Weeknotes: June 24-28, 2024

Monday, June 24

I've been thinking about all the great bands I've seen recently and how it has rekindled my love of concert-going. This inspires me to start a spreadsheet of every concert I can remember attending. Lists are my language. How have I not made this one yet? I begin with the past decade which is well-documented in my planners and journals. After that I resort to memory and the internet, researching the dates of some of my most formative experiences. Here's what I learn.

Between 1988 and 1990 (ages 11-13), my parents spent a lot of money to make sure I saw some of the bedrock touring bands of the era. Of course, my very first concert was a few years earlier, the Beach Boys with Warren Zevon on Memorial Day weekend, 1984. I have vague sensory memories of it, but can recall no strong details. I sadly remember nothing of Zevon and only know of his participation from the ticket stub. In retrospect, I know Dennis Wilson had died the previous December, so I wouldn't have had a chance to see all three Wilson brothers. Could Brian have possibly been there? It seems doubtful. That was a rough period for my hero, though I later had a beautiful experience in the summer of 2000 taking my mom to see him play the Pet Sounds album live in Cleveland. 

But in the late-'80s, I owned my first electric guitar and was already deep into my mania. In August 1988, barely a week after it opened, I was taken to the Palace of Auburn Hills to see Crosby, Still, & Nash and then Pink Floyd, just two days apart. A month after that my mom and Mary Jane Benner took me and her son Josh back to the Palace to see Def Leppard's massive Hysteria tour. To this day my mom remains a big fan of the Lep. In November 1989, I went with Aaron Dilloway and his brother to see the B-52's at the Fox Theatre on the Cosmic Thing tour. Toad the Wet Sprocket, an incongruous pairing, was the opener, touring their first album Bread & Circus, which I also loved. Between December of that year and June 1990, I saw the Rolling Stones (with Living Colour), Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (with Lenny Kravitz), Billy Joel, and David Bowie. Seeing Bowie's Sound + Vision tour with my brother remains a watershed moment in my life. And of course he, being four years older, was already going to see far hipper bands than me: Jane's Addiction, Pixies, Love & Rockets, Beastie Boys. Some parents pushed their kids into sports or academics. My parents were devoted music fans and lifetime concert-goers. This was the education I received at a crucial age. How could I have become anything other than what I am?

Tuesday, June 25

For the second time in two days I come across a hand-drawn diagram in the novel I'm reading. There is something delightful about turning the page in a book and finding the author has provided some kind of visual cue to support their narrative. The crude hand-drawn illustration in Georges Simenon's Maigret at the Coroner details a victim's death on a pair of railroad tracks as described by the train's engine driver:

They had brought him a blackboard. He had drawn two chalk lines for the track and, between them, had sketched a kind of marionette.
"This is the head.'
Neither her head nor any of her limbs touched the rails.
‘She was on her back, knees up, like this. Here, this is an arm. There's the other, which was torn off."

Gruesome, but then it's a murder mystery. I love mysteries, particularly serial detective novels. Not because I like to guess the murderers, or even really care who they are. I just enjoy the highly descriptive, detail-oriented nature of this type of storytelling. The language of noir fiction has always fascinated me. Ray Bradbury first introduced me to this world with his hard-boiled tribute Death is a Lonely Business and from there I moved on to the masters: Ross MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, and Dashiel Hammett. A more recent favorite is the late Peter Robinson with his DCI Alan Banks series. There are over two dozen of those and I've read them all. When I discovered Simenon's Inspector Maigret novels at a library book sale last week, I was thrilled to learn that there were 75 (!) in the series.

Wednesday, June 26

At the end of a long irritating day, I lay in bed reading my Maigret novel. The blinds are drawn, but the summer sounds are intense out the window. I hear the unmistakable rumble of a sports car turning onto my street. Although we're the last block, we're really the first by dint of being the only one-way section of the entire street. Because of this, cruising vehicles cue up their playlists and begin their strut up here at the top then make their way south towards downtown.

My body recognizes it before my mind does. It's the opening riff of Van Halen’s "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love," a song custom built for a Trans Am or Camaro which is what I imagine is coming down the road. It's the sound of freedom and partying. It's the sound of Budweiser, Jack Daniels, and a million '80s bad boys. "Just like I told you before, be-fore, a be-fore, be-fore!" The song drops a half key on its way past, the doppler effect casting it outward into the city like a moonshot.

Thursday, June 27

I tentatively drag myself out of the house to honor a dentist appointment. A stomach bug -- possibly even food poisoning, though I can’t imagine the culprit -- has flattened me over the past two days and I've skipped my morning coffee. My dentist has televisions bolted to the ceiling above each reclining chair and a Netflix subscription for the whole office. Remember when you just had to listen to your hygienist chatter and make non-committal responses with your mouth wrenched open? Now they have content for that. As she scrapes the barnacles off my teeth I watch some travel series where Zac Ephron eats coconuts and learns to spear fish with some Australian guys. 

By evening I seem to have recovered somewhat. Just to be safe I endure another bland meal and am in bed before the sun has fully set. 

Friday, June 28

I send a message wishing my friend Pat a happy birthday. We've made a tradition of getting together during our respective birthday weeks which are about five months apart. Winter and summer. We should see each other far more often, but know we can at least count on these biannual visits. I met him for lunch on Tuesday in Ann Arbor. I was describing a brochure I picked on the Ohio Turnpike for the Seneca Caverns in Bellevue, which describes itself as The Caviest Cave in the U.S.A. "So it's a cave's cave" was Pat's comment. His bone dry humor is one of my favorite things about him. 

During an evening walk along the riverfront at Detroit's Milliken State Park, I stumble upon a mama pheasant and her chicks picking their way across the lawn. I've known about Detroit's large ring-necked pheasant population for years, but had yet to see any until tonight. It's unexpectedly sweet. On the drive back I listen to Terry Gross interview Richard Thompson on Fresh Air. When I get home I put on I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight and listen to the entire album. Such a masterpiece and so beautifully recorded. Also, more crumhorns in rock, please! I switch to Rumor and Sigh, which came out when I was 14. I saw the video for "I Feel So Good" on MTV's 120 Minutes and immediately became a Thompson fan. Pat and I saw him play in 1994 at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. He was the co-headliner with Michelle Shocked and even then I remember feeling somewhat appalled when they put her on last and he had to cut his set short.