s and 1980s, the Snake Pit is still a den of debauchery and mayhem on race day.
My reading pace has come to a nearly complete stop over the past few weeks. That’s a shame, because I’m pretty sure I was on pace to have my best reading year ever. George Brett didn’t hit .400 the entire summer of 1980, so I guess I was due for a slump. Manhattan Beach - Jennifer Egan. I read this three weeks ago, so I’m not sure how much justice I can do to it.
Our summer is off to a very hot and hectic start. Remember back when I was bitching about how cold it was in April? Mother Nature was paying attention and has punished me, and others in Indiana, who complained about her April offerings. This month is almost certain to clinch the hottest May in Indianapolis history. Yesterday was the hottest May day here in 107 years. It’s stupid. I’m assuming June is going to be wet and in the 60s.
About an hour ago I dropped the girls off at school for the last time this academic year. And, as M pointed out, this is the last time we will ever take that route to school. Next fall our drive will be about eight minutes shorter. Some songs for the occasion. open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Summer of ’69” - Bryan Adams “Summer Nights” - Van Halen “Summer Teeth” - Wilco “Sleep All Summer” - Crooked Fingers