From the Beat: Back on the Sideline for 2022

 

I returned to the sideline on Friday night, covering a high school football game between Fulton and Galena High Schools in northwestern, Illinois. I covered a couple playoffs games last fall, but this was the first Friday night game that I had been too since 2019. 

Because of the printing schedule, SVM has way earlier deadlines than when I left the Sports Editor position late in 2015. That being said, I asked not to be assigned games that would be included in the paper editions on Saturday morning. I have too many concerns with technology to be relied upon in that manner, which proved prophetic last night, as our internet service was slow and my emails were getting caught in SVM’s spam filter for some reason. 

I’ve come into this season wanting to try some different things each game that I can include as blog posts. I thought last night I would try taking some photos. It turns out that there is a reason I’m a writer. I did get a few OK ones, the best I thought was this silhouette of myself. I had a few others, but I am having an issue getting them to load on our desktop today. 

As far as the game story went, I struggled to come up with a lede. I have always been a strong believer in writing ledes that hook readers, and I couldn’t quite find one last night. I liked a quote one of the Fulton players provided about preparing each week for the team they wanted to be rather than the team they were playing. I wanted to build the story around that since while the Steamers won, they suffered a few stretches where penalties and mental mistakes cost them, including almost letting Galena back into the game during the second quarter. 

As it turns out, I felt much the same about the story I put together. Ultimately, it wasn’t where I wanted it to be. Good thing it was the first week for me, too, and hopefully by the end of the fall, I’ll find my groove again.

Here is a link to my game story: https://www.shawlocal.com/friday-night-drive/news/2022/08/27/good-start-for-fulton-better-to-come/

Try-It Tuesday (8-23-22): American Slang by Gaslight Anthem

 

Note: On Tuesdays I will be reviewing albums that are new or at least new to me.

Album Released: 2010

About Gaslight Anthem: They formed in 2006 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. American Slang was the band’s third album. The band went on hiatus from 2015 until announcing in March 2022 that they were working on a sixth album.

Members: Brian Fallon (Lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Alex Rosamillia (Lead guitar, backing vocals), Alex Levine (bass guitar, backing vocals), Benny Horowitz (drums, percussion).

What I Know: I stumbled upon singles “45” and “Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts” sometime over the last decade. I like their pop-punk sound.

Did You Know? According to stacker.com, Bae is the most popular slang among American youth. It is a term of endearment for a beloved person in your life. … Lead singer is also a part of the duo the “Horrible Crowes.”

Why this album: One of the songs was featured in my Spotify “Discover Weekly” playlist. I had enjoyed previous things I’d heard from this band but have never taken a deep dive into their catalogue.

My thoughts on American Slang: The longest song on this album is 4 minutes, 12 seconds, and it’s clear this a group trying to write catchy, steady beat, guitar-driven rock. I’m fine with that. The vocal and lead guitar tones are distinctive, and they lean into both regularly.

The title track opens the album, it’s the most popular song according to Spotify. It sets the tone and pace I mentioned above.

I think this an album if I listened to it twenty times, I could start to distinguish the individual tracks, but after a first listen it was hard to pinpoint much unique from one song to the next. The exceptions to this are the title track, which I think is just a cut above the rest, and the final track.

The album closer is “We Did It When We Were Young.” The pace is slower, but the layered vocals provide some interesting moments. The rock vocal on top is nearly the same as the rest of the album, but slowed down, and below that is a lower, deeper backing vocal that provides an echo effect. The wall of sound builds as the song crescendos. Just an effective tune.

The Wrap: This has a very 2000s sound, reminiscent of a band like the Ataris. If you are into that, you’ll like this album. Like I said, the standout points are the title track and the final track. Nothing in-between stands out after one listen.

You’re Up: Let me know your thoughts on this album, or anything new to you that you are listening to this week.

Poetry - Ode to Rejection

I have a subscription to "Writer's Digest" and each issue they have a Poetic Aside which showcases a poetic form. I usually try to write one using that form just as a writing exercise. Then, each year I enter one at the Carroll County Fair. Below is a poem I wrote sometime in the last year (I haven't had a chance to go back to clarify the form of poem it is. I'll post a note, if I find it). 

From what I remember is that each line had to be seven syllables. Each stanza is four lines. The second and fourth lines have an end rhyme. The last word of Line 1 rhymes with the third syllable of Line 2, and the last word of Line 3 rhymes with the fifth syllable of Line 4. 

When one submits to magazines, agents, and publishers often, you tend to get used to form letters of rejection. Sometimes more is offered, but often it is a "thanks for sending" and "doesn't fit what we're looking for." type response. Below is a satire of one of those letters. 

