My Music Journal 2025: January 31, 2025

 

Friday, January 31, 2025

Time: 1:23 P.M.
Song: Ocean
Artist: The Front Bottoms
Mode of Consumption: Playlist Pandemonium list for the week. Theme: At the Beach. Songs that must mention the beach or ocean.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/5woK5a239IHU1hMOIk4Umn?si=a4905b63842145af

Link to January's Complete Journal Playlist:  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/67t03RXdupchZG8HQ8vZyl?si=edeb7654bb7646ac

A few years ago, Jodi and I went to an auction in Rock Falls because they had vinyl records and other rock memorabilia listed in the sale bill. I don’t remember what happened, but I think we arrived a little bit later than we intended, and I didn’t get to scope out what vinyl they had. I did see that they had a few Rolling Stone T-Shirts.

The auctioneer started on a rack, and very soon, one of the helpers lifted a crate. It was one of those cubes that were popular in the 1980s and 1990s with a nature scene depicted on the outside. The man lifting it said that it was filled with vinyl records.

Dang, I had no idea what was in there, or what condition.

For those that don’t me, I am a cheap bastard. Well, let’s put that nicer. I am frugal. I am not one to buy something without looking at it first. Also, with vinyl at auctions, it’s easy to get stuck with a stack of records from the 1940s and 1950s with little or no resale value. But I had a feeling this could be an interesting lot of records.

So, I started bidding. Another man bid against me. He went higher. I went higher.

At this moment, I don’t remember what bid won it. I think it was $40, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but for a box of unseen vinyl, that can be a risk.

Whatever it was, I won the bid. The box was handed over to me, and I went away from the rack. The vinyl is what brought me to this show.  

Setting the box in the grass, I popped it open, excited like a kid on Christmas.

Behold, it was a solid collection with some good rock picks. It also had new vinyl. One was NWA’s Greatest Hits. The man I bid against wandered over and saw that record and kicked himself for not bidding more.

It also had a Lagwagon album and this album (Going Grey) from The Front Bottoms. Both brand new vinyl, and even though I didn’t know either group, it was a boon. I think I even ended up keeping the Front Bottoms after listening to it.

One of the other contributors picked this song for the Pandemonium this week, and it brought back this cool memory in my vinyl record journey.

My Music Journal 2025: January 30, 2025

 

Time: 5:00 AM
Song: All Night Long
Artist: Lionel Richie
Mode of Consumption: Radio Alarm  

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2Wb9ejnmy27DUTUe9YF5Ew?si=e79463ef1dc74470

The voice of a radio announcer interrupts the silence. It’s dark, and the voice gives way to song. Jodi gets up. I roll over, listen until the chorus, oh it’s Lionel Richie. Maybe I should write about this, I think, and then fall back to sleep.

I’m renowned for vivid dreams. Occasionally I sleepwalk.

The dream begins.

I have retrieved the mail, but I’m not at home. At least not initially. I feel like I am at my grandparents’ old farmhouse. Their living room. A pair of recliners with an end table between them and a lamp. It’s more a sense of place than a physical location.

The mail has two items for me. Two packages, and I intuit that they are books. Perhaps books I have been published in, short story collections or something.

I open the first, a thick tome. Flip through the first pages, scanning for my name. There are pictures, almost like a graphic novel. I have no memory of submitting to a place like this.

There is an envelope with a note that spans several small pieces of blue paper and a bounced check. It’s a check from me, but it’s from the bank I had in DeKalb in college, an account long closed.

“They’ve just now tried to cash this?” I speak, and I don’t know if there is anyone else there.

I never submitted stories to publishers when I lived in DeKalb. How did they get this check?

I try to read the letter, but all the small pieces of blue paper have scattered across the room, and the pieces I find are filled with an elegant gibberish. Is that possible? Elegance in a note that seems to mean nothing.

Now there are empty cardboard boxes and toys and other trinkets scattered about the room, making it harder to find all of the note. Who is this from? What do they want?

That senseless frantic panic sets in. The panic that lives in dreams where everything, even something so insignificant as getting mailed a book and an old check elevate the heartbeat and blood pressure beyond healthy levels. It’s a panic that feels the press of time more than the waking senses. The one that senses the clock. Knows that it’s ticking down. When I wake this world will be no more, probably forgotten, definitely lost.

I toss aside boxes, squint at shreds of paper, make nothing of the note. I am untethered from place, consumed by my goal.

Then I hurdle forward beyond the dream and into the world.

It’s 5:45 AM. Time to get up.

My Music Journal 2025: January 29, 2025

 

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Time: 7:50 AM
Song: Sha La La
Artist: Winnetka Bowling League
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on the way to work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/7dVF7taTea0xSv0HCrPGU9?si=7cb58283a69c4778

I was part of a bowling team for two or three years after college with a few guys I used to work with at National Manufacturing. It started out that I was just supposed to be a fill-in, maybe bowl once a month, but it quickly transformed into me being there every week.

