brainsplotch

This has been a shit year, there's no other way to put it. (Well, maybe there is a more artful way to put it, but I don't feel like it. Describing it as "shit" just seems more appropriate). I don't think it's necessary to enumerate the many ways in which 2016 sucked. Any year in which David Bowie and Prince died, while Donald Trump was elected president, is automatically a horrible year. All of the other bad things that happened are just more poo clogging the toilet. (Sorry for the scatological metaphors, folks). So why not take a look at the good stuff from 2016, at least from my perspective. The year was a good one for music. It has been a long time since I've been as excited about new music as I was in '16. It started in January when David Bowie released Blackstar ,  an album that has to rank as one of the best of his career, and there is no hyperbole in that statement. It was as if Bowie knew that this was his final statement to t...

We're on the road in Ohio, finally returning home from a 13-day trip outside of Michigan. We have driven through eight states (Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) as well as one day on a small island owned by Royal Caribbean (Cocoa Cay) and one day in Nassau, Bahamas. We also spent time just gently traveling in a cruise ship in the Atlantic to our ports of call. Long vacations are strange because one loses all sense of time. Since ordinary routines are broken, our ways of measuring our days go completely out the window. So two weeks can feel like two months. It feels like we have been gone for way more than 13 days, at least to me. I don't know if I'll be able to cover the whole vacation experience in one post, especially since I'm pecking away at a tiny keyboard on my phone--in the car. I can at least talk about the cruise. So about the Royal Caribbean cruise: I had no idea what to expect, and had ...

We are currently driving near Savannah, Georgia. Yesterday's drive was not without adventure. When we stopped in Cambridge, Ohio for a restroom and food break, we discovered that the electrical cord--that connects the trailer lights to the vehicle--had broken off and for God knows how long we had been driving without tail lights on the trailer. I tried calling U-Haul roadside assistance and was on hold for what seemed like an eternity. Meanwhile, the rest of the family had gone in McDonald's and found out there was a U-Haul location in Cambridge. After a little adventure finding the place, the people there were kind enough to fix it free of charge. Special shoutout to the young 20s-ish guy in a Chicago Bears cap who did a great job getting us back on the road. 12/19/2016 We survived many maniac drivers on I-95 in Florida, and a couple torrential rainstorms, but we made it to Cape Canaveral. Florida is such a strange state. Rarely does a place combine beauty, sophistication ...

I'm not good with vacations involving travel and preparation. I'm not good getting out of my comfort zone, which would be at home in my daily routine. This is either due to a natural reticence or undiagnosed Asperger's, which I suspect I may have. So I am writing to you south of Dundee, Michigan. We are heading towards our first day destination of North Carolina. I spent a good deal of last night tossing and turning. Will we get everything ready and packed? Will I be able to back the van out of our long-ass driveway (with the attached U-Haul trailer) without backing into a snow bank? (Almost. My wife, who is better at such things, relieved me and had slightly more luck. She made it out with just enough clearance). So now I try to maintain calm as much as possible. It can be difficult with six family members crammed in close quarters for so long. But I survived our 2013 Disney trip, so I should be able to do this. Signing off for now.

It's been almost a full month since I last wrote in this blog, still reeling from the presidential election. Though I am not experiencing the full-on depression of that time, I'm still extremely anxious. With every bizarre Donald Trump cabinet appointee, I find myself cursing and wincing. I find myself constantly bombarded with news stories involving our president-elect that make me feel like someone is constantly jabbing me with a knitting needle: Russians hacking the election, Trump not attending security briefings, Ben Carson as secretary of HUD, Betsy DeVoss--a person who would love to chuck the entire public school system, as secretary of education, a secretary of state appointee (Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson) with business interests with Russia. ...and this is just scraping the surface. For several weeks I'd wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning in a cold sweat with an overwhelming sense of despair. The "bubble" concept: I may live in a bubble. I'm sure ...

