Saturday 2/15/25
"Hero of Mine" isn't quite done, but it will be soon. I'll mail it to the kids--after I figure out how to set up the printer on the new computer--so I wrote them this little letter that will go with it yesterday between some other things...
Hello, children!
Depending on who you are, this is your fellow C-Dawg in Boston, or your best pal, or...hmmm...I was going to say your buddy, but being as someone there said she's not my buddy, I will instead reference that individual as Ms. Weber...but whose buddy I remain...
Anyway, I have a story for you!
Now, you might ask, "Did you write that story just for us, fellow C-Dawg/best pal/Mr. Fleming and was that what you did with those other stories?"
And to you I'd say that's a very good question. What smart kids you are.
I can't really say that I wrote this story or the others I have sent you just for you because you want a story to be special enough so that it's a story for everyone.
You never want to leave anyone out if you don't have to. That makes sense, right?
But I definitely did think of you when I was writing this story. And then when I was done I thought, "Oh! I must send this to my fellow C-Dawg, my best pal, and, well, Ms. Weber."
It's a story about what a hero is. I mean really is. It's important to really be things. Not just to say things. And to think about things.
I hope you like it and that you are all well and being good to each other and to everyone.
Love,
Colin
Sent my mom a text yesterday morning which read, "Happy Valentine's Day to my original Valentine." Aw.
I was up for twenty-four hours straight. The man just goes. But it wasn't only that. I couldn't stop listening to audience tapes of the Grateful Dead at Capitol Theatre in Port Chester from 6/24/70 and 11/8/70. I'd never swap these out for soundboards. I don't know how you can listen to those recordings and not think they make for the best music you've ever listened to. I haven't heard anything approaching the relationship the Dead had with the people at that venue. They got as close to anyone in music ever has to "the answer," the what of why we're here, if you will.
Had to do a bit of work to put everything together for that 6/24/70 gig. Believe it or not, the entire show isn't out there in a single spot. I had to combine like three different sources. Most sites/references guides have the incorrect set list, too.
Was also reading my friend Howard's blog and he had this anecdote on it about being at Borders one time and flipping through Rolling Stone where he saw this brief item about this new bootleg source called Purple Chick and how they were putting out these amazing Beatles releases, so Howard through down the magazine, raced to his car and drove home to try and download everything before the site could get shut down on account of being publicized in Rolling Stone. I thought that was a great anecdote. Anyone who loves music can appreciate the sentiment.
I didn't have any friends my senior year of high school. I didn't have any friends my junior year either, but I was dating someone who went to a different school and was a grade ahead of me. She went off to college the next year and that ended as one would expect it to. I'd spend Friday and Saturday nights during my senior year at a Borders in Deerfield, Illinois. I'd read and go through the music and the movies, which were on VHS tape. That's what I did. On Saturdays maybe I'd make a big trip into Chicago to look for bootlegs.
Also worked more on "Finder of Views." With this story I have been asking myself if I am creating something that is too powerful for humans to read and experience. That it could actually be more powerful than a human can handle in full. I am in some new territory.
There is this sentence from yesterday--it was a sentence that existed, and that changed, and kept changing--and I was looking at it architecturally, and in terms of its engineering, its sense, its poetry, its music, the math of it, and I just thought that a trillion people could all live a trillion years and none of them would ever produce anything like this sentence such is the degree of difficulty in doing so. And it reads as limpidly as anything can read. More than anything else by anyone else could read. I look at these things as someone else other than the person who did them sometimes, and it just floors me.
I keep hearing people in the media say the the Red Sox are World Series contenders. I think that's absurd. I saw a photo today of Rafael Devers at spring training, which produced in me a response of, "Are you kidding me?" because he is--big shock--clearly in bad shape.
Players should have fitness clauses in their contracts. Maybe more do than I'm aware, but this guy obviously doesn't. Looks to me like another season of third base defense at the level of a distracted porpoise, 24 homers and 82 RBI, nagging injuries, and the excuses that come with nagging injuries from oblivious fans and team broadcasting yes-men.
The reason this guy has a nagging injury every year is because he's a dough ball who can't bother to train and eat properly. An unprofessional, overrated--3.7 WAR per 162 games, not that anyone else looks--dough ball. This guy is in his twenties. What an awful contract. How do you think he's going to be in his thirties if this is what he looks like now? This player bothers me.
The Boston College men's hockey team dropped another game last night. They're definitely in a dip/mini-slump. Still have time to find their game before the postseason begins, but they have been exposed some. There are no easy games in Hockey East. But it's not like there are many in the national tournament either.
People are talking about this Four Nations tournament as if there's never been hockey like it, with much attention being given to the line-ups that, say, a Canada can run out there on the power play. Do you know what team Canada's first power play unit was in the 1987 Canada Cup? Up front they had Mario Lemieux, Mark Messier, and Wayne Gretzky, with Ray Bourque and Paul Coffey on the back line. That would be two of the four best hockey players of all-time, and a third in the top ten, a fourth guy just out of the top ten, and it's not like the last guy is exactly a slouch and is in my view the best skater in the history of the league.
There are days in Boston where the wind really isn't messing around. You're fine when it lets up and you're in the sunshine--feels quite comfortable then--but when that wind restarts you feel it.
Went to Haymarket and got peppers and tomatoes.
Since giving up hot chocolate--and also bread, red meat, chips, pizza--almost a year ago, there have been times--especially during the Christmas season and now in the winter that I have desired a hot chocolate. I've refrained, but I did find a harmless alternative--chocolate tea from the Republic of Tea.
I made a list of the best film books today--I'll put it up on here--with my reasons--later on. Also made a list of the best player at each position who is not in the baseball Hall of Fame; best as in most HOF-worthy, which can be different than best at a given time or other. That will fodder for a future entry as well.
Walked six miles yesterday and did 100 push-ups and five circuits in the Monument. Walked three miles today and did 150 push-ups. Staying up as long as a I did has thrown me off some today. I'll get back on it.
Downloaded four Peggy Lee albums of rarities as well as her A Winter Romance, Having a Rave-Up! The British R&B Sounds of 1964, Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946, A BOX of Don Shirley which contains fourteen of his albums, Crime Scene USA: Classic Film Noir Themes and Jazz Tracks, Larry Williams' The Specialty Rock 'n' Roll Years.
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