I was bad.

I mean, really bad. I think my average maybe was 125.

What was worse is that like the second week I came out,  I bowled a 215 game out of complete nowhere. I had never broke 200 before that and I haven’t since. How it happened when I was using one of the lane’s bowling balls and basically just throwing it with no plan or training, I have no idea. I even got a patch for it.

When I immediately went back to the low 100s everyone kind of thought I was sandbagging. Over that time, I was gifted a ball by one of my other former co-workers – his name “Gary” is still on it. We took the ball to the pro shop and they drilled the holes to fit my fingers and put grips inside of them. This makes it easier to spin the ball (it’d didn’t help me that much).

One year for Christmas, the team surprised me with bowling shoes. I was still renting a pair each week. It makes sense to buy shoes if you go each week, but I always sort of assumed the team would tag me out when they landed a better bowler.

We played a card game each night where you got a card with each fill (strike or spare for those not down with bowling terminology). The best hand at the end of the game won the pot. I usually didn’t end up with a lot of cards, so I don’t think I took that pot too often.

We alternated times each Thursday with a Ladies League, meaning one week we would start at 6 p.m. and the next week we started at 9 p.m. I was working at the high school at the time, meaning there were a lot of bleary-eyed mornings during that stretch.

We drank beers, I think some nights I could polish off three beers a game. Now I would probably curl up and go to sleep after three beers.

We’d talk about sports. Probably about our jobs. Maybe our girlfriends. We cheered each other on.

There wasn’t any social media to check.

There were sports on the TVs above the lane, but I don’t remember ever paying attention to them.

I don’t remember talking about politics once. None of us were looking to save the world.

We just hoped to end up with more pins than the other team by the end of the night.

It’s sort of hard to remember world like that now.

Sha La La.

When I was hired on full time at the paper, I knew that I would be working nights and getting the same night off each week was improbable. So, I resigned from the team, and I think they might have disbanded shortly after.

My Musical Journal 2025 - January 28, 2025

 

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Time: 6 PM 
Song: Crazy
Artist: Aerosmith
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on the way home from my parents. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/3QxKpdTB8ZSFn8MGeCCpsQ?si=ee21b250eec94abc

Last week, we participated in a Trivia night for the United Way in Dixon. In between one of the rounds was an individual challenge which turned out was to name as many Aerosmith Top 20 hits from between the 1970s and the 2010. 

One of the first things I did was name the three one-word song title hits from “Get a Grip:” Crazy, Amazing, and Cryin’. Those songs were huge as my musical awareness was coming to be.

I think I ended up getting thirteen or fourteen, but not enough to win. I admit that I just don’t listen to Aerosmith that much anymore, but they have been pivotal in my musical education. Here’s a quicker hitter version: 

•  I remember listening to “Pump” on a field trip in grade school. I have distinct memory of this, and being awed by the sounds coming through my earphones. It was probably the first time I realized the difference of consuming music like that. “Pump” remains my favorite Aerosmith album, just because it takes me back to that day when I was riding on school bus with the sun shining on me.
• One of the first cassette tapes I ever bought was “Big Ones.” – You think I would have done better on the trivia question.
• The music videos for the three one-word songs mentioned above featured Alicia Silverstone, and were probably some of the first music videos that I ever watched.
• My best friend Jake dated a girl in high school who loved “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing.” It cracked me up then, because I knew how much he disliked that song. That also happens to be their only No. 1 song. It’s a crappy song from a cheesy summer blockbuster called “Armageddon.” 
• In the summer of 2001, I saw Aerosmith live at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. It was my first really big rock and roll show. I was standing next to Jodi while they played “Dream On,” which remains one my favorite in-person music experiences. I started dating Jodi a week later. I was 19 at the time. I am 42 now. Damn. 
• The trivia made me appreciate that they are probably one of the biggest bands from the 80s, 90s and 2000s. That’s pretty much entire life. They had hits in each decade. They reinvented their sound every few years, and managed to avoid being relegated to the aging band heap where all they were allowed to play was hits from the 70s.
• I heard they were retiring from touring, as Steven Tyler’s voice just can’t take it anymore. We shall not see there like again. 

My Music Journal 2025 - January 27, 2025

 

Monday, January 27, 2025

Time: 7:50 AM 
Song: Angel Dream No. 4
Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on the way to work. (Also, two passes through the song tonight while practicing Ukulele. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0tFF03AX223mZHNmMhnBvQ?si=d8506502e1ce4911

This song comes on and I crank the volume on our Jeep’s radio. Do I like this song? Sure, but that’s not the only reason I turn it up. 

For the last few years, I have been blundering my way through learning the Ukulele. Jodi and I took one three-hour course at Sauk Valley Community College near the end of COVID that included the instrument as part of the admission fee. 