By the way, this took the blue ribbon at the fair. :). 

Ode to Rejection

Dear Mr. Writer, Thanks For
Sending your story to us
Though we enjoyed your tight prose
Your plot never rose much fuss.

It circled and circled down
As a clown fumbles a joke
And trips over too big shoes
Best read with cold booze, plus toke.

The characters are well drawn
Like a yawn or a sad song
Played loud when the mood is soft
You misuse words oft, just wrong.

Please don’t suffer denial
No retrial for your book.
We suggest a new vocation
Or hobby for fun. Fry cook?

Try-It Tuesday (8-2-22): The Country by Tennessee Jet

 

Note: On Tuesdays I will be reviewing albums that are new or at least new to me.

Album Released: 2020

About Tennessee Jet: It’s the stage name for singer/songwriter TJ McFarland – note he was raised in Oklahoma.

Members: Just McFarland, although Dwight Yoakam’s touring band play a prominent role on this album.

What I Know: Nothing. Never heard of this fellow, but it came up on Spotify and thought I’d give it a go.

Did You Know? Tennessee Jet’s parents were rodeo performers. …His musical idols are The White Stripes and Kurt Cobain. … This is his third album.

Why this album: See What I Know.

My thoughts on The Country: This has the feel of an alternative country album in the vein of Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, as it blends old-time country, folk, and rock ‘n roll. It was his goal to showcase the range of country on this album. I hear a little of Steve Earle in his voice.

• The opening tune “Stray Dogs” is a borderline rocker with a nice hook. It’s the most listened to original tune on the album.
• The second tune, “The Raven & the Dove,” has some classic steel guitar and some solid harmonica.
• “Johnny” is the third track, and it is a tribute to Johnny Horton. It features some heavy rock-influenced guitar and drumlines.
• The first of two covers is fourth with Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho & Lefty.” He gets help on this one from Cody Jinks, Paul Cauthen and Elizabeth Cook, and some nice horns. Just a great song, and a nice take on it.
• “Off to War” is a slower, statement song, followed by a honky-tonk type of tune in “Hands on You.” He then swings into a ballad for a country dance in “Someone to You.”
• The title track delivers the message of the album with the line: “I miss you like the country, radio don’t play anymore.” This is an ode to what should be on country radio rather than the pop drivel country that pollutes the airwaves. This tune is a straightforward acoustic song with vocals, and it’s well done.
• The second cover is the ninth of ten songs in the Black Crowes’ “She Talks to Angels,” and he gives it a bluegrass sound. It’s an interesting take, with banjo, violin, and solid backing female vocals.

The Wrap: I like the experiment of purposefully taking a tour of the various sounds of country music. If you like off-the-beaten path country, this is one for you to check out. If you want songs about drinking and summer and girls in jean shorts, it’s probably not for you.

You’re Up: Let me know your thoughts on this album, or anything new to you that you are listening to this week.

Try-It Tuesday (7-26-22): Misadventures of Doomscroller by Dawes

 

Note: On Tuesdays I will be reviewing albums that are new or at least new to me.

Album Released: 2022

About Dawes: Formed in 2009 from the remnants of the post-punk band Simon Dawes after co-songwriter Blake Mills left the band. From then on, they have been a folk-rock band.

Members: Taylor Goldsmith (lead vocals, guitar), Griffin Goldsmith (drums), Wylie Gelber (bass) and Lee Pardini (Keyboards)

What I Know: I first got into Dawes when I stumbled upon the song, “A Little Bit of Everything” in early 2010s. I’ve grown found of several other songs including: All Your Favorite Bands, When My Time Comes, and Things Happen. They were also the opening act at the Outlaw Festival (headlined by Willie Nelson) that Jodi and I attended in 2019. They put together an entertaining, tight 30-minute set that day.

Did You Know?: “Doomscrolling” is the action of continually scrolling through and reading depressing or worrying content on a social media or news site, especially on a phone… Taylor Goldsmith is married to actor/singer Mandy Moore.

Why this album: Well, I do know Dawes, but I figured what are the odds that I could start this weekly feature with two albums with opening songs that reference doomscrolling. Not only that, but long opening songs that reference doomscrolling. If you missed, last week I reviewed Metric’s “Formentera” album with an opening song entitled “Doomscroller” that was 10-minutes, 28 seconds long. This week’s opening song “Someone Else’s Café/Doomscroller tries to Relax” clocks in at 9:26.

My thoughts on Misadventures of Doomscroller: This a seven-song album with six of those songs going over the 5:30 mark, and it is bookended by songs over nine minutes long.

