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A three-day "weekend" in October

Tuesday 10/15/24

I've been reading some guy's dissertation on the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star," focusing on the 2/27/69 version on Live/Dead. Very heavy on music theory. Treats it like an academic musicologist doing a paper on a Beethoven symphony.


Downloaded all of the available radio episodes of Gunsmoke, the complete series of Tales of the Texas Rangers and Fort Laramie as well as the Bob Bailey Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar multi-parters from 1955-56--all from the best sources--and the entirety of The Wind in the Willows television series--the one with Michael Hordern--which is my favorite show.


Also the Jam's The Jam at the BBC and Direction, Reaction, Creation, and the Fire and Skill live box, and some others, plus a bootleg of the Beatles' complete Cavern Club material, Eddie and the Hot Rods' Teenage Depression, Slaughter and the Dogs' Punk Singles Collection, the Pogues box set, Just Look Them in the Eye and Say...Poguemahone!!, the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of London Calling, Blind Lemon Jefferson's complete recorded output.


My friend Howard--the unrivaled king of the find--found some great things for me: A couple Carl Perkins box sets, Purple Chick's Chuck Berry Set, the new Dylan live 1974 box, Bear Family's The Johnson City Sessions, an Elvis FTD release, among others.


I spent a lot of the three-day weekend--there are no weekends here, there's only trying to move forward--working on a single story that is about 1200 words long. Later I will lay out how this story came to be. A lot of turns and different roads. Started as this, became this, and on that went. While something else was produced simultaneously as part of this process. Or was it vice versa?


I thought I was likely nearly done at some point last week and was in the final stages, but that turned out not to be true. Another turn, another road. This will be one of the new additions to There Is No Doubt: Story Girls. The story had me crying all three mornings and then again late yesterday afternoon.


Tended to a couple minor edits--the bigger one involved changing the ending of something. Everything I write is undertaken as something--that is, if it begins life as a piece for a magazine, newspaper, or website--I also have earmarked for a book. I won't just write a piece that's a piece. It has to have book value for me. True, there's always the idea of The Complete Works, but I'm talking now about organic books with thrust, focus, and cohesion--the most proper of proper books there are--rather than "All of this was by this guy" books.


I think often about value. From many different directions, and about the different kinds of value. For instance, a work has value in and of itself as what it is. But the world values stupidity, shallowness, mediocrity, volume. Those commodities--or commodities as such--have currency in our world right now. Are the currency of our world. Value has been ascribed to those things. They don't have value in and or themselves. But they are what the world now values.


How does one have success with a work of value--actual value in and of itself because of what it is, its substance, what it offers--in that world where those other things are what are valued? Do you see the contradiction? How does one reconcile these two things? What can one do? How can one advance? Because if emptiness, shallowness, stupidity, mediocrity, and volume are what are valued, then something that is the opposite of all of that has less value despite containing more value in and of itself. Does that make sense? Dialectically, I am always thinking about this and looking for the solution.


Every day I listen to about two hours' worth of "Dark Star"'s and read M.R. James's "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad." These I do separately.


I thought the Dodgers and Yankees had the best chance to meet in the World Series before the playoffs started I'm less sure about that now because of what it is that the Mets have going on--and they certainly have something. Would be the first time the two teams met in the World Series since 1981, which I note because there was an era when it seemed like they met every year. Those Dodgers were based in Brooklyn, though.


There was a shot in the game Friday night of Ohtani in the dugout before the final out was made and I thought, "That has to feel strange." Because he's not even out there. He plays so little of the game. You're described by all of these people as the best player in the world--and the very best player ever--and it's the opponent's final at-bat, and you're in the dugout.


I'm sorry, I just can't get on board with what most people say about this player. To me, if you're going to be the best, you need to be good at all of the parts of the game. I understand the counterargument--his pitching. But I don't think that has the value that others do, and he's still spending so much time not playing. More than any position player, by far. To my thinking, you gotta be out there as much as anyone for all of those superlatives to hold even some of the weight that people want them to. I'd rather have 1977-78 Carlton Fisk than 2024 Ohtani. I'm being serious.


It's strange that you have these college football games that go until two in the morning on the east coast. I watched ASU beat sixteenth-ranked Utah the other night/morning and Colorado lose to number eighteen Kansas State earlier today. Winnable game for Colorado. Came back, took the lead, gave up the lead, then were driving with a couple minutes left. They had a fourth and five--so they were very much still in it--and for some reason elected to throw a deep ball down the sideline. Why do that? It's such a low-percentage play. Tight window. Use the big part of the field, keep the game going.


The bandage is finally off off my thumb. Not the same bandage. I changed it every day. Can see the line/seam of the cut like some jagged flesh-pocket that is closing over again. Turns out the Neosporin had expired in 2020 so I threw it away and got a new, smaller tube.


I wonder if Michael Ripper woke up most mornings and thought, "Another day, another Hammer film."


The movie Halloween (1978) doesn't look much like Halloween. That is, it doesn't look like it takes place at that time of the year. Does no one else have an issue with this?