My memory of the class is that the instructor wasn’t able to get into the room early, so he spent most of the first half of the class trying to teach the basics while also trying to restring a Uke for the one left-handed person in the class. 

Each person received a little book with a handful of songs. He’d turn to a page, give a quick demonstration on what to do, and then tell everyone to try it. He’d walk around and maybe comment, but that was about the extent of the instruction. Before I knew it, the time was up. 

Needless to say, I didn’t get a ton from that crash course into playing an instrument. I have no other real background in music. I have a vague memory of a class in junior high where we each sat at a keyboard, but I don’t remember ever really learning anything in it. I must have passed the class, but I couldn’t tell you a damn thing that I learned. 

Everything else is basic stuff from grade school music classes where I wasn’t the most diligent pupil.

Of course, in my teen years, I started to dream of being a rock star, fiddled with an electric guitar I borrowed from the husbanrd of my cousin for a few months, but never really learned how to do anything with it. 

So, now I take my limited instruction on the Uke, and I strum away, hoping what happens sounds something like the songs I am attempting. 

Angel Dream is one of the songs I found online, and it has a pretty basic chord arrangement. I like to think I sound OK playing, but when I turn it up in the Jeep, I wonder if I am even close. I doubt it. 

It seems likely I won’t be the next big Uke star on YouTube. Heck, I don’t think I’ll ever have the guts to record myself playing much less be willing to show it to anyone else.

Still I practice, usually three or four times a week for a half hour or more. Flipping through a growing binder of songs. Maybe I am not good at it, but there is something therapeutic about it. For a few minutes, I am not just some working stiff. I am a guy that can play an instrument, maybe around a campfire with my friends singing along, or at club with a hundred people listening intently, wondering what obscure pop song I’ll play next. 

My Music Journal 2025 - January 26, 2025

 

Sunday, January 26, 2025

Time: 8 AM 
Song: PSYCHO
Artist: HARDY
Mode of Consumption: New Mixed CD made from songs downloaded from I-Tunes on the way to Church.

Link to Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/6Ck9THD8AaqwNW5RYQd0RY?si=b3f18218b2444f4e

I wonder if I am the last person who downloads music from I-Tunes. I’ll take it one step farther. Not only do I add those songs to my Mini-SD card for my phone, but I also usually go ahead and burn mixed CDs from this. Anyone else out there doing that? 

Am I psycho that I get excited to do things like that? 

Look, I use Spotify as much as most of the rest of the streaming world. I realize I could just hook that up during my travels, and basically listen to every song that I want basically free of charge with only occasional commercial interference. If I decided to pay the nominal fee, I could probably do even more with no commercials. It would probably make sense in the long run. 

Maybe it’s archaic to download songs, to burn them to CDs. That’s fine. I also have more than a thousand vinyl records in the house, a few hundred CDs, and several cassette tapes. 

I like having a physical product. I like that once I download these songs, unless something catastrophic happens both to my Mini-SD card and the backup hard drive that I save the songs on, these I-Tunes songs will be a part of my music library for the rest of my life. 

When that song comes on, whether on a mixed CD or on shuffle when I am playing MP3s, I’ll have a vague memory of picking it, and likely why I picked it. I will remember generally that time of my life. What I was feeling. What I was thinking. How that song made me feel. 

Why did I choose PSYCHO by HARDY in my latest rounds of downloads? 

Well, for whatever the reason, Jodi really likes this song. I knew she liked it, and I knew she would love it when it came on the speakers this morning. 

She likes to joke with me on if I would get a face tattoo if we ever split up. I like to say I’d skip that and just tattoo my entire bald head. Both of us know neither would ever happen, and we have no plans of splitting up. 

I’ll think about these conversations next year when I hear the song. I’ll think about it ten years from now. I’ll think about when (and if) I am ninety years old and blasting my playlists as loud as possible in the retirement home that we’ve been deposited in. 

If that’s psycho, then I have no problem embracing that label. 

My Music Journal 2025: January 25, 2025

 

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Time: 2:30 PM
Song: Little Changes
Artist: Frank Turner
Mode of Consumption: Spotify playlist for Frank Turner from Music Snobs League

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0pvAmXz50wNF8BNTLq4o1k?si=0c315e18ee984597

I am in another writing contest that started last night at midnight. I have until next Sunday to write a story of 2,500 words. This time my prompts are as follows: 

Genre: Drama

Subject: Prestige

Character: A wealthy mother-in-law

I stared at a blank page for quite some time this morning trying to figure out what story I could conjure from this mix of prompts. The drama genre leaves things pretty wide open. I mean, pretty much every story contains drama. I will just try to move that drama to the forefront, make it an emphasis. 

Prestige? My mind went a few places. Ivy League Schools. Swanky Club Memberships. Awards. The awards idea did get the brain thinking. In my journalism days, submitting to contests was an annual thing. For sports, the biggest fish in the award sea was the APSE contest. I am not sure though that the striving for sports writing prestige would make for a real dramatic story. Maybe. But that’s not where I feel like going. 