• The percussion and guitars are highlights for me in the nine-minute opening track which seems to be a commentary on poisonous nature of social media.
• The lyrics in the second discuss how oceans, electricity, spirituality, and the future all come in waves, hence the chorus and song title “Comes in Waves.” I like the thought and writing; the instrumentation is solid.
• The third tune “Everything is Permanent” clocks in at 8:43 and delves into the permanency of modern life and technology. The song ends with the repeated lines of “Did you really need to cry or be seen crying.” It’s a thoughtful line about how so much of our behavior is performance in the age of constant sharing.
•  The next two songs “Ghost in the Machine” and “Joke in There Somewhere” continue the theme of modern pressures.
• The sixth song is an instrumental entitled “Joke In There Somewhere – Outro.” At 1:37, it feels unnecessary.
• The album ends with the nine-minute “Sound That No One Made/Doomscroller Sunrise” and tries to tie together the entire concept of the album about the decaying of bodies, spirit, and life.

The Wrap: I’m not sure people turn to Dawes for long songs and instrumentation. There are certainly highlights and it’s worth a listen. I wish the vocal tones were a little more varied, as Goldsmith seems smitten with a higher tone than in some of their earlier releases. I guess I am a sucker for a single or two, and that’s what is missing on this album for me.

You’re Up: Let me know your thoughts on this album, or anything new to you that you are listening to this week.

Try-It Tuesday (7-19-2022) – Formentera by Metric

 

Notes: On Tuesday’s, if time allow, I am going review a new album (at least an album new to me).

Album Released: 2022

About Metric: A Canadian Rock band founded in 1998 in Toronto, Ontario. “Formentera” is the band’s eighth full-length album.

Members: Emily Haines (Lead Vocals, synth, guitar, tambourine, harmonica, piano), James Shaw (Guitar, synth, theremin, backing vocals), Joshua Winstead (Bass, synth, backing vocals), and Joules Scott-Key (Drums, percussion).

What I know: Coming into this one, I knew of only one Metric song called “Gimme Sympathy” which asks the timeless question: “Would you rather be the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” As it turns out, they are neither, more a band that sounds a bit of a cross of the Smashing Pumpkins or Silversun Pickups with a techno band.

Did you know?: Formentera is the smallest and most southerly island of the Pityusic Islands group which belongs to the Balearic Islands autonomous community (Spain). The word is derived from the Latin word frumentarium meaning “granary.”

My thoughts on Formentera: The album starts boldly with a 10-minute, 28-second song entitled “Doomscroller.” The song starts heavy with the synth and plods a bit, but the last three- or four-minutes cuts away a bit of the techno overtones with chilling vocals and striking piano. It’s followed by the most-played song on the album on Spotify in “All Comes Crashing.” It has the hooks one expects from a single with solid vocals. It’s driving beat and repetition with lyrics is repeated in the next tune, “What Feels Like Eternity.” The title track comes next and clocks in at 6:17, and it combines the synth beats with a nice string section, fitting closer with the album opener more than the previous two tracks.  I don’t know how the songs were released on this album, but the first three songs have listens ranging from 604,499 to 2,763,202, but the last half of the album has a high of 392,006 with “False Dichotomy” (a focused, catchy pop song) while the rest are lingering at 115,000. There are some nice points in all those songs, but I am not sure any does enough sonically to sound much different from any other song on the album.

The Wrap: It’s an album worth checking out, and one I would listen to again. I wish they’d ditch the synths more often and alter the beats to provide more individuality to the songs.

You’re up: Let me know your thoughts on this album, or anything new to you that you are listening to this week.

My 2 Cents: Game of Thrones

 

Jodi and I tend to trail behind popular culture by about five years. I could go on about that, and maybe someday I will, but just trust that it’s the truth as a lead-in to this post. About five years after most of the rest of the world, we finished watching Game of Thrones on Monday night. Before I dive into the point of this post, I want to make a few things clear:

