My Music Journal 2025: September 30, 2025

 

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Time: 4:19 PM
Song:  Dazed and Confused
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Mode of Consumption: Listening to “Liked Songs” playlist on Spotify.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/6hu1f1cXSw7OAqhpSQ2zDy?si=c8d2c3c005d24faa

I recorded this album onto a cassette from a friend’s CD when I was in high school, and I remember playing it quite often in my GMC truck the first year that I had my license.

Part of the reason was image, I am sure. If a friend, particularly a male friend, was riding along, you wanted to be sure to have something rockin’ to play. You probably didn’t want the pop station playing “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” by Savage Garden on while tooling around a fellow offensive lineman.

Ah, those strange times in life, when social standing and reputation were an imperative. I can’t say if the pressure to meet expectations is higher for females or males, I just know the male experience.

Be tough. Listen to loud music. Like engines. And guns. And so on.

I didn’t check many of these boxes. I’ve discussed my lack of mechanical skills previously, and I’ve never touched a gun, and while I certainly played with toys guns as a boy, I never had much of an inclination to shoot a real one. I don’t fault those that do, it’s just not something that interests me.

Well, I did like loud music. Still do when the time is right.

That first year in the old GMC, I did play this cassette, and I think it also included The Who.

There was a cassette with Metallica, too. And Ozzy.

Loud. Aggressive. The sounds for a boy not sure where he was going.

My Music Journal 2025: September 29, 2025

 

Monday, September 29, 2025

Time: 7:57 AM
Song:  Old Dan’s Records
Artist: Gordon Lightfoot
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way to work.

Link to songs: https://open.spotify.com/track/1WRC4Szy06yqktnqaEQ4kv?si=40cbe5cbd6c046ca

I had someone reach out to me over Facebook this weekend inquiring if I had any Frank Sinatra or Ben E. King records. She was looking for a student who had recently shown an interest in collecting records.

I didn’t know this person, so I immediately wondered what age level she was teaching, and why a teacher would be searching Facebook for records for a student?

Obviously, I was hoping nothing fishy was going on.

The combination was interesting. Frank Sinatra and Ben E. King. For a student. How old was this student?

I think Sinatra’s name still carries its way down to new generations, although I think I was still college aged before I really listened to any of Sinatra’s tracks. Just for the information of my faithful readers, I did have two Sinatra records. I have copies of “September of My Years” and “The Sinatra Story” in my sale pile.

Ben E. King’s name probably doesn’t reach a new generation or listeners, but they likely know “Stand By Me.” I assume this pupil is a fan of that song since I couldn’t even name another song by King off the top of my head. I didn’t have any Ben E. King for sale.

The teacher said she’d let me know about the Sinatra records, so we’ll see if I make any sales.

One of the more interesting things about resale of vinyl is seeing the variety of musical interests.

My Music Journal 2025: September 28, 2025

 

Sunday, September 28, 2025

Time: 11:47 AM
Song:  Do You Love Me
Artist: The Contours
Mode of Consumption: Playing at Ollies while we were shopping. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/5MbNAHqNksNDycMZ0WUaO5?si=d54989c4870f4d59

“Ollies” is a discount store that if I were to guess, sells items that were overstocked at other box stores. That being the case, it basically sells a little bit of everything. 

As our cashier, a friend of my cousin’s said, as we were checking out. “They didn’t tell me about all the heavy rugs we have to lug around.” 

Jodi was looking for rugs for a couple of her table setting displays for the Festival of Trees. She and her mom have organized the table settings for the annual fundraiser, each year both have spent countless hours renovating old furniture as the “table setting” theme has been stretched to include any sort of furniture and the various dishware, toys, or any other items they can dream up to include in the theme of the display. 

The Festival of Trees is a fundraiser for the local hospice organization, and it always occurs in the month of November. It’s most known for the silent auction on decorated trees.

Our writing group has decorated a tree for several years, and with our leader’s, Kay, passing earlier this year, we are dedicating a tree in her memory. The theme will be cats, as she self-published a book about her experiences with her cat, Sebastian. 

One of our members has joked about how early we started talking about the tree. 

She doesn’t realize that I am around this almost year-round, as Jodi is constantly dragging home furniture or working on a display or picking out sets of dishes. It’s something that her and her mom talk about almost weekly. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 27, 2025

 

Saturday, September 27, 2025

Time: 11:35 AM
Song:  Waiting for the Bus
Artist: Violent Femmes
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle while cleaning the bathroom.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/3PBgShlI7zuQNafzIrQ9fj?si=653d0633fcac452e

I used to wait on our front porch for the school bus in the mornings. At least in junior high, I did. 

