The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Twelve

On the 12th Day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe Gave to Me:

12 More Appreciations
11 Months of Gheorgheness
10 (or more) LIV TOUR Factoids
Nine (semi) Bold Predictions for 2023
Eight People and Places In My Neighborhood
Seven books for reading (and one for burning)
Six splurges for Christmas
Five Good News Stories, courtesy of Shlara
Soon to be Four on the Floor
Three Habits Forming
Two beers with Marcus Aerelius, an OBX Dave Joint, and
Two(?) dudes bested by Kazansky

Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another tardy installment of Day 12 of Gheorghemas. Recently I wondered quietly to myself, “Why does it take so long to compose/post (combined as 'compost') Day Twelves??”

I mean, come on!

2008	12/31/2008
2009	12/31/2009
2010	12/31/2010
2011	12/30/2011
2012	12/31/2012
2013	3/25/2014
2014	1/27/2015
2015	?
2016	??
2017	???
2018	12/31/2018
2019	1/6/2020
2020	12/31/2020
2021	2/22/2022
2022	1/31/2023

Wait a minute… there’s no way I missed 3 years running! Is there? There's not. Get the G:TB interns on this.

Anyway, it’s really simple. 12 things of anything is a whole lot! I can barely name 12 songs I like by Cat Power (I can, though), much less wax philosophically grateful for 12 new things each and every Gheorghemas. It’s exhausting. Day 2 and Day 3 writers, you can buzz off.

Okay, enough whining. It’s the end of January, so here’s the end of Gmas. Hope you’ve all been gheorghey for gheorgheness’ sake.

12 (new and different) Appreciations

Music Writing and Those Who Kick Ass At It

I’m far from the most avid reader among the gheorgherati. In fact, I’d wager a library card that when it comes to... those bound things… ah yes, books, you folks call them… I’m the least well-read of any of us. Like my father, I’m drawn to more compact entries, i.e., periodicals. Newspapers, magazines, and new formats like “blogs,” as the kids say. ADD a-blazin’, this works best.

And music writing – ah, yes, this soothes my soul. Historically, this means names like Dave Marsh, Rob Sheffield, Jon Landau, Robert Christgau, Ann Powers, Will Hermes, and yes, of course, Lester Bangs. Chuck Klosterman when he swerves into the lane. Oh, and William Miller.

In terms of those who came along with the ascension of online music journalism, Stephen Thomas Erlewine reviewed a thousand albums I enjoy on AllMusic.com, and I probably check in with his recs on a more-than-weekly basis. Seriously… more than I check in with my mom. What a creep son I am.

Steven Hyden is my current go-to. Discovered him on Grantland, followed him when it disintegrated. He’s at Uproxx now and runs a segment called “indie mixtape.” Way worthy. He also writes them “book” things, and I just bought his Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation for the missus. His Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me. What Pop Music Rivalries Reveal About the Meaning of Life from 2016 is an assemblage of well-crafted morsels on bands I love… and don’t. Humble, clever, relatable.

Which brings us to my newest discovery. Elizabeth Nelson. Oh, my. I found her in a New Yorker article about… well, her. She’s spent some time in the area that became known as the DMV after I left. She fronts a punk/garage rock band called The Paranoid Style with her husband. And she writes. Writes… is not a strong enough word, to profane John Candy’s lovely sentiment in PT&A. She captures perfectly. She’s virtuosic.

She does so in 140 characters, as above, which is pretty much my sole reason for staying on Twitter now. (Oh, and for you, Teej. And Mike Mills, Isbell, Cleese, Flea, Danny Rosin, and the Muppets.) When she stretches her music-writing muscles into into longer-form work, like this Warren Zevon piece or this Lowell Gheorghe piece in the Oxford American, Ms. Nelson is even more remarkable. Her sonic loves seem to mirror my own, which helps, but that also means when she focuses on stuff I don’t know, I’m cannonballing into the deep end on whoever that is. 

I’ll confess to reading some music writers with a big byline and sometimes feeling what I guess I'd characterize as sour grapes envy. Not the case with Elizabeth Nelson. All I feel is a sense that I can't do that like she does, and I'm just glad to have come across her. I look forward to what comes next, since I’ll learn and love more music. Anyway, check her stuff out, both written and sung.

The artwork behind her is utterly congruent

Standup and Be Counted

Let’s follow up an extended blather with a ‘nuff said. With every passing year, I love standup comedy more. I’ll dig into this in a future post with more examples, but I’ve recently seen some great acts in person. I’ve attended WandM’s own Patton Oswalt live a few times now. Always brilliant. We saw Jim Gaffigan two weeks ago. Yeah, not edgy, but really funny. We have tickets to Nate Bargatze in a few months here. This bit (better in full) tickles me.

I’ve always been tempted to give it a try at an open mic. We shall see. One of our favorite local bartenders is all over the regional standup scene. Someday…

Two Great Tastes That Go Great Together

You folks know I love Wilco. (New album out last year was aces.) I also love standup comedy. You know that because you can read and don’t have what HM had. I really enjoy Nikki Glaser's work. Her bit on a "hastily packed suitcase" is exquisite. Getting peanut butter onto the chocolate...

Check it out.  Love it. 

Cool Stories ‘Twixt Parents and Children

This is so good. My kids… they need to up their game.

 A teen found his dad’s unreleased song from the '70s and put it on TikTok. And now it’s going viral.

I’m Not Kidding About This

Bring it back! Now!