I think Trump just might win this. Feeling panicky. I hope like hell I'm wrong. (Text message written to my brother-in-law on November 1, 2016--one week before the election) It has now been over a week since the election. My mood continually shifts from despair, to resolve, to almost-normality, and back to despair. How did this happen? Why did this happen? Is there any hope for this nation? The United States electorate took a look at a race-baiting, hateful, negative, misogynistic, serial sexually abusing egomaniac with absolutely no public service or government experience and said, "Sure, why not?" I don't know exactly what to add to this post right now, but I'm sure I will think of more to write later. Many thoughts and subjects, fears and concerns have been bouncing around in my brain every day since November 8, but at his moment I'm at a loss for words. When it gets down to it, we who did not vote for Trump need to fight harder than ev...

I can't tell you how much of a welcome distraction from our current political train wreck it was to witness the Chicago Cubs win their first World Series since the Theodore Roosevelt administration. Game seven reaffirmed for me why baseball is such a great game. It had just about everything one could want from a deciding World Series game: ups, downs, twists, turns, a 17-minute rain delay, and lots of drama. I mean, who would have guessed that Rajai Davis, a guy who was 3 for 20 coming to bat in the eighth against fireballing but fatigued Aroldis Chapman, would battle for several pitches before blasting a game-tying homer over the left field wall? I'm watching the replay on MLB Network while I write this and after Davis crushed his homer, Chapman has a look on his face of utter disbelief and shell-shock. I have complained in the past that FOX World Series telecasts overdo the fan reaction shots, but it seemed that this year they cut down on that a little. This was one year ...

We are a week away from the election and I am practically twisted in knots with anxiety. Hillary's poll number have gone down after the FBI quite bizarrely re-opened her never-ending email investigation. This time the emails seem completely amorphous. The timing of this revelation--if it really can be called a revelation--is baffling. It certainly comes off as FBI director James Comey purposely and blatantly tampering with the election. Meanwhile, a large swath of the American public seem to have, in the space of one or two weeks, forgotten that Donald Trump is a race-baiting, misogynistic, know-nothing, arrogant demagogue. Apparently, this is the person that almost half the United States wants to lead the nation forward. I fear for this country, I am alarmed by this country. I don't feel like I have anything in common with 40-45 percent of my fellow citizens. I'll go as far as saying that never in my life have I felt so utterly depressed about the direction this nation...

Here is a sentence I never thought I'd write: The Chicago Cubs are going to the World Series. In a stunning domination of Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, the Cubbies rolled to a 5-0 victory in last night's sixth game of the National League Championship Series (NLCS). Having watched the Cubs seize defeat from the jaws of victory far too often over the years, I refused to get excited until the ninth inning. With the Cubs holding a commanding 5-0 lead and Aroldis Chapman heaving fireballs over the plate, it was just a matter of anticipation. Sure, there was a little nervousness when Chapman walked a Dodger with one out, but when the next batter (I can't even remember who it was now) rapped a sharp grounder to Addison Russell at shortstop, I instintively uttered "double play!" and sure enough it was. For a team that once had the famous trio of "Tinker to Evers to Chance," it was appropriate that Russell to Baez to Rizzo ended the game and sent the...

(This is something I wrote quite some time ago. I sometimes have fantasies of being a stand-up comic, but the problem is a) I could never be consistently funny enough to pull it off and b) the second I got on stage, I'd probably completely freeze. Anyway, the following is a bit I thought might work in my fantasy stand-up routine). This is for people who have dogs.  I think we’ve all had that moment in the middle of the night when your dog wakes up out of a deep sleep, leaps out of your bed (or HIS bed, if you’re one of those owners who doesn’t want your dog in the human bed) and bolts for a window barking madly at something that you, as a human, didn’t notice and can’t identify. Now, you’d been enjoying a pleasant sleep until the moment your dog started yapping. And you’re tired. And the last thing you want to do is get out of bed to see what the hell the dog is barking at, because you know it’s just a squirrel or a slammed car door or some such thing.  But if you’r...