During grade school, the bus always turned around in our driveway, so I could stay in our warm kitchen on cold mornings, and when the bus turned into the lane, I could sprint out the door and get there without causing any sort of a delay.

In junior high, we had a different route and a different driver, so she would stop on the roadway. The front porch faced the roadway, and when I saw the bus coming, I could be at the road by the time she stopped. 

Waiting for something is pretty foreign to me now. 

When it’s time to leave for work, I jump in the jeep and go. Most mornings, I have things pretty much timed so that when I am dressed and ready, it’s time to go. So, no waiting. 

Waiting for the work shift to be done, isn’t really a thing either. Most days I am busy enough, that while I want it to be 5 PM, I’m not sitting there watching the clock tick. I remember doing that quite often in school, watching the second hand and minute hand move, wishing for it to get to the point that the day was over. 

I think waiting is a childhood thing. For about a dozen years, you’re sort of in hyper-stasis. Sort of constantly moving, but just waiting to be released fully into the world. I suppose there are lucky ones who realize that stage of life is perhaps the least burdened, even though at times it feels like everything is burdened. 

School is balanced by getting to spend days with peers – hoping that at least a few of them you can count as friends but then there is homework. There is expectation of learning. There is the constant measuring of yourself against the people around you mentally, physically, and every other way that a person can measured. 

All of it so you can reach that mystical period of life known as “grown up,” and be “successful.” Only then do you find out that the waiting is over and everything turns into a rush with the seconds, minutes, days, and years blurring by faster than you can keep up. 

My Music Journal: September 26, 2025

 

Friday, September 26, 2025

Time: 6:00 AM
Song:  Continuous Thunder
Artist: Japandroids
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle while doing morning workout.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1ZddR6Xh1nOOyTBpVBxtCc?si=8608761a081d4eb4

After I added songs to my SD card last night, I noticed that the shuffle on my music apps had reset. This was the first song to play on the new shuffle. I wonder how long it will take to hear this one again?

The title “Continuous Thunder” has always interested me. Do they mean the thunder is one long rumble or just there are so many rumbles that you can’t hear where one begins and the other ends?

I also noticed after reloading the SD card into my phone that I have 3,799 songs. I’m not sure how many more I can add before it becomes full, but I wager I will find out. I have about twenty CDS right now with songs I plan on adding waiting in the basement, and I am always picking up more at garage sales. 

Then I got to thinking if there was an easy way to digitize songs from my vinyl collection, I would likely double that song number. I have about 500 albums, and while there is certainly plenty of overlap, there is music there that I haven’t encountered yet in CDs. We can actually record our albums on our turntable, but I think you have to do it by track, otherwise it records one long track. I don’t think we have a program where I could separate them if they recorded as one track.

Plus, the sound is different. At least, I think it is. 

Then I wonder how many songs is enough songs. I mean, theoretically, there could be a few songs in the 3,799 that have never played in my shuffle. As I add more songs, that song or two could be falling even farther down in the order.

I realize if I were to play my MP3s continuously it wouldn’t take that long to get through, relatively. If you assume an average of 3 ½ minutes per song, it works out to be a little over 9 days. 

The morbid part of me thinks, I hope someone tosses my phone into my casket and hits play so that my corpse will get 9 days (hopefully much more by the time I am resting in a coffin) to listen to the music that’s been a part of my life one more time. 

Of course, that’s pointless. Corpses can’t hear. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 25, 2025

Thursday, September 25, 2025

Time: 6:10 PM
Song:  Act Naturally
Artist: Buck Owens
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl album “’Live’ at the White House” 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/3FZNNBybkQJZ5Q0afTgpC1?si=f6c829ec8a04488a

“Who was president in 1968?” Jodi asks. The album was recorded then, and it made me wonder about who was trying to score political points with whom by having a country music act play a live show there. 

The back of the album is sure to call country music the ‘people’s music.’ Boy, seeing that through the lens of 2025 makes you wonder what ‘people’ they are including in that wording. 

While certainly one could assume there are racial undertones to the language considering country music in 1968 was almost exclusively a white brand of music, my sense is the reference has more to do with the fact that it is 1968 and country music is likely trying to stake its claim against the rising current of rock and roll and pop music. 

“Well, it’s after the Kennedy assassination, so it’s probably Johnson. It’d make sense since it calls out that Owens is from Texas,” I said. 

So, what was Johnson trying to gain here? It was a couple months until the election, one won by Nixon over Johnson’s VP Hubert Humphrey. 