Home Technology: Music

My not-quite-prolific recording efforts took a hiatus when Les Coole Studios moved this summer (along with everything else I own). In addition to Random Idiots’ ode to Johnny G, I did release this number, which began as a guitar track that Doug, a fraternity brother and art professor who lives outside Detroit, sent me unsolicited. That kind of interaction makes me super happy.

Do any among you do short videos? That’s the next phase of Les Coole & The Cukes. Either that or retirement.

Home Technology: Podcasts

I listen to exactly one (1) podcast with any regularity. We Defy Augury. I’m the last guy (besides Marls) to feed Dave’s ego, but it’s truly great. To me, the best aspect of what might otherwise be a simple review of literary works is the segueing Dave employs to (a) other works, (b) his recent life activities, in a humorous way, and (c) life and how to live it, to borrow from R.E.M.  There are perspectives that Dave offers that expand well beyond the limitations of the bodies of work he’s discussing, and frankly, a demonstration of depth that I didn’t know Dave had. I have comments that strike me during each episode, and sometimes I register them at SoD, but it’d be better if we congregated around the water cooler at EB High’s teacher’s lounge.

 

If 27 episodes seem overwhelming, get your feet wet on these (my favorite faves starred):

• Geoff Dyer… Beginnings, Endings, and Indecision
• Colson Whitehead… Location, Location, Location
• Ghettoside vs. Murderbot
• City on Fire… with Mob Tropes
• Revising Our Notions About Pirates*
• Playing the Tomorrow Game
• Apocalypse New*
• Southbound with S.A. Cosby
• Adrift in the Digital Doldrums*
• Charismatic Megafauna
• Stars, Caves, and Everything In Between

Some are gross (Dr. Moreau, All the Not So Pretty Horses), some are on subjects lost to me (the sci-fi stuff), but it’s all shockingly compelling.

Dave, keep cranking.

Juvenilia Forever

I like a little bit of anarchy. And I love juvenilia. Old as I am now, this moronic crap still gets a chuckle out of me. I expect that won’t change. So dumb.

The Air Force has confirmed that a KC-135 aerial tanker flying over the Middle East on Friday broadcast an “inappropriate” call sign, Lt. Col. Michael Hertzog, a spokesman for U.S. Air Forces Central Command, told Task & Purpose on Sunday.

Hertzog did not say what this call sign was, but the KC-135 had been identified as “Titties” on Flight Radar 24, a flight tracking service.

Dreams I’ll Never See

Dave hates when people talk about dreams. He mentions this in the podcast. And I get it, but sometimes I have dreams with people who aren’t here any more, in either cameos or starring roles. And it’s equal parts awesome and depressing, in that order. But I prefer to look at it as a visit. Just makes me happier. I sent this to a few of our late, great buddy Flynn’s friends recently.

So Flynn made a cameo in a dream of mine last night. Always makes me happy, hasn’t happened in quite a while. 

We were in a station wagon, presumably headed to play softball or something. Tins was driving, I was in the middle seats, Flynn was lounging in the way back where the seats were down -- we big guys like to keep spaced apart, you know. Flynn somehow found a handle of Fireball back there, and we passed it around, taking slugs of it and cracking jokes, cruising down the road. 

Just wanted to let you guys know, seems like he’s doing just fine.

Six Nations… Part Two (Three)

Yep… we’re heading to Edinburgh to watch some rugby. A la Dublin 2019. And my trip to Cardiff in 2000.

What could go wrong?

Finding What Was Lost

Did you ever have/make something pretty cool, and be careless about where you kept it, and then lose it? (Danny Boy?) What if you could get it back?

Over 20 years ago, Dave and I set out to write a screenplay. We wrote three. We even finished one while Dave was in Syria! One got reviewed by a Hollywood Studio.! (Our first try… and they passed.) We even made it through a couple of rounds of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Project Greenlight contest! (Dave can tell you what happened. Maybe in a blogpost. It’s tragic and emotional.)

And then… uh, I don’t know. But along the way, we lost all our work. We moved a lot, and we are sloppy and disorganized and we weren’t any further along the road to stardom than the Random Idiots vehicle had shot us. And one of us got divorced twice and lost most of his shit. In every sense of it. It was all gone.

I don’t know how. I really don’t. But twice in the past year and a half our movie scripts have made their way back to us. One came from our buddy Kites Weaver, who had a copy of our rugby-themed one (Ruck and Maul) from our initial foray and had hung onto it. He made copies and sent them back. Very cool. Then I opened up a bin in my move last summer and there was our third screenplay sitting there. Let your stuff go. If it never comes back, it was never yours. If it does, hell yes.

Three Decades of What Could Have Lasted Four Days

The 30^th Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip is this year. 30. That’s a lot of fishing. Very, very nearly.

I’m also grateful for being given a 10% stake of the cottage. And our old girl is getting fixed up soon, so I’m hopeful to be able to keep on keepin’ on down there for the duration. Worth the expen$e. Love the Martha Wood Cottage like no other.

Gheorghe: The Blog

This blog is just so damn much fun to me. And we have some milestones in 2023 (Good Lord willing and the price to blog don’t rise). We are 50ish posts from hitting 5,000. Dang.  And this year’s G:TBDay is our 20 year mark. Dang again.

Keep it up, people. Makes us (me) happy.

Cue the Norman Dale. I love you guys.

Baker's Dozen Edition: Music Playlists!

Here's my 20 from 2022 retrospective of new music.