The Tragically Hip played what was likely their final concert ever last night. In front of a sold-out crowd at the K-Rock Centre in the band's hometown of Kingston, Ontario, and also witnessed by a national television audience watching a commercial-free broadcast on the CBC. I gave up luxury box/corporate suite seats at the Lansing Lugnuts baseball game in order to stay home and watch the concert--alone in my living room with only two cats and a dog for company (my wife and my two sons went to the ballgame). There you have it, the life of an American Hip fan. I know I've probably been driving my Facebook friends crazy over the last several days with all my Hip-related posts. But this has simply been "the Summer of the Hip" for me, ever since that terrible morning in late May when the world received the news about Gord Downie's cancer diagnosis. A month after that, I bought the Hip's new album Man Machine Poem and have watched the band's tour unf...

(The third in my series of Tragically Hip album overviews, in which I investigate the discography of this criminally undervalued Canadian band). I'm beginning this overview of the Tragically Hip's Road Apples with a warning that this ended up being a much deeper dive than even I anticipated, but the Hip deserve the full attention of my (dubious) analysis. So don't say I didn't warn you. For the follow-up to their debut LP Up to Here , the Tragically Hip headed down south to record in New Orleans. Don Smith was once again behind the desk as producer. The resulting album, Road Apples , refines the barroom and heartland rock of the first album. But while the Hip perfect the sound that they'd developed on their first two records, they also close the chapter on this phase of their career. The Hip would change course on their next album, Fully Completely . But back to Road Apples . In 1990, the band convened at Daniel Lanois' Kingsway Studio with the for...

Consider this blog post a "place holder" until I finally get something more substantial on here. I'm currently working on the third in my continuing series of Tragically Hip album overviews. This one is about 1991's Road Apples. I hope to have it up here within the next few days. So what else is new? I'm trying to survive through the constant stream of craziness in the world. Every week, it seems there is another mass shooting or terrorist attack somewhere on the globe. Meanwhile, the Republican National Convention was last week (watched a grand total of about three minutes of it when I stumbled upon Ben Carson speaking after turning the TV on. Three minutes was quite enough). Now, we are on to the Democratic National Convention. The Democratic Party is about as divided as the Republican, maybe even more. Will Bernie supporters get behind Hillary? Or will they disperse among the third party candidates? I haven't decided who I'm voting for in November. ...

This has been a Tragically Hip-centric blog for the last few weeks, and will remain so for at least one more post--because on June 17 the Hip released their 13th album, Man Machine Poem . Naturally, I feel compelled to write about it. I don't know if I've ever adequately explained how much I love this band, or how baffled I am that they never made a dent outside of Canada. It's a subject for another blog post to theorize as to why the Hip have never penetrated the States or the rest of the world--but frankly it's a subject that most fans of the band, and the band themselves, are tired of discussing. Though I'd heard of the Hip going as far back as the late '80s/early '90s, and was completely enraptured by Sarah Polley's gorgeous cover of "Courage" on the Sweet Hereafter  soundtrack in 1997. (I liked it so much, in fact, that I bought the CD). It wasn't until early 2006, when I borrowed their hits collection Yer Favourites from the li...

It looks like Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic Party's candidacy for president. I've been a Bernie Sanders supporter essentially since he entered the race, and I will keep my Bernie car magnet on the back of my minivan until he officially concedes. However, I am not one of those "Bernie bros" who we continually hear about in the media. (I have yet to actually encounter one of these alleged "Bernie bros," but that's another story). I've been mulling over my options for some time now, and my feeling is that it is in my and everyone's best interests to vote for Clinton in November. Now, I know that Clinton is not a perfect candidate. She is, at best, a moderate Democrat and has plenty of baggage. I hope that if Sanders remains in the race until the Democratic convention, he can at least influence the party platform and get more progressive policies instituted. And then there's Trump. The Donald is quite possibly the worst (...