Did he think that bringing Buck Owens, a staple of traditional country, would stoke the Democratic ticket in the hearts of conservative country music fans? 

I guess it didn’t work, if that was the case. Was this simply something Owens and his people pushed for?

Was a live show at the White House a way to take country music away from the outlaw turn, one championed by Johnny Cash’s “Live at Folsom Prison” released in May of that year? 

It’s quite the contrast. One country star singing about making it in the big time to politicians in Washington D.C. and the other spitting out those “Cocaine Blues” behind bars. 

It’d be interesting to research the reasons behind Owen’s show and contrast it with Cash’s show at Folsom. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 24, 2025

 

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Time: 7:55 PM
Song:  Fantasy
Artist: Sunfield
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl album “D93 Basement Tapes II”

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1TCUtUGRW0Rc3xaVDrQ3ff?si=2cf20238f8cd4e29

I am pricing records tonight, so I flipped through one of the crates of albums in the basement that I want to listen to before either keeping or selling. 

“D93 Basement Tapes II” was in a crate with albums I bought from someone in Rock Island a year or two ago. I wasn’t sure if the band was D93 or if the Basement Tapes II was the band. 

Turned out, it was neither. The album was produced by D93, a radio station in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1981. The artists featured were all local bands. The proceeds from the album were donated to the United Way. 

Maybe the most surprising is that the quality is good, and the songs are all solid, guitar driven rock tunes. 

The band names are fun: Clue. Sleeper. The Goforbroke Band. Tussle. 

I have to imagine for these groups that inclusion on this record was huge, even though the release was likely limited to the Dubuque area. I imagine there were dreams that the right record executive would see your band name on the back of this slickly produced album and then connect with the lyrics or the tune. Maybe just hear that thing they want to hear to find the band and make them stars. 

I did a search through Spotify, and only the Sunfield song has been uploaded to it. So, they’ve lasted long enough to enter the streaming world. 

It’d be fun to do a deep dive into all these bands and figure out where their careers went. Was this the highlight?  

My Music Journal 2025: September 23, 2025

 

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Time: 10:AM and 8:18 PM
Song:  Blinded By Rainbows
Artist: The Rolling Stones
Mode of Consumption: Listening to Spotify.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2BPuGATHtSHLud79E6tOQm?si=5157bb532d2846e5

I had a Teams meeting at 10 AM, so I push pause on Spotify before clicking on the meeting link. I noted that a Rolling Stones song was playing that I don’t think I had ever heard before. The rest of the day was busy enough that I didn’t push play again until I sat down to write this blog, finishing the song.

This week we are spotlighting the Stones on the Playlist Pandemonium, so I had listened to a few different Stones songs. 

Mostly I was trying to decide which song off of “Bridges Over Babylon” I wanted to pick. That album came out when I was in high school, back in the mid-to-late 1990s. My friend Jake bought the album when it came out, and I remember that I recorded it to a cassette tape. I have fond memories of listening to it on a Walkman on the bus on the way to school. 

I still think of that as “new” Stones. 

It’s amazing to think that it’s been thirty years since that album, which when released, people probably thought it was an old rock band trying to recapture a bit of the glory days. Little did they know that thirty years later and the Stones would still be touring and I think that they are planning to record another album of new material. 

So now we are spotlighting them, and here’s this tune “Blinded By Rainbows” from the Voodoo Lounge album. I kind of like it. Should I use it as one of my three picks to the Pandemonium. Will I get credit for picking such an obscure track? Is there someone else out there that already enjoys this song?

It’s funny because I was trying to pick songs that I’ve discovered more in the last thirty years. Hence, “Bridges Over Babylon.” I was also thinking of adding “Shine a Light,” a tune I didn’t hear until after high school, and “Don’t Stop,’ which is one I have started like over the last couple years. 

So, do I swap this in and one of those out? These are the big questions in life. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 22, 2025

 

Monday, September 22, 2025

Time: 7:20 PM
Song:  One Way or Another
Artist: Uriah Heep
Mode of Consumption: Listening to “High & Mighty” album by Uriah Heep on vinyl.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2efzela7gZ3RlY4o6ERCdr?si=a9c985568ee54381

Jodi’s uncle Tim bought a small box of trading cards at a sale a couple weeks ago. He’s become a sort of picker over the last few years, and he partially runs the His & Her Barn Sales that I set up my records at a couple times a year. 

Not having much knowledge in trading cards, he sold them to me after I had looked through them quickly to make sure there wasn’t anything of great value in there. 

Tonight, I finally sat down to take a closer look. 

