Weeknotes: September 16-20, 2024
Monday, September 16
There's a bad smell coming from somewhere on the porch. Is it just my overripe trash can? I'm standing out there sniffing, looking over the rail for a decaying rodent when CC pulls up. I guide her up the steps to "the spot" but she doesn't smell anything out of the ordinary.
We play through a handful of songs in the living room while Islay whines, begging for treats. Her brat summer continues. Many of our rehearsal tapes have insolent dog noises on them, like ambient feedback. She eventually settles down, head on paws, and listens from the couch.
CC and I revisit songs from previous albums and scale down a newer one from its full-band arrangement to duo format. We also add a few more short pieces which preface longer songs like sympathetic key siblings. In this way, our next set will contain about 20 songs in 45 minutes.
Weeknotes: July 8-12, 2024
Monday, July 8
In my dream I'm exploring a vast art deco hotel. It's mostly empty, either abandoned or in the offseason. Crates of interesting goods are stacked haphazardly around a casino-like room and behind the ornate bar I notice a beat-up cardboard box advertising a Casio keyboard model I've never seen before. What I pull out of it ends up being a gig bag containing an ornate handmade bouzouki, or maybe a cittern. Its strings are strangely paired with the middle ones in overstuffed clusters of three or four, all tuned in unison rather than octaves. I also notice the wood has rotted around the soundhole and on the back. A shame, as it's a beautifully designed instrument. I decide not to steal it.
I spend some time with Pretzel, my neighbor's three-legged cat, for whom I'm caring this week. He has barfed on his white couch blanket every day and every day I carry it down to the laundry room and re-wash it. I listen to Jake Xerxes Fussell's new album as I drive to Dexter to meet up with my cousins one last time before they depart to their respective homes in Pennsylvania and Florida. After dinner we visit our grandparents' grave where last summer we also laid some of their mom's ashes in a spontaneous little family ceremony. Then it's hugs all around and off we go into the furnace of a July evening. I put on some Hawaiian slack key music and keep all the windows down even on the highway.
Weeknotes: May 13-17, 2024
Monday, May 13
In my dream I'm on stage with State Park. Matt grabs an oversized megaphone and takes it over to his mic where he uncharacteristically adds blaring vocals to our song "Witches," then misses his horn cue at the end. After it's over we calmly discuss it for a minute as the crowd grows restless. Sensing this, I get on the mic and try to recover with some stage banter: "We were just making some notes. You guys like notes? I write tons of notes every day…"
After work I drive to Lowe's to buy one more 2"x8"x8' for a pair of Leopold benches I'm building. "Measure twice, cut once" is the old adage, but I fucked up one of the larger pieces on my first bench and now I have to buy another eight feet of lumber to gain the 33 extra inches I need for the second one. My versatile little Hyundai has transported plenty of lumber, but today a freak shift causes the board to bounce up off the dashboard and crack my windshield. The cost of this second bench just went up by several hundred dollars. It's a setback that would have sunk my mood most days, but the weather has been so nice and I'm enjoying my spring projects. I shrug it off and go home to set up my tools. I’ll sort the windshield out later.