I don't care for movies that feature Joan Crawford, Burt Lancaster, or Sterling Hayden.


I watched last year's Dark Harvest. That's a shoddy piece of work. I'd read some piece--which, like everything one sees nowadays, was all surface and watered down Wikipedia-like--saying this was a top film for Halloween. It's not. You can't just have these arbitrary rules that make up the narrative and backstory of your film. Of your anything. The rules can be whatever, but we need to know why they're there and they have to be consistent. You can't just change things up to accommodate something you want to do in a plot. None of this made any sense. Mishmash. No care went into it, no thought. At times it wanted to be tongue in cheek, I guess--like with the cliched cop character--and other times it wanted to be taken at face value. It was a mess. The only half effective scene was when the pumpkin-scarecrow monster thing went into the bunker or bomb shelter or whatever it was where those kids were hiding.


The other day in the Monument a guy got all snarlish. "What is this, a race?"


No, it's not a race. But if you're going to be horsing around, or attempting to do your unfunny banter with your group when you're out of breath already, or you're in poor shape and moving very slowly, then let someone else pass. You know, too, that it's a guy who is right on someone's ass when they're driving, or honking their horn. It's not like I say, "Clear the way, Chunkerton," or "Move aside, halfwit." The Monument was open yesterday for the holiday, so I got a bonus day of Monument stairs.


Drake Maye made his debut start on Sunday for the Patriots, who were pummeled again. It went about as I expected it to. He made some plays, made rookie mistakes. He can play some. How much we will see. Allowing, too, that he survives this outfit/roster. That's a bad football team. You're running this guy out with a hapless squad. He's obviously better than Brissett, Jones, Zappe. Markedly.


I was at Dunkin' Donuts at 7:15 on Saturday morning. I wanted to go to Forest Hills for a walk at the cemetery but the orange line trains weren't running and they had bus service instead, which I normally won't do. I don't know where the bus stops are. I don't trust the bus. I don't know what this one guy ordered, but I do know he had specifications of four sugars and whip cream. It's quarter past seven on a Saturday morning.


There's this myth that weight gain is inevitable as you get older and that shedding weight becomes harder and harder. There may be some basis to point the second, but this is mostly hogwash. It's what you put in your body and how much you move. The reason people weren't fat as kids is because they were active. Additionally, and ideally, mom and dad made sure the kid ate reasonably well, health-wise. People will take no accountability. You're the size you are because of what you eat and what you don't do. It's not the inevitable way of life. It's the inevitable way of your gluttonous, slothful life.


Yesterday was rainy-ish, coldish--I liked it--and gray. The line outside of Mike's Pastry was down the block. Mostly adult needing their dessert fare. Willing to stand out there for as long as it took. But unwilling to do so many other things that are better for them even when they take less time. Better for them physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. But the stuffing of the face with the sugar-loaded bear claw? Got time for that. Worth making time for!


On Sunday in the Monument there was a couple ahead of me who finally stepped aside. It was very crowded that day and sometimes I just have to accept that I'm going to be stuck behind some people. If you do pass someone, you can end up behind someone else. I pick my battles. But they moved without my asking if I could squeeze by, with her saying to him, "Let him pass, he's much younger than us." These were not elderly people. But this is a good sign. I bet they would have thought I was like twenty-eight. The comment would track in that case. It'd be what one easily and naturally said/thought.


Bruins lost again yesterday afternoon to the Panthers, a team that must enjoy seeing the Bruins on their schedule. Jeremy Swayman gave up four goals on twenty-six shots. That's an .846 save percentage. Someone might say, "You can't focus on some random individual game." Why I can't I? If you're like, "I'm the man, I'm this amazing goalie, give me all of this money, listen to me whine, pay me pay me pay me despite all I've never done," and then you get that money, you're going to be scrutinized. Thought you were the best, brother? Or pretty close. You've started three games and you've been bad in two of them. It'll likely even out, but fair is fair.


At the end of the game, with his team down a goal, I watched Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm kill time on the clock by standing behind his own net with the puck, and then, a little bit after, doing some figure skating circles in his own end as leisurely as he pleased rather than get the puck up ice. Does this guy not understand how the clock and trailing in a game works? There's no urgency? I couldn't believe what I was watching. La la la, la la la. He can be an exasperating player.


Saw an interesting discussion: Who was better, Tony Gwynn or Rod Carew? My first reaction is to say Carew. I think he was a better hitter. But Gwynn was the better fielder--which seems strange I'm sure to those who think he always looked like he did after he ballooned. Here's an amazing stat: I'd mentioned before that Carew only scored 100 runs in a season once, when he led the league in 1977 (with Carlton Fisk being the runner-up, a remarkable feat for a catcher), but Gwynn only scored 100 or more twice. All of those hits, all of those batting titles, and three seasons over 100 runs scored for both of them combined.


Someone was surprised to learn that I also don't eat pasta. It's not forbidden to me as per my dietary rules. I just don't get it and prepare it and I think it is better to avoid it. My diet would prove much too bland, I think, for someone else. I eat the same few things. Often that will be a wrap, with Swiss cheese, and kale. That's as fancy as I get. No chips, no red meat, no pizza, no bread, not even my skim milk hot chocolates anymore. No alcohol. I know I've not done a superlative job logging fitness and non-drinking data lately, but I'll do a kind of catch-up on that soon.