The mix of was of baseball, basketball, football and NASCAR cards from the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

The most interesting of the baseball cards was a series of hologram cards that must have come in Corn Flakes boxes sometime in the early 1980s. 

There was a small pile of football cards that were shaped differently. These were longer than the normal card, probably a half card longer, with the same width. These were from the early 1990s. A few of the football cards actually had a binding so their were multiple pages to one card, featuring photos, a stat page and a page with other information on the player. I don’t think I’d ever seen those. 

I don’t know anything about NASCAR cards, but there was a small collection of Jeff Gordon cards from his early years. I do remember how many old school NASCAR fans hated Gordon when he arrived on the scene. 

Maybe my favorite card of the entire box was a Bo Jackson card from the “Bo Knows” period. The front has him in a generic baseball uniform on. The back has one phrase in big font: “Bo knows – turn your back on crack.” 

I will probably add the baseball cards to my collection to use for craft projects. The other cards I might just resell. We’ll see. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 21, 2025

 

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Time: 11:45 AM
Song:  Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head
Artist: B.J. Thomas
Mode of Consumption: Listening to “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid” soundtrack on vinyl.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0oMTxTIHAt3hstaoObsmFs?si=16045e34c7834aaa

We watched “Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid” on Saturday night for the first time for a couple reasons.

We had purchased a copy (on VHS, ha) at a garage sale a week or so ago.

It was appropriate with Robert Redford’s recent death.

We bought the soundtrack on vinyl at a garage sale on Saturday.

While I think that I had seen parts of this movie on TV a few times, I had never sat down and watched the entire movie. It proved to be a mix of western, comedy, satire, and commentary.

The scene featuring “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” is where Butch (played by Paul Newman) takes Sundance’s (Redford) paramour, Etta Place (Katharine Ross) on a ride on the bicycle it’s likely he stole from a salesman in town. Butch rides around with Etta on the handlebars, as if this something they’ve been doing their entire lives, rather than experimenting with a technology that neither had likely ever seen before much less used.

The scene includes some goofiness, including Butch backing through a fence where he has a brief stare down with a bull. In ends with Butch doing tricks on the bike (again, it’s likely his first time riding a bike, yet he’s a trick master) before Sundance comes out.

I asked Jodi as we listened to the record if she thought the song was included because they wanted a contemporary song to help promote the movie. She thought it was likely.

The entire scene has stayed in my mind. I think it’s supposed to serve a few roles. One, establish Butch’s charm and the lightheartedness in which he approaches everything. I thought maybe it was developing a possible love triangle, but to the contrary I think it’s supposed to show that Etta cares for both men, one as a lover and the other as brother-like figure. They are a trio. The bike is supposed to represent the changing world, one where outlaws like Butch & Sundance don’t fit. Yet, I am not sure that carries water, as Butch masters this new technology.

Later, they roll the bike into a ditch as they flee the area and eventually the country to evade their pursuers. The discarding of the bike symbolizes their rejection of change.

As for the song? Well, I guess it’s part of the quirkiness of the film, a film that probably survives because of its quirkiness.

My Music Journal 2025: September 20, 2025

 

Saturday, September 20, 2025

Time: 12:02 AM
Song:  Long Time Comin’
Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Mode of Consumption: Driving home from Moline after concert.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0E5eM3bcpUhvaqVs0RwBB1?si=d7cd79afac8344bc

Jodi drifted in and out of sleep as we travelled through the dark roads of rural Whiteside County. I’m left to the road and the music playing through the speakers. 

I suppose there are hundreds of songs and stories about driving at night. I have a few of my own. 

A decade ago, I used drive home after midnight nearly every night of the week. Eyes tired, mind buzzing after putting together another sports section. 

I remember one time, it was the middle of winter, probably January or February. I think it was in the first year or two of our marriage, I was coming home on Fulfs Road, which runs east and west. There was a blanket of icy snow covering the ground, and a bank of dark clouds to the west. 

Suddenly, on this very cold night, a bolt of lightning flashed from the clouds. It hit the sky and then reflected off the snow, and my entire field of vision turned white. It lasted less than a second, but it’s something that I never forget. 

I always think about how few people shared that moment. Most everyone else was sleeping in their beds when that happened. It makes me wonder how many unique things happen and no one ever sees them. 

I made it home that night, and I remember telling Jodi about it, but I don’t think I really had the words to describe it. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 19, 2025

 

Friday, September 19, 2025

Time: 10:50 PM
Song: S.O.B. 
Artist: Nathaniel Ratliff & the Night Sweats
Mode of Consumption: First song of encore of concert at Vibrant Arena in Moline.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1VPUpUwtbpoRVXt0txVU0w?si=fa0a1d40ff364654

Later, Jodi would state that the notion of encores has run its course. 