My mind drifts to a former co-worker who passed away last spring. She was the heart and soul of the news department, helping them to earn a lot of awards and recognition without really getting any prestige for herself. Could I write a story about the prestige of a newspaper while highlighting a character who does the thankless job of copy editing? 

I think I would have to make little changes (see what I did there).  I need to invoke some sort of conflict. Is it between her and the reporters she works with? Maybe with her bosses? 

And who is the wealthy mother-in-law? Maybe the owner of the paper? Maybe it’s her mother-in-law? How does that contribute to the conflict? What story am I really telling? 

I think it might be a little tribute. Something I won’t advertise, might never even try to publish, but I think it would be a good way to remember her. She would have got a kick out of it. Likely would have told me to make sure her character swears a lot. 

I just wish she were around to give a quick edit when I get a draft completed. 

My Music Journal 2025 - January 24, 2025

 

Friday, January 23, 2025

Time: 6:30 PM
Song: Le Freak
Artist: CHIC
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl of C’est Chic 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/7Kszjzps0xbQXyo1pO4KfE?si=8edc588fb35b46ca

I feel like Monty Python: “And now for something completely different.” 

I mean I hit you with Americana originators two days ago, and rock and blues heavy Jack White yesterday. Today, yeah, let’s do some 70s funk.

The C’est Chic album came from a vinyl lot I bought from a guy in Rock Island last summer. I pick about a half dozen albums at a time to bring up to our dining room to work through and decide to keep or sell, and this was in the current pile. 

I picked CHIC not because I ever seriously considered keeping it. I knew the song Le Freak, so wasn’t surprised to get a heavy dose of Disco/R&B. Not a combo that is in my wheelhouse. 

Still I play it while we eat supper because it’s a Friday night, and I rightly assumed it would be a fun way to start the weekend. I’m not a disco guy or a dancer, but whenever we play something like this Jodi and I go into a routine, the roots of which come from an old Boers & Bernstein caller on the 670 AM the Score. 

This elderly gentleman called in one afternoon, and somehow got onto the subject of keeping young. 

“I LOVE DANCING,” he proclaimed to the two radio hosts and their thousands of listeners. He was genuine. Good for him. 

Friday night has for a long time been a night where I like to tune into songs with energy. Maybe the roots go back to high school and trying to hype myself for that night’s football game. 

I remember in college I liked to put Buckcherry’s self-titled album late in the afternoon, something about it got my mind ready for whatever hijinks my roommates and I were stirring up that weekend once we all returned from classes and completed an appropriate amount of homework (appropriate being a relative term.)

Fast forward all these years later, and my mind still thinks much the same way. Its time to play a little music, let’s go for something fun and with energy. 

My Music Journal 2025 - January 23, 2025

 

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Time: 11:00 AM
Song: Offend in Every Way
Artist: The White Stripes
Mode of Consumption: Music Snobs playlist “Now I Know Jack” while researching songs for Playlist Pandemonium.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1nO9QTV0ifjpleS2NDypin?si=f94c42de85b04b94

When I joined the Music Snobs league in 2023, the first artist that I nominated for one of the drafts was Jack White. It wasn’t a safe pick for me, which probably wasn’t sound strategy, but I was more interested in delving into artists that I had kept at arm’s length rather than hammering artists that I had already fully embraced.

When the White Stripes arrived on the scene in the early 2000s, I was first introduced to them by a close friend. Unfortunately, the relationship was a bit rocky at that point, and I admit that I simply wasn’t receptive to the suggestion. I didn’t dislike what I heard, I just refused to really listen to it. I was a stubborn mule back in those days. Maybe I am still a bit stubborn, just less so, I think, when it comes to music.

Anyways, that’s why I always kept myself from getting really into the White Stripes or any of Jack White’s other projects.

When their album Elephant hit the airwaves, the anthem “Seven Nation Army” became impossible to ignore. When I became a sports reporter, I probably heard the song three or four times a week blasted through the speakers at high school gymnasiums. That tune took them from a band that rock fans knew to a band that pretty much everyone had heard whether they realized it or not. It’s rare air, especially in the age of music streaming, to reach those heights.

So, I picked Jack White for the Snobs League and spent a month listening to the entire catalog. My appreciation grew for his entire catalog.

On the night of the draft, I took “Offend in Every Way,” because I liked the song, but I also remembered it was one of the first songs that had been recommended to me. I even quipped that I picked the song because my music tastes would ultimately “Offend in Every Way,” the musical snobs of the league.

Well, I was voted last by every person in the league in that draft. A rough start, but I did improve as the year went on. Plus, now I know Jack.

