Weeknotes: July 22-26, 2024
Monday, July 22
I drive to the optometrist to pick up my new lenses. After two weeks of squinting and headaches, I ease back into a world of stunning clarity. I almost expect to hear a fanfare as I slide them onto my face. On the drive home I stop at Dairy Queen and eat a chocolate-vanilla twist cone in my car while listening to pundits discussing President Biden's decision to drop out of the race. For the first time in months, I feel some hope. The path to November had become a funeral procession. Can Harris can pull off what shouldn't have to seem like some kind of miracle?
It's an otherwise desultory day of self-admin and catching up at work. At night I walk into town to see a show at Ziggy's, less because I want to, but because I think going out would be good for me. It was right move. Sitting on the stage floor, Sara Tea plays a hypnonic set of ambient autoharp drones and other manipulated sounds while landscape videos are projected on to a small board to her left. Michael C. Sharp follows her with radiant synth and guitar shimmers, and finally my neighbor, Golden Feelings, kicks off his summer tour, sending out sweet lotic tones from a small Mexican blanket-covered podium. It’s a perfect Monday show. Soothing experimental music, no vocals. I catch up with friends and discuss DJ-ing skate jams, breaking down in the desert, banjo museums, and Ray Lynch's Deep Breakfast.
Tuesday, July 23
The Aphasia Choir episode of Rumble Strip is one of the best podcasts I've ever heard. I listened to it on a training run and was so overcome with emotion I had to stop and gather myself. I’m always drawn to Erica Heilman’s stories, but this one really got to me. She interviews members of a Vermont choir who have suffered strokes or traumatic head injuries and now struggle with language. Apparently, people with aphasia can sometimes sing more easily than speak. Of course this story appeals to me as a singer, but there is a particular interviewee that I find so compelling.
Heilman talks with a woman named Anna King who suffered a head injury from a bicycle accident when she was a teenager. I don't know why, but her halting, idiosyncratic voice just travels right to my soul. She has this sweet, joyful bark of a laugh that lands like punctuation after revealing some difficult truth. It’s so infectious. Near the end of the episode, they play a recording of King's vocal solo on Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" (scroll to 16:35) and it's one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. These people are trying to heal and communicate and navigate some unexpected new version of their lives without the tools most of us take for granted. It’s incredible.
Wednesday, July 24
Do I do too much? I ask myself this all the time and it's even a lyric in one of my songs. Still, I constantly feel like I'm not achieving enough. A little after 4:00 I find myself racing toward Saline with Islay in the passenger seat, trying to make our vet appointment on time. After completing my workload for the day, I did a seven mile training run, made a quick sandwich, then furiously mowed and trimmed the lawn, allowing just enough time for a shower before the appointment.
In total, we're gone about two hours. The little bump I'd noticed on Islay's chest is thankfully just a benign fat deposit, standard old dog stuff. While we're there she gets her rabies vaccine and DHPP booster too. Three jabs for my poor little babe. She endures it like a champ and I take her down to Mill Pond Park as a reward. She splashes around in the creek and we go for a little walk together through the wooded trails on the other side of Bowley Bridge. I feel a lot of affection for my old hometown tonight and wish I could stop by Salt Springs for a beer, but I want to get Islay home and relax in our own yard.
I lay in my hammock under my morning glory trellis with a beer and read Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. It's been on my list for years and I recently found a copy at the library sale for a dollar. Later I play guitar on the porch. Not practicing for anything, just lazily noodling and watching the street. In my mind it feels like August 31, but there's still some summer left. It's only July.
Thursday, July 25
I drag myself through a six mile run, but my body is tired this week. I haven't allowed myself enough time to rest. In the evening Islay and I return to Saline and help K set up for the Olympic Opening Ceremony party tomorrow. Just as I'm about to head out I see Nick through my bedroom window placing an old green mid century office chair on the curb. He kneels down to photograph it with his phone. Moments later two pics of a green mid century chair appear in my text feed asking if I'd like it. I put it in my car and take it over to K's to use as extra seating for the party.
She has festooned the backyard with strings of international flags, globe luminaries, and various full size flags which I help hang along the sides of the porch and garden fence. As host country, the French flag gets pride of place behind the pizza oven. Smaller flags on sticks are stuck in the ground bordering the patio in front of the large blow-up screen onto which we will project the ceremony tomorrow evening. It looks like the gift shop of the United Nations. There is no greater concentration of flags anywhere in the Midwest. It is like the Bronner's of Olympic Spirit.
Friday, July 26
I remove the backplate of my old Ampeg R-12R. Two of the five screws are original, the others mismatched and mostly flathead, requiring me to use two screwdrivers. The front emblem has been missing since the mid-2000s and the navy blue checkerboard tolex is pocked and chipped. The grill cloth is worn in a circular ring around the speaker like an old LP sleeve. This amp been very good to me over the past quarter century. It has traveled around the county and appeared on most of my albums. I bought it in 1998 at a short-lived drum shop on Washtenaw and Hogback. It's now a car audio shop called Mr. Tunes that has big splashy ads in the windows. How long has it been since I replaced its tubes? The whole thing could use an overhaul. It might be time to call Tom Currie out at Detroit Amp Lab. There is always a piece of gear or an instrument that needs attention, but somehow I still get surprised when a faithful tool begins to fail.
The Olympic party is a success. We lounge among the world’s flags drinking champagne and imported beer and watch the parade of nations cruise down the Seine. I've crossed some of those bridges myelf and recognize a few locations along the route. Suddenly Lady Gaga appears as a cabaret act singing "Mon truc en plumes." More barges of smiling Olympians pass, then Paris goes unexpectedly metal. Gojira's performance draws the first round of applause from our crew. It's still too light out to use the projector, so we watch on an outdoor television and run the audio into my old P.A. system. By the time it's finally dark enough for the big screen, half our audience has gone home. Soon I'm packed and gone too, leaving poor K a party-wrecked house. She sends me videos of the twinkling Eiffel Tower and torch-bearers during my drive home. I missed the ending.