“They just do them now because it’s part of the act,” she said. “They are going to leave the stage for a minute and then come back out.”

She’s not wrong. When Nathaniel Ratliff & the Night Sweats wrapped up a song at just past 10:45 PM, I figured they’d tell us good night and leave the stage. Vibrant Arena seems like the kind of place that tells the band to have it wrapped up by 11 PM. 

So, they did. 

People around us starting chanting “S.O.B.” or simply saying what those letters spell out. The lights went down. We waited. 

Then they returned and played their most known song, which was affirmed by the volume of the crowd during the song. They played one more song after that, said goodnight, and the houselights came on basically saying, “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” 

I suppose the notion of an encore is a bit perfunctory now. We both noted that Jason Isbell didn’t do one at the concert we were at earlier this summer. He simply played to the allotted time, wished us well, and the houselights came on. 

A two-song encore is a bit of a wink, I suppose. Yes, we’re going through with the charade that we are done without playing our most notable song, but we’re going come back and play it, and then we are getting out of here. 

I don’t know of any young acts that challenge this system, not like Springsteen who might tack on an extra hour of encores. 

It’s probably good we weren’t seeing Springsteen, anyway. Even though the show was excellent and high energy, both of us were fading after long work days. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 18, 2025

 

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Time: 6:32 PM
Song: Gravity Rides Everything 
Artist: Modest Mouse
Mode of Consumption: Listening to album “The Moon & Antarctica” on CD.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1pPqVrG2RCHXx81Aw4xp99?si=b255b43b33a545be

I had made a collage out of an old Transformers comic book earlier this year and then put it in a frame that I had bought at an auction several years ago. After getting a blue ribbon at the fair, I intended to see if I could sell it at the barn sale over Labor Day weekend. 

As I carried it from our truck that first morning of the sale, one side of the frame crumbled in my hand, the collage fell to the ground, and the plexiglass in the frame shattered on the concrete. I thought it might prove to be a bad omen for the sale. 

It wasn’t. I did well there.

Skip ahead a few weeks, and we found a frame with the right dimensions at the local thrift store for five bucks. 

Tonight, I finally had time to remove the existing picture and put the collage in. 

The back had paper sealing it shut, and Jodi hoped maybe we’d find treasure. Some hidden cash or something of the like. 

No such luck. Just an excess of staples keeping the previous picture in place. 

After a few minutes, I had the old picture removed and the collage in place. It looks pretty good. 

Hopefully, it holds together for a long time. 

But, who knows, gravity always wins. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 17, 2025

 

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Time: 8:18 PM
Song: Wish I Knew You 
Artist: The Revivalists
Mode of Consumption: Compiling my Mixtape Challenge playlist of songs from 2015-2019

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2EWpa5XnAuSn0sIkSSIhYk?si=1b5b8d3adb8c4c66

The Mixtape Challenge is part of my Facebook group “Playlist Pandemonium.” Most weeks we have a theme and everyone involved is free to add three songs to the playlist. 

Once a month, we do what I call a “Mixtape Challenge.” It started as a tribute to the old days when we would make mixtapes for ourselves, our friends, and sometimes even our love interests. 

This year, all the Mixtape Challenges have consisted of songs from the first quarter century of this decade. This month, I have accepted the challenge to create a list of some of my favorite songs from 2015-2019. 

I thought this would be a pretty easy one. Those five years were one of transition for me. I left Sauk Valley Media and my life as a sports journalist to start at ASE at the end of 2015. 

I remembered music being a big part of my first year at ASE, as I often struggled to find my place in my new job and my new life. 

Yet, I didn’t have as many new songs in my catalog as I thought I would. In fact, that became sort of a theme. 

Oddly, the most songs I found from one year was 2015, a year where I was still at the paper and I would have suspected I was less tuned into the new music scene. 

So, I guess either that was a good year, or I just am forgetting how much music I listened to while writing sports stories and designing newspaper pages. 

The reality is though is that I am usually behind the times. So, I wouldn’t be surprised that over the next few years I discover songs from that era that I really like. 

I am still working on my mix and will share on Friday. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 16, 2025

 

Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Time: 5:07 PM
Song: Book of Days
Artist: Enya
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way home from work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0XcqLTX64dvN9hFeDsIPAD?si=d86c9b89bcda4e5f

Note: At Write On today, we did a journal prompt. “Write a letter to your younger self.” Here is what I wrote.