My Music Journal 2025: Wednesday, January 22, 2025

 

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Time: 3:40 PM
Song: It Makes No Difference
Artist: The Band
Mode of Consumption: From The Last Waltz video on YouTube

 Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0jo6RYrOvzGSjtmgf7EEIg?si=d73ec6d0c4e04712

Garth Hudson, the last living member of The Band, died yesterday at the age of 87. He’s the guy with the saxophone solo near the end of this version of the song, which was recorded as the group’s “Going Away” concert/movie entitled the “The Last Waltz” from 1976. Hudson, like pretty much every member of the group, wore many hats for the band. He was a master at the keyboards, organ, accordion, saxophone, and seemingly any instrument he decided to pick up. The only thing he didn’t do was sing – the only member of The Band who didn’t

Unlike many who thrive in popular music, Hudson was a classically trained musician. I mean, John Lennon and Paul McCartney both admitted to not being able to read sheet music. The Beatles needed Geroge Martin to fill the musical gaps to make their visions reality. Many others from the world of rock have gone on the record to say they only knew three or four chords when they hit it big.

But that wasn’t Hudson, and that wasn’t The Band. They came on the scene as the backing band to Ronnie Hawkins and then to Bob Dylan on his first electric tour. Their sound borrowed from Dylan’s folkish roots, but much like Dylan, refused to be pigeonholed into it. They blitz the eardrums with layers of sound, harmonies, and instruments. Four of the five members could take over lead vocals at any time.

Their position in the music landscape is a curious one. While on one hand they’ve faded from the popular music conversation, on the other they are often pointed to as the originators of the Americana sound (ironic since most of the group was Canadian).

It's a fascinating story, almost mythic. From their roots with Dylan, including the summer spent in a pink house that birthed many Dylan songs and the group’s debut album “Music From Big Pink.” They released a series of hits over the next decade, carving out a sound mixed with folk, rock, country, and jazz. Together they were magic, but as it goes, that magic couldn’t hold them together.

Like so many bands, the rest of the story is a series of acrimonious spats mostly on the business side. Robertson tired of touring. Helm disputed Robertson’s writing credits on many of the group’s big hits. A version of the group reunited in the 80s and 90s without Robertson and Richard Manuel, who died in 1986.

Rich Danko died in 1999 in his sleep.

Levon Helm died in 2012 from cancer.

Robertson died in 2023.

Now Hudson is gone.

That sax sounds a bit sadder today.

My Music Journal 2025: January 21, 2025

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Time: 3:08 PM
Song: Snowflakes
Artist: Dropkick
Mode of Consumption: Listening to Spotify’s Release Radar playlist.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4yaOn1ooBQD0UVHipsIJqs?si=07d37be93073419e

I’ve made a concerted effort over the last two years to try and find newly released music. It started when I joined a group lovingly named the Music Snobs. It was a group of five people who drafted songs by a single artists/band each month, and then we had a vote on the best playlists created. One of the bonus challenges was a list of ten songs released that year.

While the group has since disbanded due to scheduling conflicts, I have tried to spend time each week listening to newly released music. Last year was probably one of the most engaged years of music of my life. I had a healthy list of new tunes and new bands that hopefully remain in my rotation for years to come.

Snowflakes seemed like an appropriate song for today, even though we only had a dusting of snow overnight, the temperatures in the Sauk Valley have remained below zero most of the day. This is the most winter that this winter has felt so far.

The Spotify homepage tells me that the band Dropkick hails from Scotland, and draws their influences from Wilco, Teenage Fanclub and Tom Petty.

There’s an adage that people tend to listen to the music they listened to in high school for the rest of their lives. I certainly have plenty of 90s music in my rotation, but I’ve added significantly since then, allowing the tastes I formed back then to influence my likes today. For people that think that there isn’t any music made today that they like, the reality probably is that they either don’t have or haven’t taken the time to look for it.

Most of the music I have adopted in the last few years could have easily been made in the 80s or 90s.

If you’re looking for tunes from the last ten or fifteen years to expand your personal playlists, I recommend bands like the Avett Brothers, Trampled By Turtles, Band of Horses, The Shins, The Decemberists, Dawes, The Gaslight Anthem, jus to name a few.

My Music Journal 2025 - January 20, 2025

 

Monday, January 20, 2025

Time: 5:15 PM
Song: Life in the Fast Lane
Artist: The Eagles
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on car radio on ride home from work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/7aMJo6bv0PFq2bX969Wgos?si=15276693f5214131

The ride to and from work takes approximately 23 minutes, or somewhere between five and seven songs on my MP3 player. 

It’s a Monday evening on a bitterly cold January day when the month is transitioning from mid-month to late-month, and daylight is gradually extending deeper into the five o’clock hour. The sky is a mixture of purples and blues and grays. Not beautiful, but far from an eyesore. 