A letter:


Late Saturday evening and working some more on this Waxman/Bride piece--you wouldn't believe how much I listen to the stand-alone score throughout the year--but just wanted to say that if you find yourself needing more Guides for the Halloween season, let me know.

 

I am very much looking forward to seeing thirty-one of these and what you and everyone else has come up with. I also admire how ambitious that is.

 

What I've been doing is writing them as "warm-up exercises," in effect, and I also found a way to use them for something book-wise. Otherwise, I'll just send these along down the road. I'm sure you have what you need to fulfill your October-November goal. 

 

I saw X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes on 35mm on the big screen earlier today. (At the Brattle in Cambridge, where I'm frequently to be found.) That was quite an experience. It was me and like eight other people at the theater. One guy was there with his ten-year-old or so daughter, who was clearly pretty into that kind of thing, which was cool. 

 

My mother asked me yesterday if I had Halloween movie recommendations for her three grandkids--and my two nieces and nephew--who are 10, 8, and 4, and I had some good stuff for the lot of them to watch together, which is not easy, given those ages, one of them being Trick or Treat. 

 

Anyway. I hope you're not working too hard--I picture you sitting there cranking out Guide after Guide! But it sounds like this will be really good and I'm all agog to read the new pieces in what is tantamount to a bank of knowledge. I am pounded with those kinds of "You should check this out!" links to pieces on Google...and they're just so bait-y and empty when I do make the mistake of clicking on them. There's very little effort out there. 

 

This is such an invigorating time of the year for this fare. The whole year is for me, really, but I make an extra point of taking in a bit more in these final four months of the year. Sat in a park at seven in the morning today reading L.T.C. Rolt canal ghost stories--seriously, he wrote all of these ghost stories set in canals--from 1948, just breathing in the air, watching the leaves come down. Will keep an eye out for the VOD piece to start the week, and I'll bid you a happy, spooky, and restorative Sunday. Don't work too hard!


On Sunday I heard two Nick Drake songs--"Bryter Layer" and "Hazy Jane II"--out in the world as I went about my day, the first outside of the Brattle, the second inside of Trader Joe's--and there was also a busker--wearing a Sonics Boom (their second album) T-shirt--playing the Lennon-McCartney original, "I'll Be On My Way," which they only performed the one time on the BBC in 1963, at the Harvard T stop.


Was listening to the Sex Pistols' show from Atlanta in 1978. That's some fine rock and roll. If someone said that the Yardbirds were the most influential band of the 1960s, and the Sex Pistols were the most influential band of the 1970s, I'd think they were on to something.


It feels like baseball has more great players who didn't win a championship than any other sport. Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Juan Marichal, Carlton Fisk, Willie McCovey, Robin Yount, Robin Roberts, Gaylord Perry, Carew, Gwynn, George Sisler, Ken Griffey, Jr., Ryne Sandberg, Carl Yastrzemski, Nap Lajoie. In Williams you have arguably the greatest hitter ever, and in Cobb arguably the greatest player ever (it's Ruth, but Cobb has a case).


A highlight reel of Mike Schmidt's defense popped up in my YouTube feed. Some of these players were wild. A master at bare handing the ball. I saw this post the other day in a baseball history forum in which someone referred to Schmidt as a "role player." A role player! The best third baseman in history, and a top twenty all-time player. If anything, he's underrated. Dominant in his time, and ahead of his time. All of that power and that batter's eye of his. When you hit a lot of home runs and you you have a high on base percentage, you are providing big offensive value. Usually. If you're also knocking in runs. And Schmidt did that, too. One of the plays in this reel was off of a bunt attempt made by...Dave Kingman! I could hardly believe it. Kingman bunting? And it was a really nice bunt, Schmidt just made this outstanding play, charing the ball, bare handing it, throwing a strike to first, where Kingman made the safe sign as he crossed the bag, but to no avail! It's tough to succeed in someone else's highlight reel. But I was pulling for you, Kingman. I always am.


Some unissued cuts from Ornette Coleman's December 1962 Town Hall concert have surfaced so I grabbed those. Been listening to The Lovecraft Investigations, a fictional podcast within a podcast based on current day investigations of modernized Lovecraft stories. Good time of year for it. Also listened to the radio broadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. Was watching some episodes of The Twilight Zone, too, and I have to say I like the backdrops for Rod Serling's introductions. You feel like he's stationed just offscreen from the action, out of view, but if he stepped out and took a few steps, people could see him. In "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," for instance, it looks like he's standing outside at this part of the airport where the public isn't allowed.


On Sunday I went to Copp's Hill Burying Ground. There are two spots I like in particular: The lower level, where less people go. Usually there's no one down there. I was able to get some push-ups in here as well. And then by a headstone from 1769. There's a divot in the left eye of the skull at the top of it from where the musket ball of a British soldier struck during some target practice. That's the historical stuff, isn't it?






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