Dear Danny,

Yes, there are people that still call you Danny. Your wife, for one, but I won’t say who that is, because what is life without surprises? If you’re at that age, oh about junior high, it might irk you to hear that not everyone has dropped the “ny” as mandated. Don’t worry, at some point, you grow quite fond of it, again.

Not because you want to be called Danny necessarily, but because the voices saying it do so because they’ve known since when everyone called you that, and when they see you, they still see that boy. You can’t measure or really even define what you hear when they call you “Danny,” but you do know that it’s good. It’s like seeing one scene in a movie you love, and not having to see the rest, because you already know it, and more than that, you already feel it.

“Hi, Danny,” is something they’ve said to you a hundred times. Maybe in the hallway at school. Maybe in your friend’s basement on a Friday night senior year. Maybe at weddings. At funerals. Maybe as your life and theirs pass briefly one day or another. It’s good to hear, and you hope to hear it more often. And you never know when you’ll never hear it again.

I can’t tell you anything you probably don’t already “think” you know. I remember thinking I knew everything when I was you.

So, here’s the cliff notes on how to make it in the future.

1. Keep exercising. Football will end when you’re seventeen, but you have many years of maintaining the blood and muscles and bone that comprise your body. It’s easier to keep exercising than start again.
2. Try things. Learn an instrument. Paint a picture. Build an engine. Don’t back out of challenges because they don’t fit into your perceived notion of who you are now, because who you are later will be different, and it only gets harder to learn things.
3. Practice patience and understanding. It’s not your strong point but remember the people around you are battling just as many challenges as you. Some are probably battling more. Give them a break, it’s likely they’ve already given you one or two.
4. Value the people around you. They won’t be there forever.
5. Live life with the courage to eat the biggest pieces of cake but the wisdom to only take what you really need.
6. Oh, and write often and show it to people. Confirm what you suspect, you have a knack for it.

Finally, let the people who want to call you Danny call you Danny. It has a youthful ring to it.

Sincerely,

Dan

My Music Journal 2025: September 15, 2025

 

Monday, September 15, 2025

Time: 7:14 PM
Song: Race Cars and Goth Rock
Artist: Butch Walker
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s in shed while finishing putting a top on a table. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/466ycW8M1Wxu0EvlCdJsxQ?si=53d8e35c1fcb4f9d

I’m not a car guy, a grease monkey, a guy that can look at anything mechanical and have a good hunch about how it works and what might need fixed. It’s not in my makeup. When the DNA bag was shaken for me in whatever grand cosmic scheme plays out prior to our birth, those skills were left out.

That being said, sometimes I have small victories. 

Take tonight. Jodi wanted to connect the three-point hitch on our tractor to a pull-behind mower. She tried before I came home, but couldn’t quite make it happen. The hitches were uneven, and doing it alone was more than she could handle (Before I take calls on that, I couldn’t do it on my own either). 

Together, we did it. She backed the tractor into position, and I was able to bang them into place to hook to the mower. Now, for some reason, the hitches remained uneven, but that was a battle for another day. We achieved the bare minimum in our battle with that machinery. 

I followed that by putting the top on one of the tables I had been working on. It was a bit tricky, getting the holes that already existed in the metal frame to line up with the holes that I drilled in the top. It didn’t turn out perfect, but I finished that, also. 

All that by 7:30. If it had been a month ago, I might have kept at it, and finished the second table. But, it was growing darker, and while the shed has lights, it isn’t lit so well to make that kind of work easy at dusk. I’ll have to finish it later this week. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 14, 2025

 

Sunday, September 14, 2025

Time: 2:02 PM
Song: Homeward Bound
Artist: Simon & Garfunkel
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl LP of Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4Xl2PrS3DJqqSKXCo6Uhv9?si=7b3f831611ef4a05

It’s a neat trick the way time moves faster on Sundays. 

Today, it was waking at seven. Eating breakfast, getting ready for church, reading a few pages from a book, and then off to church. 

Church ended at 9:30. We loaded the scaffolding that we used to change the lightbulb in the ceiling of the sanctuary on Thursday. We took that back to Andy’s up near Oregon. Drove back toward Sterling, stopped at Aunt Betty’s for a few minutes, and then met our parents for lunch. 

It was after 1 PM by the time we got home. 

I did the treasurer work for the week for the church. Cleaned grapes, and packed our salads for Monday’s lunches. Simon & Garfunkel is playing on the radio. It’s relaxing, but I can feel the day slipping away. 

I spend the afternoon working on a coffee table and end table until I hit a roadblock. The screws I bought are too short. So, I walk Millie, and get back and start to watch the Bears game I recorded. 