It’s a big day for the U.S., as the 47^th President is sworn into office, and I am sure there will be an avalanche of happy and angry posts piled into my social media accounts. I have decided to sit this term out. I am limiting my Facebook time and reduced my Twitter time to almost nil. I lived through one of these train wrecks clinging to my sanity, this time I am just going to do my best to ignore it, and hope we come out the other side okay. This is less a commentary on the political figures and more on the (over)reactionary nature of social media in this partisan climate. If you believe in democracy, and the republic we’ve built, then there shouldn’t be seismic shifts from one election, that’s sort of the point – stability. It’s not perfect, but nothing is. If you want huge changes, you probably are going to get something other than a republic and likely a complete loss of stability.

That’s all l am going to say on the matter. I’m sitting this one out, remember. Maybe not the most responsible action as a citizen, but that’s where I am at. 

My path home is mostly a two-lane country road that starts out through the rolling hills of a subdivision filled with pretty nice houses. Some of the homeowners like to pull out in front of me daily without looking to see if anyone is coming. Sometimes I swear at that, but I’ve grown used to it. 

Just past that, there’s a stretch where there’s a smattering of farm houses surrounded by empty fields. In the middle of a field to the left, a single deer stands, it watches me as I watch it. Then I am gone. 

Prairieville, a tiny village, passes on my left a few minutes later, and after that, I pass the imaginary line between Lee County and Whiteside County. 

I pass houses where I know the people inside. I wonder what they are up to. I pass houses of people I don’t know, and wonder what they are up to. 

At the stop sign at IL Route 40, Oak Knoll Cemetery is on the right. I think of the loved ones there. My grandparents. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. My father-in-law. I pass this place every day, and figure someday I’ll stop here and never go anywhere else again. 

It’s about five miles to home from there. It’s getting dark, probably colder. I am thinking about things I’ll do tonight, and about things I need to do tomorrow. 

I get home. I pet my dog. I kiss my wife. 

In twelve hours, I’ll be waking up to do it all over again. 

 

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Time: 1:30 PM
Song: Eli’s Coming
Artist: Three Dog Night
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl record Around the World with Three Dog Night while finishing book work for church and then packing lunch for work the next day.

Link to song (Note Spotify doesn't have the actual versions I listened to): https://open.spotify.com/track/3jdCnDXRXsjYpJFqVNXZen?si=5c0351ac42634b71

One of the first concerts I remember attending was Three Dog Night at the Rockford Metro Center sometime in the mid-1990s with my parents. The tickets came through some sort of fundraiser for the Firefighters Association. Other bands I saw at the Metro Center were America and Nelson. I can’t remember if all the bands played at one event, or if we went a couple times. Perhaps there is another band in the mix during this era, but that’s lost in the tunnels of my memory. 

Three Dog Night got their start in 1967 with their peak running until 1976. So, by the mid 1990s, they had been on the road for nearly 30 years. In my teenage mind, they were an oldies band, which was fine because I listened to plenty of oldies, but that’s where they were relegated to by me. I doubt if Three Dog Night had released a new album in the 1990s that I would have been clamoring to hear it. Maybe their hardcore fans would have bought a CD of new material, but the idea that they would once again reach the popular charts was unlikely. 

It just didn’t seem like it would have fit alongside the likes of Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Green Day. They were a band from a different time. They were middle aged men, who were excellent performers and generally made it big by singing songs written by other people. For the most part, bands from the 60s didn’t have much of a chance with new material in 90s unless they were the Rolling Stones. 

But times change. 

Earlier today, we were running errands and listening to a radio station that plays current music and still does a countdown of the top songs on the rock charts. 

They ran an interview with Dexter Holland from The Offspring. He talked about working on a new album during COVID since they couldn’t get out and perform, or do much of anything else.

Holland was born in 1965, two years before Three Dog Night formed, and The Offspring formed in 1984 with the height of their popularity being the mid-to-late 1990s. And, now they have an album with songs finding their ways onto the charts. 

We also just saw The Offspring play last summer at music festival in St. Paul, Minnesota, and never once did I think about them being an oldies band, even though their height of popularity was nearly 30 years ago, much like Three Dog Nights was when I saw them in Rockford in the 1990s. 

In fact, they were my favorite act of the two-day event that included other artist from the 1990s (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, Gwen Stefani) and newer artists (Gary Clark, The Head and the Heart, The Hold Steady).

My Music Journal 2025 - January 18, 2025

 

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Time: 2:32 PM
Song: How to Save a Life
Artist: The Fray
Mode of Consumption: Listening to radio Mac 94-7 while finishing writing contest story.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/5fVZC9GiM4e8vu99W0Xf6J?si=a61cf0db7987441a

I’ve just finished a draft of the story I started last Saturday for a writing contest. Truthfully, I did a complete rewrite this morning from a 3,000 word draft I had completed during the week. 

As a reminder, the contest prompt demanded that I do certain things. I had to pick from five possible characters and settings. I picked a journalist and a tavern that also rents out a few rooms. The story also had to have a well. 

My first draft was a about a journalist coming to a small town to do a story on a missing serial killer. It was a dark and brooding story that led to a pretty empty climax of the journalist abandoning the story and town for a lead on a different story. I liked some of the writing but it wasn’t all clicking together on the page. 

