A couple of days ago, I helped our oldest child move into his freshman dorm room (and it was on the 11th floor, and the elevator line was too long, so we hauled his stuff up 11 flights of stairs… and it was snowing… wait, now I’m mixing up my hardship stories).
He’s not going far from home. He’s enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, which is about 8 miles from our house. But if home is where you hang your hat, he’s now living “away.” It’s been a long goodbye. He started checking out when he moved into his own room a few years ago. (It’s the one above the garage, the former guest room, a.k.a. “The Fonzarelli Suite.”) Then he got a job at a swimming pool one summer and was away even more. He added another job at Ramundo’s Pizzeria, and started driving, and hanging out with his friends more, and spending the night at their house quite a bit on the weekends… but that slow fade from our house doesn’t make his departure any easier. He doesn’t have to check in anymore, doesn’t have to text when he arrives at a friend’s house. He’s on his own… at least until laundry day (which for an 18 year old boy could be months).
As an alum of crosstown rival Xavier, I can’t help but feel that I’ve failed in my parenting. Then again, Xavier doesn’t have an engineering program.
His room at home has been empty most of the time for the past few months. But now it’s a different kind of empty.
It feels more hollow… in a way it mirrors the hole in our hearts, the void in our lives. I’m so happy for him as he starts his next adventure, and I’m trying to focus on that part of the equation. But it’s tough.
Sunday is “Senior Discount Day” at the St. Vincent DePaul thrift store near our house. My daughter always wants to go thrifting for vintage clothes (what’s “vintage” to her is “practically new” to me), so she drags her 50+ year-old pops along in order to save 25%. (It’s nice to be needed!)
However, I was the one who scored big time on a recent Sunday, at the record bin. Normally the St. VdP selection is heavy on the Ray Coniff singers and Andy Williams Christmas albums, and little else.
But check out this haul:
Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Carole King’s Tapestry, greatest hits albums from Simon & Garfunkel, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt and Chicago. The Stranger from Billy Joel. Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty. Aja from Steely Dan. Brothers in Arms from Dire Straits, the self-titled debut from Men at Work and Joe Jackson’s debut album Look Sharp. Plus a Southside Johnny album, a “South’s Greatest Hits” album from Capricorn Records (Allman Bros, Marshall Tucker Band, Outlaws, Dr. John, et al.), a live album from the Jackson 5, a disco single of Lakeside’s “Fantastic Voyage” and an album from Cincinnati jazz great Cal Collins. It’s the soundtrack to my formative music years, a cross section of the top-selling artists of the 70s and 80s (with a few chestnuts thrown in)…. all for the princely sum of $9.37.
I work from home on Tuesdays and have been trying to use the Pomodoro Technique to be more productive:
Choose a task to be accomplished.
Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break.
The beauty of listening to these albums is that each side is roughly 25 minutes long, so they line up perfectly with a Pomodoro work unit, and my short break allows me to flip the album over for Side 2. That means these precious vinyl platters are both a time machine and a timer… win-win.
I doubt I’ll ever stumble across another mother lode like those albums at a thrift shop again, but I won’t need to for a while.
And we care deeply – waaay too deeply – about rankings and ratings. The top song on the charts.
Music was better back then…
The Fortune 500. The highest-grossing movie. The most-watched TV show. The most views or “likes” or “shares” on social media. The highest-ranked football team. The five-star basketball recruits.
We do comparisons all the time, trying to determine who is better…. and who is the best.
But Seth Godin is trying to help us reframe that obsession. (I know I write/rave about Seth a lot, but the man’s a genius.) Here’s a post from his blog earlier this week:
Wellsir (and madam), that was quite the music marathon that my ears just ran this weekend.
Friday night, I went to see Reverend Horton Heat doing a free show in the heart of downtown Cincinnati, at Fountain Square (as seen in the opening credits of WKRP in Cincinnati). I’ve seen the Reverend many times before, doing his souped-up version of rockabilly (he calls it “psychobilly”), but it had been quite a few years. My friend Todd convinced me to go (actually more like “cajoled”), and I’m so glad he did. Rev and his band sounded great, and he had Wayne “The Train” Hancock (an old school country yodeler ala Hank Williams Sr.) join him for part of the set, which was a lot of fun.
Saturday I drove an hour north of Cincy to Waynesville, Ohio (home of the annual Sauerkraut Festival!) to the debut Bellwether Festival. Saturday’s lineup included a nice mix of new and classic bands (and by “classic” I mean “bands that I used to play on 97X back in the 90s”).