(The second in my series of Tragically Hip album overviews, in which I investigate the discography of this criminally undervalued Canadian band). The Tragically Hip's debut long player, Up to Here , is a considerable improvement over their tentative eponymous EP. The band was paired with experienced and respected studio vet Don Smith, fresh off of engineering U2's blockbuster Rattle and Hum , the Traveling Wilbury's successful first album, and Keith Richards' debut solo album, Talk is Cheap . With Smith in the producer's chair, and the recording sessions at Memphis' legendary Ardent Studios, the Hip's sound is punchier and more assertive than on their 1987 EP. But it wasn't just Don Smith or the recording studio that made a difference in the Tragically Hip's sound, Gord Downie and company's songwriting had improved exponentially in the intervening two years. Anthemic tunes like "Blow at High Dough" and "New Orleans is...

I am currently slavishly laboring on a review of the Tragically Hip's debut full-length Up To Here , because I know my dear readers are dying to immerse themselves in my high-minded opinion of this obscure album by this "only known in Canada" band. So anyway, keep your eyes peeled for that. I hope to have it up sometime this week. In other news, our kids are wrapping up their school years, which means spring orchestra concerts. I've always been a fairly emotional sort, but these concerts really turn on my tear faucet. I do my best to cover it up, but it's hard. These kids (not just my kids but all of the kids) are so damned good and they work so hard at perfecting their musical skills. I'm doubly stirred by the fact my older son is playing my grandfather's old violin. After my grandpa died in 1963, the violin was silenced. I inherited it in the mid-1990s. Though I had it reconditioned to make it playable again, I never did pick it up myself. At...

Last night, I finally finished Bob Mehr's Trouble Boys , his excellent and incredibly detailed biography of the Replacements. First of all, I always knew the Replacements were NOT saints, but I had no idea the extent of their bad boy mayhem. Bob Stinson, Tommy Stinson, Paul Westerberg, and Chris Mars all drank like fish. In fact, it seems that for about a decade, they subsisted almost exclusively on alcohol. It's a goddamned miracle that they--with the exception of Bob Stinson--are still alive, based on the abuse their bodies--specifically their livers--have taken over the years. In addition to their prolific booze consumption, they routinely trashed tour buses, hotel rooms, and had little respect for any kind of authority figure. The book is littered with examples of self-destructive behavior. I'm not complaining, though. The book is highly entertaining, and the band's hijinks left me either laughing or simply thinking, "What the fuck?! They actually DID that?!...

First it was Bowie, then Lemmy, then Merle, and finally on to Prince. Now we have received word that Gord Downie has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. 2016 officially sucks. Now, I know that Gord Downie isn't nearly as famous as aforementioned quartet of iconic musicians, and thankfully Gord is still living, but the news--for the Tragically Hip's biggest fans--is equally as terrible and unthinkable. I've decided that I need to finally follow through on my little essays about all of the Hip's albums, a project I started several years ago on this blog but only made it through the band's first self-titled EP. I've taken some notes on the Hip's debut full-length album Up To Here and hope to post it soon. "Courage, it couldn't come at a worse time"

"I write to my mortality."--Sherman Alexie, A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment podcast episode 25. Although I'd never compare myself to an accomplished author like Sherman Alexie, or most accomplished authors out there for that matter, I'd say at least half of my compulsion to write is based on what Alexie says. Maybe it's egotistical on my part, but I'd like my ramblings to possibly outlive me, so I guess I write for some sense of "immortality." Alexie and co-host Jess Walter also talk about Go Set a Watchman and how they weren't bothered that Atticus Finch is not the paragon of virtuousness from To Kill a Mockingbird . I agree. I wasn't bothered by this characterization of Atticus. It seemed fitting for the time period and setting portrayed in the book. I'm a little saddened and disturbed by the fact that I sometimes dream that I'm on Facebook. The Michigan State Senate is terrible and Governor Snyder is a crook. Just sayin...

