Tag: Soundgarden

  • ODDS and ENDS: Painting, Soccer Workouts, and Summer Playlists/Albums

    ODDS and ENDS: Painting, Soccer Workouts, and Summer Playlists/Albums

    (Saw it written and I saw it say…)

    I may have mentioned it before, but the plan this Summer, before the kid goes away to camp, is to get the living room painted. And I am one who believes that one of the best lessons we can teach our kids is that sometimes you have to do things for your family that aren’t fun; such as painting the living room. It needs to be done because the last time we painted was ten years ago, right before the kid was born. So… it’s time. There will be patching and sanding, and taping and painting. When me and the wife did it, we completed everything in two days. My guess with the kid is that it will take us four. I don’t want to rush it, because we will make some mistakes and have to go back and clean them up, and I also need to occupy as much time as possible. These summer days can be boring.

    And one of the other ways I am trying to kill time with the kid is having her work on her soccer skills. She had a very good first year playing soccer for her school team, but she didn’t start, which annoyed her. Truth of the matter is that there were girls on the team that were better players than her, simple because these girls had been playing for a couple of years already. As I explained to my kid, if she wants to start, she has to work harder, and up her skills. To my relief and happiness, the kid accepted this challenge – she likes competing and winning. I do want her to getting a starting position on the team, but I am more proud of the fact that she likes working hard to achieve something that she wants.

    And as we are now in Summer, and family road trips are coming, the pressure to build a playlist is growing. The wife has one that she has been working, and has been teasing us with selections while around the home. Even the kid has shown off her growing list of all the different artist that she’s found. That leaves me. I have yet to start, but I already have a bit of dread in me about this. Mainly because I seem to really only pick the same twenty songs, over and over. I can admit that my range of music hasn’t not grown and expanded as I have gotten older. But really, what I really want to do is just listen to albums. I used to take road trips and bring all of my Beatles CDs, or Led Zeppelin, and just go from start to finish – listening to how the band progressed. I used to do that with Oasis and Soundgarden, too. Since iPods and smart phones, I don’t listen to albums anymore, and I miss that. But, the game is about making playlists for these road trips, so I need to go and search out some deep cuts.

  • My 2024 Spotify Wrapped

    Pretty much the same as the past couple of years, except Stan Getz cracked the top five, pushing out Thelonious Monk. The other four are what you’d expect from me; The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden and Radiohead.

    My top played song was a bit of a surprise:

  • I Mean, the 4th is Coming

    I should have seen them in concert when I had the chance.

  • Can’t Deny It

    I’m a 90’s kid at heart.

    And 1996 was a good year for music, too.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Balloons, and Formal Clothes

    (Help me find the funk…)

    The Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame is bullshit, but it can be fun bullshit. Like last year with Dolly being inducted. She was right, as a county singer and songwriter, she didn’t belong there. But Dolly is such a huge influential talent across all music, everyone wants to claim her as their own. Even when Dolly logically and politely protested the induction, no cared, and in the she agreed to join. See, that was fun bullshit. The fact that Soundgarden still hasn’t been inducted is real bullshit… if the RnRHoF was a real institution that had any bearing on anything. Soundgarden was one of the founding bands of the Seattle sound and grunge music. Shit, if lame ass Jackson Browne is in there, surely there has to be room on the shelf for Soundgarden.

    And China is sending balloons to spy on us, which is a novel approach. No one is surprised that China is spying on us. Everyone spies on everyone. What this reminds are the Fu-Go Balloon Bombs that Japan tried to use against the us in World War II. The purpose was to start large forest fires, but it never really worked as planned, though one bomb killed six people in 1945. (The part of the story that I find the most interesting is that unexploded bombs were found in forests years, and years after the war. There is a good chance that there are still bombs in the woods of the Pacific Northwest.) So, I’m not really surprised that China revamped the idea. At the same time, it also feels like an idea that is doomed to fail. Either it won’t travel where you want it, or it will be discovered.

    Since the Pandemic, I would say that my clothing has been rather casual. Like, casual all the time. I am comfy. I have a huge, blue cardigan sweater on, and it makes me feel like I am being hugged all day. But, I think I want to go back to wearing sports coats and blazers again. Not sure about ties, but I feel I am lacking in a sense of formality, which could be detrimental when I start interviewing for jobs again. All actions in life are a skill, and if you don’t practice those skills, they are doomed to fade away. It might be a sports coat with pajama bottoms, but it is still a sports coat.