And the headliners were The Flaming Lips, who seem to headline 50% of all outdoor music festivals in the country. Probably because they are so darn fun, and have a larger-than-life stage show (balloons! confetti! giant pink robot inflatable!) that’s perfect for an audience that may only be casual fans. It’s truly a spectacle.
After that long day (and 8 hours on my feet), you’d think I’d rest up on Sunday. But no, I could not rest. Mr. David Byrne was in town, at the PNC Pavilion. The former frontman for the Talking Heads is an artist in the true sense of the word, a renaissance man, a man of letters. How many other folks in rock would start a website about positive civic engagements called Reasons To Be Cheerful? His stage show is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen, and his band was amazing. I’ve seen hundreds of shows over the past 30+ years, but this one was easily one of the best, and certainly one of the most memorable.
Yes, it was a lot to pack into one weekend for an old man like me. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat. As David Byrne says:
Every day is a miracle Every day is an unpaid bill You’ve got to sing for your supper Love one another
Band of Horses was in town last night, playing a sold out show at Bogart’s. Having seen them seven times already, in seven different venues, in four different cities (including an amazing acoustic set/electric set show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville), I decided to sit this one out. So did my friend Dale Doyle (the original d2), who has joined me at five of those gigs. But Dale’s an artist, a graphic designer by trade, so he made an oversized gig poster just for grins.
Simply brilliant!
I had the pleasure of working with Dale for five years at Landor (where I also worked with other amazing artists like Keith Neltner and Tommy Sheehan). Dale was at Landor for 23 years, working his way up from entry-level designer to Executive Creative Director, thanks to his skills and his dedication to the craft. His reward for all those years of service? He was unceremoniously dumped earlier this summer. Call it layoffs or budget cuts, or a “reduction in force” or a “restructuring”… to paraphrase Shakespeare, bullsh*t by any other name would still smell as stinky. (Sorry Big Willie!)
Yes, Landor’s Cincinnati office was struggling to make their numbers, and that’s part of the equation. But the other part is why their “numbers” were probably unattainable in the first place. Landor is merely a cog in the universe of WPP, a publicly-traded company that’s the world’s largest advertising conglomerate. It owns scads of well-known ad agencies, brand consultancies, PR firms, media buying companies and digital agencies. For 33 years, WPP was run by Martin Sorrell, a man whose ambition was outstripped only by his ego. A shark who swallowed up other ad agencies whole, usually via hostile takeovers. A man whom advertising legend David Ogilvy called “an odious little sh*t.” A person who could squeeze blood out of a turnip, and was never satisfied with the revenue numbers and profit margins of the dozens of companies and hundreds of offices under his thumb. Last year, “Sir Martin” (he was knighted in his native England) earned 70 million pounds. His net worth is listed as 495 million pounds.
Artist’s representation of Sir Martin
Creative artists like Dale are a dime a dozen to him, and if it came down to keeping a Dale or earning an extra nickel, he’d take the latter every time.
Dale did get a severance, so he has a few months to figure out his next move. He also has a freedom he hasn’t enjoyed in two decades. The freedom to create art whenever the muse strikes. To use his talents for self-expression rather than marketing campaigns. To make a band poster just because. You can’t put a price tag on that.
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.
— Wu Men
Great poem, wonderful sentiment. But it mentions nothing at all about 110% humidity. Therefore, I reserve my right to carp about the diem rather than carpe diem.
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My friend Robin had a birthday not too long ago. She’s an Elvis fanatic, so I sent her this text:
Here was her reply:
Yes, that’s Robin’s face superimposed on the woman.
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On a recent trip to an antiques mall, I found a cheesy 70s rock album by a band called Starz. Check out the great hairstyles on the back cover of their 1976 debut:
If you look more closely, it seems some smart aleck has “tagged” the dude at the top right:
“I’m Wm. Shakespeare’s Reincarnation”
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Here’s hoping your Monday isn’t crappy… but if it is, play to win!
Kevin Sullivan on Life advice from a man who lived it: “A good one Damian. Bring our lens into focus after the long weekend or our long life journey.” Jul 7, 09:38
Thomas Kuhl on We’re alive, because nothing happened.: “That is why we should celebrate every day when our feet hit the floor. Another to enjoy and share with…” Jun 25, 04:33
Thomas Kuhl on We’re alive, because nothing happened.: “This simply explains why we should celebrate every day our feet hit the floor. Another day to enjoy and share…” Jun 25, 04:31
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