Good Morning,
Reader, can I level with you for a moment? I’m…tired
Well, not quite that.
But yeah, I’m beat. Like, eyes hot and nodding off at odd hours tired. Struggle to get out of bed even when you did somehow manage to sleep well tired. No energy, or motivation for writing, playing guitar, games, anything I’m not obligated to tired. Tenuous grasp on social graces, base temperament tired.
Oh wait — no, it’s the other thing. The tired is exhaustion from the other thing.
I’m good, I think. I’ve been worse. It’s always there, you know? I described it recently like a speaker on in another room of the house: Sometimes you’re downstairs in some corner far away and it’s just on the periphery, and sometimes you’re just right next to it. I’ve just been next to it for a while; longer than I usually might be.
The thing is, every moment when I’m not working, or with my daughter, or handling something around the house — dishes, yardwork, checking the damn mail, anything — all I can hear are the thoughts racing around my head about the things I have to do and the things I “have” to do. They all sound exhausting, daunting, impossible, insurmountable. When I sit, getting up seems overwhelming; when I stand, walking; when I walk, lifting, moving, carrying; once I start, stopping.
I beg internally for moments to get to my typewriter, for time to open my laptop and plink out anything that will get me closer to finishing any of the things I’ve been chipping away at for far too long. For time to plug in my guitar a play unburdened by the pressure to sound “good” if I’m going to waste the time doing it rather than anything else.
But when I stop, when I have the room to myself, I collapse inside. Our family room is in the finished basement of our house and as such runs cooler than the upstairs; not quite the cold of a motel room you settled for because the place you really wanted was booked, but close as counts. It makes you sleepy even if you didn’t think you were. The second I’m alone the air sets my eyes on fire. Bleary, the last thing I have energy for is writing, playing, anything. But I won’t go to sleep, no, that would only make sense. But I know: I know if I got into bed the moment I felt like falling asleep I would only wake up. Would toss, turn, read all to no avail.
All at the same time, I know that for me the only way out is through. As much as I long for that down time all I feel when I get it is tired, sore, my knee backsliding into the pain I felt before my recent physical therapy sessions; my back locked up in several different ways when, for someone with 20 years in beer/wine retail, I’ve had miraculously few back incidents.
No, what my body wants is to be kept busy: I pick up The Little from my in-laws’ and take her to dance class. When I get home my wife has started mowing the lawn and so I take over. Not what I’d planned to do today, but needed, and my body…handles it just fine. No pain, even during the more difficult stretches. My mind is in hell. My mind clears with every stripe of freshly cut grass across our surprisingly good-looking though we really don’t put much care into it lot.
I take The Little to an indoor trampoline park in the neighborhood. I take care of a load of dishes in the sink that need taking care of. I read, having decided recently I need to pick back up the pace of my reading. I do things, and the doing of things turns the dials on my brain chemistry.
Which gets me through the day. The problem is, there’s no such alchemy with the things I do on my own time. Which, I realize as I type, is something I should dedicate some time to exploring. Hmm.
This Week’s Top Rec
Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America by Abraham Josephine Riesman
Our first repeat rec of the Substack era is Ringmaster, featured a seemingly-distant two weeks ago. I’m putting it back up here today because I’m about halfway through it and it’s even better than I’d hoped it would be. I’m now racing through to the end so I can excuse snagging a copy of the accompanying ‘zine that was just released1.
Podcast: Maintenance Phase
You ever hear about something, or have something recommended to you and you kinda avoid starting it because you know you’re just gonna do the full deep-dive and listen to every episode, foregoing any and all other things you’ve been trying to listen to? Just me? I don’t think it’s just me.
Anyhoo, Maintenance Phase was one of those things for me. I love You’re Wrong About, and so I knew I would enjoy any Michael Hobbs-hosted podcast, but one about debunking bullshit around weight and wellness? Yes and, let me check here, yes.
So I’m a few episodes from caught-up, having started not all that long ago and it’s fantastic and I have a huge crush on Aubrey Gordon’s laugh. Very recommended.
On 4th and Broadway: Remembering Tower Records, by Michael Gonzales for We Are The Mutants
A great read about an amazing Tower Records shop to have spent time in and worked at when Gonzales did, and a bigger story about those places — our American salons — where we go to speak to fellow music/comics/literature/coffee/whatever fanatics to gain knowledge, hone our opinions and tastes, and generally more self-knowing and insufferable.
The $1 Million Shot That Changed Sports Contests Forever, by Ryan Hockensmith for ESPN
The hook for me in the tweet I followed to read this story was the fact that Michael Jordan and his Bulls teammates went to bat for office supply salesman Don Calhoun after hitting a three-quarter-court shot during a 1993 game for a million bucks. It turns out, that’s just scratching the surface of the situation.
Hockensmith somehow concisely takes you through the world of contests at sporting events, the behind-the-scenes efforts of the Jordan Bulls to make sure Calhoun got his money when the insurer tried to make the case he was ineligible for his winnings, and most poignantly the life of Calhoun himself, along with his family — specifically, his brother who passed a few years before the shot and his son. Unexpectedly touching. Fine work.
Guitar pedal: Lizard Queen, collaboration between JHS and Electro Harmonix
Walk with me for a bit on this one. Josh Scott of Kansas City-based JHS Pedals is not just a guy who builds guitar effects boxes: He’s also a giant pedal nerd with a collection that is essentially a museum of guitar effects history, host of a very well-run and fun to watch YouTube channel, and a huge fan of old school builder Electro Harmonix (EHX).
So about a year ago, JHS’ YouTube page posted a video where Josh and graphic artist/perhaps bigger EHX nerd Daniel Danger did a LARP session wherein they were playing at being employees at EHX in the ‘70s, and set about adding a “new” octave fuzz pedal to that era’s lineup (Ed. note: If you don’t play guitar, let’s say…you click the button and guitar goes “BOOM” but with a cool extra upper octave tone thrown in just because).
What they came up with was the Lizard Queen, and with the internet being the internet and guitar players being guitar players, the groundswell for Lizard Queens to be made available for real was immediate and strong.
Fast-forward to this past Tuesday, and JHS revealed that the Lizard Queen was not only going into production — by EHX, though JHS ran off 1,000 versions of its own in the classic EHX “way too big to be practical” metal enclosures — but that it was to be a permanent part of the EHX lineup. Just an incredibly cool thing to see happen2.
Hope you enjoy, and I hope you have a good week, eh? Let’s do that.
Until next time.
No, for real I actually ordered it already. I do want to finish the book first, though.
Before anyone asks: Yes, I ordered one and no, I did not snag one of the JHS-built ones — way to pricey and impractical for my needs. Also, I’m not THAT kind of dork. Not always, anyway.