This morning, I decided I liked the setting and character, but the idea of researching a serial killer wasn’t working. 

I altered the central issue. This time it was about digging into the story about a boy who went missing in his family’s pasture 40-years earlier. I gave it more of a supernatural bent, and it breathed a new life into the urgency of the story. 

I even kept a few scenes from the original, in part because I didn’t feel like I was spending enough time at the tavern as required by the rules. 

The sticking point on this version of the story was figuring how the story was going to be resolved. I knew that I was going to lead my journalist down the same pasture path from 40 years earlier. He was going to go with the boy’s twin sister. 

But what would happen?

Would the man be lost? Would the twin be redeemed? I won’t spoil it, but as the Fray’s song plays on the radio, it felt appropriate. 

The song is about taking the time to talk to people who are experiencing depression and other mental issues in order to save their lives. 

While part of me didn’t want to take the time today to completely rewrite this story, I saved the story’s life by doing so. At least, I think I did. I still have to edit out a couple hundred words, but I feel a lot better about it now.

My Music Journal 2025 - January 17, 2025

 

Friday, January 17, 2025

Time: 9:46 AM
Song: Mixtape
Artist: Butch Walker
Mode of Consumption: Spotify – List of possible songs from the year 2004 for Mixtape Challenge.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/7h5Z6sSNDZ6DWe5EdB0gnX?si=4f7589db692b4d40

This is the fifth and final post for my Mixtape Challenge for my Facebook Group Playlist Pandemonium for songs from 2000-2004. This post is for songs from 2004.

--

I remember hearing or reading something from Tom Petty where he was deriding people about CDs because they were too lazy to get up and flip a tape or record. I don’t remember where that comes from, it might even be him talking between tracks on one of his albums.

For Mr. Petty, the physical aspect of listening to an album was part of the experience. Albums were planned and mixed, the artists wanted certain songs to kick off the album, and then when it was flipped for a new song to introduce the second half. Each song played a role in whatever story the artist was trying to tell.

For us music enthusiasts, we couldn’t create the songs, but we could make our mixes. Painstakingly planning out playlists for friends, crushes, and whoever else we shared music with.

It was a chance for us to express ourselves through music. A chance to let someone know how we feel. A chance to just share music we wanted the people closest to us to hear.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, it was hard to not doomscroll through all the things going on with both the virus and with politics and with social media. Everywhere we turned there was contention and anger and anxiety.

I started the Pandemonium as a place where a community of people could share music and take a break from everything else. Each week we have a different theme, and members get to contribute three songs to each list. I think we’ve made somewhere around 250 playlists, each serving as a distraction. I don’t know if anyone else listens to them, but I know I have listened to each one from beginning to end while I am working away.

This week my Mixtape Challenge brought back a lot of memories from my college years, and the music that really shaped the first decade of this century for me. I was able to include it in this journal that I’ve committed to this year. I would like to have spent more time researching songs and refining my list, but I can say that the result was truly a mix of the most popular tunes and the tunes that reached me the most. What tunes from 2000-2004 hit you most. Let me know in the comments.

My picks for 2004

1. Mr. Brightside by The Killers
2. Float On by Modest Mouse
3. Confusion by The Zutons
4. Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show
5. Mixtape by Butch Walker

My Music Journal 2025 - January 16, 2025

 

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Time: 3:43 PM
Song: Psalm for the Elks Lodge Last Call
Artist: The Weakerthans
Mode of Consumption: Spotify – List of possible songs from the year 2003 for Mixtape Challenge.

Line to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/50fBHxSJMSvCdQITydVLc2?si=e86212d8890d4882

This is the fourth post in my Mixtape Challenge for the songs from the years 2000-2004. 

Today has been a blitz of emails. Requests for this, meetings for that. The sort of day where you blink, and it’s gone from 8 AM and suddenly it’s 3:30 PM. Most days don’t go that fast here at ASE. There is usually a flurry of activity here and some more there, and in between you work on this or that. Listen to some music. Sometimes I scan Facebook quickly. That sort of thing.

Back in the journalism days, things were different. Every night was a sprint with the deadline approaching like a train in a tunnel. It required a master juggler when I was in the sports editing chair, balancing page design, copy editing, answering the occasional phone, and maybe typing a few roundup blurbs and box scores. That’s just scratching the surface, and doesn’t even take into account staff management, public relations, planning, and probably writing a column or a feature either for that night or the day’s to come.

We were a tight crew of journalists, even though the faces changed every couple of years. Often, we’d head to the local watering hole after putting the section to bed to get a beer or two in before the last call at 1 AM. Sometimes it was to one of the bachelor’s apartments for drinks and to watch some television.

There are years when that hour between midnight and 1 PM was the only normal thing I was able to do in a day. We got to share some laughs, blow off some steam, and talk shop. How can we get better? What should we be covering? What’s happening in the local scene?  