1. I have read the books. Jodi has not. I will say that when I started reading the first book, I was near a point of giving up on the fantasy genre. I had read a few of the Robert Jordan “Wheel of Time” books with great frustration. I found Jordan’s writing derivative, he had a penchant for long blocks of retelling of previous books, and each book felt like a level of a video game – you know, beat the boss to advance to the next level and the next boss.  I will admit that I didn’t really feel much better about Game of Thrones until reaching the conclusion of the first book and the beheading of Ned Stark. In the fantasy genre, main characters never die, and it had felt like Ned Stark was going to be the lynchpin of the series. With his death, it changed the tone. This truly was a “Game of Thrones” where you either “Win or you die.” By the conclusion of the books that are written, I was starting to worry about a couple things:
• Much like professional wrestling fans in the late 1990s, I found myself looking toward the aisle instead of watching the action in the ring to try and see what surprise was coming next. The problem with that is that there is a law diminishing returns with such booking. Sooner or later because you don’t care about what’s in front of you, you stop caring about what happens to anyone. The surprise from behind the curtain will never then live up to expectation.
•  I was becoming convinced that it was unlikely with such a grand scope that the conclusion of this series was going to be wholly satisfactory. Its charm was its immensity and once all these characters and plots collided, I worried we might find that the pieces didn’t really all fit together.
2.  I am not going to spend a lot of time discussing the gripes most people had with the conclusion of the show. Mostly I’m fine with it (see above, I suspected it wouldn’t all fit perfectly together). Was the last season rushed? Yes. Why did Daenerys go mad? Not entirely sure – grief, lust for power, just in the Targaryen blood. All of the above? Was Bran the right pick as king? I don’t know, probably as good a choice as anyone. The lesson was that wanting power is evil.

Since this is a writing blog, I wanted highlight things I’ve considered about this series.

Character Development

The strength of Game of Thrones is development of numerous complex characters. Jamie Lannister pushes a child out of a window to hide his affair with his twin sister, yet by midway through the series you want to root for him. Tyrion Lannister is a quick-witted drunken dwarf, who also happens to be idealistic and a romantic. Brienne of Tarth is a hulking brute who is so guarded because of the cruelty she’s faced her entire life. Theon Greyjoy has confused loyalties, does terrible things in hopes to win his father’s approval, endures torture and emasculation, and struggles to find redemption. These are only a few of the characters we meet, love, and lose along the way.

The lesson for a writer is that almost no one is perfectly good or completely evil. Crafting character isn’t just about providing physical details and dialogue. It’s creating nuances in personality, building sympathy and/or contempt, and developing all these traits through plot. 

The World

Like Tolkien before him, George R.R. Martin creates an elaborate world with a rich history that plays a major role in the events taking place on the pages and screen. From the Targaryen’s conquest of Westeros to the building of the great wall in the North to many other major and minor events that are detailed in the books and hinted at in show. For example, “The Rains of Castamere” is a song about the slaughter of House Reyne by Tywin Lannister. It’s a grim tale and one that highlights Tywin’s cunning and ruthlessness. The band begins to play this song after the wedding of Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey, which Catelyn Stark recognizes and immediately knows that she and her son, Robb, are in trouble.

I admire fantasy writers who can develop such rich and poignant history. The trick is to do it without losing the forward motion of the story you’re telling. I can’t claim that I have that ability, but if I ever write a fantasy story, it’s something I’ll have to consider.

The Magic Balancing Act

Okay, the dragons are cool. The magic that brought them back sort of vague, but they serve a purpose in the story. Melisandre seems to have some magic, but her abilities seem to wax and wane at times. She serves the Lord of Light but births a shadow of death. Sort of confusing. The faceless men – still not sure I get that. Bran is the Three-Eyed Raven, which I guess means he can see the past and the present and maybe the future. Maybe he’ll live a long time if he lives in the roots of a tree. And, boy, the Night King wants him dead, even though it seems like the Night King could have done just that since the last Three-Eyed Raven was north of the wall for a long time with minimal protection and wrapped up in the roots of a tree. The reality is that Bran’s ability is a way to fill in gaps to the reader/viewer. It’s a plot device, so you must accept some head scratching parts. The Night King – so I like the story of everyone coming together to defeat this guy – but isn’t it really the story of beating Sauron or insert every other totally evil wizard in the fantasy realm. It made for great theater, but the character itself is flat, his motivation kind of narrow, and then there’s only one way that he can lose, and he allows himself to be fooled into exposing that weakness (himself). You know, like Sauron tied himself to a ring that could be destroyed. The Night King just needs to stay five miles from the battle, and his side wins. The more I think about the end of the series, I sometimes wonder if the entire Night King scenario just didn’t quite fit into this otherwise political story.

I guess what I am saying is that magic is something that is part of fantasy, but it’s often a tricky thing, and I am not sure it’s a strength for George R.R. Martin. Oftentimes writers use magic to get out of corners. Can’t beat a villain, develop a magic scheme that makes it possible. The problem is that magic often also blows holes in plotlines. I mean, if Gandalf can call the eagles, why don’t they just fly the damn eagles to Mordor and drop the ring in Mount Doom? Well, it’d be a shitty story if they did, for one thing. The other is that writers should brush lightly but precisely when it comes to magic.

Well, that’s what I have to say. Let me know your thoughts on Game of Thrones, and thanks for reading.