Yuck. Should have skipped that. 

A short porch party with Jodi and the dog, and now it’s getting late, and I have three blog entries to write. 

Where did Sunday go? 

My Music Journal 2025: September 13, 2025

 

Saturday, September 13, 2025

Time: 6:20 PM
Song: I Wish I Was Eighteen Again
Artist: George Burns
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl LP of “I Wish I Was Eighteen Again” by George Burns.

Link to song (note Spotify didn't have the George Burns version of this song, so this is Ray Price): https://open.spotify.com/track/4CEl2D6p9QsHXRNG6XUZHN?si=3615927c57a64632

“Sometimes I think I’d like to be eighteen again,” Jodi says. “There be some good things about it, but others not so much. I don’t think I am up for being back in school.” 

I nod. 

“Do you want to be eighteen again?” 

I think about it a second. 

“Not really.” I don’t add a whole lot more than that. I think there are days when I think about it more than that. The night before we went to a football game, and that always gets me to thinking about being the age where I could go play four quarters of football and get up the next day feeling fine. Now, one fall to the ground would probably leave me sore for a week. 

No, I don’t think I’d want to be eighteen again, other than just to have the chance to move back in time and see the people that I can’t see anymore. If it meant scratching away the memories and lessons of the last 25 years, then I don’t see the point of it, I guess. 

As I get older, I do tend feel that there might be something to reincarnation. If some essence of me becomes eighteen again, I hope It’s a different body, living a different life, doing different things. 

I look up later that George Burns was 84 years old when he recorded this song. I don’t doubt that he was considering himself nearer to death. The chance to be eighteen would give him a burst of life. 

Little did he know, he’d live another sixteen years. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 12, 2025

 

Friday, September 12, 2025

Time: 7:45 PM
Song: Thunderstruck
Artist: AC/DC
Mode of Consumption: Playing over speakers at Sterling High School Football game.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4f5V6rbtGt67AWtNGRS9vx?si=790e427725cc4935

Jodi makes a comment about AC/DC probably making a lot money from this song getting played at football games alone as the song starts up. The teams are on the field warming up for the game. It’s a high school football game on a warm September night. 

I’ve probably been at a hundred games where the same scenario has played out. Teams warming up. AC/DC on the loudspeakers. Teenage girls dancing on the sideline. Maybe a marching band rounding the track behind one goal post or another. 

This is how football has become America’s past time. A hundred years ago it was baseball. People had their routines then for baseball whether it was attending games, listening on the radio, or playing stickball in the streets. 

That all changed sometime after World War Two. Football became a routine in American towns from one coast to the other. The place where people gathered, mostly on Friday nights. The Parents. The fans. The students. The entire community linked for a night, mostly agreeing on who to root for. 

In bigger communities and university towns, the same repeated on Saturdays for college teams, and eventually the NFL caught on, claiming Sundays. The game was tied to the weekends. A good time. The smell of pork chops on grill and the change of color in the leaves on the trees. 

It’s the crossroads of communities and big business. Hope and decline. Togetherness and controlled violence. 

Sort of like the lyrics to most AC/DC songs.

My Music Journal 2025: September 11, 2025

 

Thursday September 11, 2025

Time: 5:55 PM
Song: Any Time at All
Artist: The Beatles
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle while changing a light bulb at church.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/70XHAdaMaoLIOVb1hSaeJ4?si=55a4b28464ca4ce0

Jake and I grew up in First Lutheran Church of Jordan just north of Sterling on IL 40. We became fast friends, flinging large Lego-like blocks at each other’s head in the Sunday School room when we were toddlers.

In junior high, we began catechism together, along with some girl named Jodi, her cousin Abbie, and a couple other peers. A robust number, considering a decade later, the church would be absent youth almost completely.

We bonded over the Beatles in those days. Consuming their music, rewatching the anthology, and searching for pretty much any other available media on the band.

About thirty years later, he met me at church early this evening to help replace a bulb in the ceiling of the sanctuary. The actual changing of the bulb was a one-man job, but the building of the scaffolding was better accomplished with two people. He is also a couple of inches taller, which also proved to be beneficial to the cause.

These days, we see each other a few times a year. Many times, just in passing, or at trivia events, which are fun, but don’t often yield many opportunities for conversations.

Once when we were teenagers, we were tasked with moving boxes out of the parsonage for a departing pastor. A member of the council mentioned needing “strong backs and weak minds” for a job like this.

“Been a long time since this place need our strong backs,” I mentioned as we were wrapping up.