As anyone who wastes too much time on Facebook knows, every day something called "Your Memories" pops up. Facebook reminded me that seven years ago, a fellow FB friend posted an "album face-off" between Michael Jackson's Off the Wall and Prince's Dirty Mind. Here are a few comments I made. I don't know that there's anything earth-shattering in these comments, but I still hold true to what I wrote in 2009. By the way, keep in mind that both Michael Jackson and Prince were still living at this point. Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall vs. Prince’s Dirty Mind (May 12, 2009) Both of these albums are near and dear to my heart, as I still have both of them on vinyl. My mom gave me "Off the Wall" for my birthday in March '80. It's hard to conceive of a time when MJ was the coolest person on the planet, but he was at the peak of his powers in '79''80 (and up through "Thriller"). He'd just turned 21, had left Mo...

The following is an slightly edited version of an email I recently sent to a music podcast about an Alejandro Escovedo concert I attended on Wednesday, May 4: I wanted to tell you about a recent "Dad Rock experience" I had, but first some back story. (Please bear with me--I'll try and not get too long winded): About a year ago, I reconnected with one of my old college roommates, Paul. We hadn't talked to each other in well over 20 years, but it was as if we'd never lost contact--and one interest we continue to share all these years later is a love of music. Paul now lives in Lubbock, Texas and is deeply into music from the Lone Star State. In the last few months, he's turned me on to Dallas, Texas-based Alejandro Escovedo. As you guys may already know, Escovedo has a music career dating all the way back to the punk scene of the 1970s when he was a member of the Nuns, then on to Rank and File in the '80s, finally starting his solo career in...

Thinking quite a bit about Prince's death. Coincidentally, I'm currently reading Trouble Boys , the recent biography of those other Twin Cities icons, The Replacements. I have Minneapolis on my mind. Just a warning: This is not the story of a cool kid who was hip to the 1980s music scene in Minneapolis, but a somewhat dorky teen who had little idea of what was happening but could definitely feel the vibe of a hip city. Though I didn't know about the Replacements and Husker Du until 1986, I had the sense that Minneapolis had it going on like few other places I'd ever been to before. Now a little backstory... I may have mentioned this before, but I took trips to Minneapolis in the summers of 1981, '82, '84, and '85. My uncle Jim worked for the chief of the Baraga (MI) Ojibwa Tribal Community and made business trips to Minneapolis. I don't know if this was coincidence, but almost every time I went up north to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins ...

I recently unearthed these postcards I brought home from my various trips to Minneapolis. There is the City Center, where I purchased my copy of Purple Rain in July 1984, the Minnesota Zoo (that I visited in 1985) and a few others that I probably took from the lobby of the Normandy Inn. 

Alright, this has to stop. Enough with every great musician dying recently. It's getting ridiculous. I don't even know where to start with this one. It blindsided me. I knew that Prince had a health scare last week, but I never expected him to frickin' DIE a week later. Do you remember how, after Bowie died, I wrote about how his Let's Dance album penetrated the hinterlands of rural Michigan? It was exactly the same deal with Prince when 1999 was released, and then the doors blew off their hinges two years later when Purple Rain exploded. Prince introduced R&B and funk to quite a few small town, Midwestern white kids. And it's safe to say that if you came of age in the 1980s, Prince was a major part of your life's soundtrack. It was in a van heading home from a high school golf tournament when I first remember hearing about Prince. The year was 1982. I remember that the Brewers were playing the Cardinals in the World Series. Conversation went from...

A college friend of mine just recently--today, in fact--posted on Facebook this old picture of me and some friends. It really blew me away because I'd never seen it before. I'm pretty sure this is either freshman or sophomore year at Michigan State, which would make it circa 1986/1987. (In case you're wondering, I'm the guy in the red shirt). I can't quite put into words how gleeful I am to see this photo. The guy standing next to me is Pete Overton (Kadyk), who introduced me to The Smiths, The Feelies, and Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks. Yes, he was "that guy": the guy you always hope to meet in college. The guy who says, "If you're into so-and-so, you might like such-and-such." He was the cooler guy who leads you down unknown paths. (Unfortunately, he left this earth far too early, in 2001). The first time I met Pete was my second or third day on the MSU campus in September 1986. I was dragged out of my room by a few other fresh...