It was our little club, a group of night lifers with no real life other than local sports and computer screens. I miss that camaraderie, that feeling of belonging to something, but I don’t miss the hours, the low dollars, and the stress.  

But there was something both sad and satisfying about being the last person seated at a bar, taking that last gulp, and walking out the door to the world.

My picks for 2003

1. Happy Alone by Kings of Leon
2. Such Great Heights by The Postal Service
3. Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez
4. Keep Me In Your Heart by Warren Zevon
5. Psalm for the Elks Lodge Last Call by The Weakerthans

My Music Journal: January 15, 2025

 

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Time: 10:08 AM
Song: Don’t Know Why
Artist: Norah Jones
Mode of Consumption: Spotify – List of possible songs from the year 2002 for Mixtape Challenge.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/7f5zk7bC3XL5AuGvrg6rsp?si=20541c8383814846

This is the third post concerning my Mixtape Challenge to create a playlist of songs from 2000-2004. 

My first three years after college I worked as a teacher’s assistant in a behavioral disorder program at the local high school. It was a humbling experience, working for minimum wage while also moonlighting as a part-timer for the sports department at a newspaper.

The humbling part wasn’t only that I had gone through all those years of schooling only to be making less money than I did working at the factory in the summer, but more than that, I was confronted with my own privilege.

I was surrounded by students ranging in age from seventh grade to seniors in high school who came from chaotic home lives, had to overcome biological and psychological challenges that I couldn’t understand, and do all that while tackling most of the same teenage pressures and changes as their peers in the mainstream high school courses.

These kids were never going to go to college. They likely were going to struggle to graduate high school. Their bodies betrayed them. Their medications altered their personalities. Their parents were often inadequate sources of support. It all contributed to their placement in the program, isolating them from peers for their peers’ benefit. Many of these students struggled to maintain their behavior in classrooms, usually becoming belligerent when they weren’t already requiring excessive amounts of a teacher’s attention. That doesn’t even get into their academic and learning challenges.

Those days in that single classroom could drag. No changes of classes. Minimal changes in the teacher. Their teenage dispositions bubbling and sometimes exploding.

One of our defenses was music. Calming music, which we played whenever we were providing time for them to work individually on assignments. So pretty much daily, if not multiple times during a school day.

Our selection was limited. One CD was Norah Jones’ album “Come Away from Me.” When “I Don’t Know Why” opens that album, I feel some of the tension in my shoulders, and I think of those kids, who now are in their thirties. For those whose fate I don’t know, I wonder where they are. Did they make it in the real world? Did they age out of some of their issues? I only hope that I helped in some way.

My five choices for 2002

1. Do You Realize? By The Flaming Lips
2. I Am the Highway by Audioslave
3. Letters to God by Boxcar Racer
4. Hurt by Johnny Cash
5. Don’t Know Why by Norah Jones

My Music Journal 2025: January 14, 2025

 

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Time: 8:10 AM
Song: Last Nite
Artist: The Strokes
Mode of Consumption: Spotify – List of possible songs from the year 2001 for Mixtape Challenge.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/3SUusuA9jH1v6PVwtYMbdv?si=802821bec7c64841

This is the second post concerning my Mixtape Challenge to create a playlist of songs from 2000-2004.

---

Last night, I took two allergy pills because I knew it would help me to sleep.

The night before that I woke up at 1:30, and suddenly I was wide awake and sweating. Nagging issues burst into my brain. An insurance issue with the church. A contentious family situation. An approaching project at work. A floundering writing contest entry. It’s strange how the brain works, going from slumber to full speed ahead. Jumping from an idea of about one issue and then springing toward the pitfalls of something else.

The current list is probably considered adulting. For as long as I can remember, this sometimes happened. My memory recalls that as early as grade school that I would spend copious amounts of time when trying to get to sleep worrying about the next day. Homework I didn’t do. Conflicts with peers. The usual childhood concerns that seem tiny today. Back then, I think I felt like I was the only one that tossed and turned with troubles. It’s hard as a kid to see beyond the scope of your own concerns. Maybe, most adults still assume their problems trump the problems of those around them.

I can’t say.

Last night, I took allergy pills, and I slept soundly. I have a foggy memory of waking in the middle of night, thinking it was near time to get up, and squinting at the clock to see that I still had two or three hours of sleep. No other thoughts made their way through, either subdued by the medication or my brain’s desire to keep resting.

When I woke up, my brain took minutes to start firing on all cylinders, and it was probably a half hour before I was ready to turnover the running list of issues for the day.

I guess that’s just how my brain works. Hopefully some of you will understand.

My five choices from 2001.

1. Whatever Happened to my Rock ‘N’ Roll by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
2. Last Nite by The Strokes
3. We’re Going to Be Friends by the White Stripes
4. Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz
5. New Slang by The Shins