A few minutes later, this song played on my phone (I had the music playing the entire time. We never did anything without music on). It summed the day up well as I thanked Jake for the help; we accomplished the task with no injuries, no damage, and no other pitfalls.

My Music Journal 2025: September 10, 2025

 

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Time: 7:30 AM
Song: Sing for the Moment
Artist: Eminem
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way to work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/3CpoeW0cZSDzIRv5z34F87?si=e52b564433a34a7f

I sometimes wonder if the rise of rap was a precursor to the social media environment that burst into existence in the late 2000s and 2010s.

Stick with me. See, I like some rap music. I like Eminem. But I can’t deny that there are songs like “Sing for the Moment,” where I wonder why I want to listen Marshall Mathers complain about the pressures and challenges of stardom and navigating the legal battles he faced (that he also often caused).

Especially now that the song is probably two decades old. The daughter he mentions is grown. The legal problems are likely forgotten by most of the world. Why does this song matter? Do I like the sampling of Aerosmith that much?

While other genres certainly have songs where the artist aired their problems, it always seemed like rap did it more and with less ambiguity.

It’s like a Facebook post. One where we decide that publishing our gripes in a Festivus type “airing of grievances” is somehow going to improve the situation in any matter. In my experience, it only amplifies the problem.

That being said, it is therapeutic to release anger, fear, sadness, and other emotions. Using it to create something artistic is also taking a negative and making a positive.

Still. It’s twenty years later. Do I care about Eminem’s problems enough to keep listening to this song?

My Music Journal 2025: September 9, 2025

 

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Time: 7:48 AM
Song: Circle the Drain
Artist: Katy Perry
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way to work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/7s0YfJE6hNNYq9BV26iCw6?si=cf1f267cb0d8446f

Okay, I am in an abusive relationship.

The transgressor isn’t my wife, Jodi. No, it’s not any of my friends, my co-workers or my boss. It’s the football team I have chosen to support.

The Chicago Bears.

Last night was the first game of the 2025 season, and it left me wondering if I should bother watching anymore. I’ve seen this show before. Lead most of the game. Miss chances to extend the lead. Commit needless penalties. Challenge a play that clearly was called correctly to burn a timeout. Give up 21 points in the fourth quarter to lose. Repeat a similar script a few dozen times and you get the typical Bears game over the last, oh, 20 years or so. The only time it really changes is when they get completely blown out of the building, which usually happens twice a season, at least, and the four-to-six games where the opposing team is equally incompetent

Anyways, there were a couple other noteworthy things that caught my attention from football this weekend.

• The television announcers clearly have been instructor to refer to the quarterbacks by first name. While I’ve heard this done some in the past, it was pretty much every reference last night and in other games this weekend. Having played football where you are branded by your last name with tape on the first day of practice, I find it jarring. I know it’s likely some sort of branding magic that the NFL ad-Wizards have conjured, I am not sure I am on board with it.
• There seems to be a growing desire to have the quarterback pitch the ball to the running even with runs inside the tackle. The Bears almost exclusively did it, but I saw it frequently in other games I watched brief parts of this weekend. I see it, and think, that’s a fumble waiting to happen. I also think the backs are slowed down by having to watch the ball longer before moving their eyes up to find the hole. That certainly seemed to be the case with the Bears. I would prefer they scrap that and just have the quarterback take two steps and hand the ball off. 

My Music Journal 2025: September 8, 2025

 

Monday, September 8, 2025

Time: 6:45 P.M.
Song: All of This
Artist: The Naked and the Famous
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle while varnishing boards in our garden shed.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4Ip2JTqyVA9OOEFvNAkzdf?si=d2b1a6f6745f433b

A few months ago, I bought metal bases for an outdoor coffee table and an end table at a garage sale. My plan was to make tops for both from old barn boards that have been sitting in our garage for probably a decade.

I finally started the process this weekend, cutting the boards to length and then sanding them down. I followed that by staining them on Sunday.

Tonight, I wanted to get the first coat of varnish on them before the Bears game at 7:15.

I always like the process of taking drab, tired looking boards that threaten a splinter with any touch and smoothing them down, enriching the color and then watching as the varnish pulls the grains of the wood to the surface. It’s like giving the boards a second life.

I did this once before with a metal base and put the table up for auction at the Festival of Trees. It did well.

I haven’t decided if that’s the future for these two tables. I hope to have everything finished with them by the end of next weekend, so that I can move on to the next project. I will either donate them for the festival or put them up for sale.

It’s always weird. I spend so much of the summer mowing the yard and getting things ready for the fair that I always feel like I am rushing to do projects like this in September and October before the weather turns cold.