We’ve reached the end of another May, the sixth consecutive one I’ve written daily posts. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I chose this month way back when I started this since it’s so close to what can feel like the longest and most stressful month of the school year. I figured forcing myself to write something new each day would both distract me from anything unpleasant I had going on that would be better off left at school, and would add just enough positive pressure as I struggled to keep up with the pace to keep it moving along.
I’m happy with how this month turned out. First, some statistics: Over the course of these 31 posts, including the carefully-worded one I’m composing right now, I will have written a total of 25,000 words. Not yet including anything that happens with today’s post, the May blog posts have had a total of 2,866 page views. By comparison, the first month I did this had a total of 681 page views, which was less than my four most popular posts from this month combined. In fact, the top three posts from this month made it into the top 10 most read posts, for a blog that has existed since 2009.
I’m happy to see the month as successful as it was. After all, one of the reasons I spend as much time writing these posts is the hope that people will read them. In a lot of cases though, the motivation for doing this is to get something out of them myself. I’ve got one of these weird writer brains going on, where the words and ideas never seem to completely find a way to shut themselves off. It can become bothersome at times, so writing a blog has been a useful outlet when it comes to unloading and sorting through all of that. Sometimes you just need to clean house a bit, you know? If it works out that doing that ever gives someone else something to consider, all the better.
And all of this is said without mentioning the primary reason I started the blog in the first place — to practice my writing. Looking back and comparing some of the earliest posts to the most recent ones, I think it was a good idea.
A lot of what I’ve written here this month has been birthday centered, which probably makes it difficult to convince people that I truly don’t get wrapped up in my birthday all that much. I do, however, spend a lot of time reflecting on my place in the world and where I am in life, and reaching a landmark birthday like fifty seemed like a natural time to do that. This doesn’t mean I necessarily figured anything out or reached any grand conclusions, or even have any better idea of what I’m supposed to do with life after fifty than I did with life before. It does make retirement start to seem real. And it makes me wonder a little about how much time I have left, and what the time will be like, and what I’ll be able to accomplish with it.
Starting with June though? I’ll probably just start looking for a new dog.
I found something online yesterday that I couldn’t quite figure out — a video from Weezer featuring a cover of the 80s song “Africa,” by Toto. Listen for yourself if you haven’t heard it yet:
"Africa" by Weezer
My question was, “Why?” Is Rivers Cuomo a huge Toto fan? I'm not saying I would blame him. I like Toto a great deal, thanks to the influence of several of my cousins who are true lifelong superfans. They’re a group of great musicians I’ve been listening to for a long, long time. I might even go as far as to put their 2014 live album “Live in Poland” on my list of top 20 live albums. But a Weezer cover of “Africa?” Was there a demand for this? In all honesty, it’s never been one of my favorite Toto songs, even if it’s reached a level of ubiquity that probably makes a lot of people think of Toto as a one-hit wonder.
Turns out there was a demand. I guess some high school kid out there has been working at making this happen since last winter, and his Twitter followers have been growing ever since. For whatever reason, Weezer finally obliged. The recording isn’t bad and stays fairly true to the original. I even kind of like it. Maybe it will eventually bring back my appreciation for the original song that dried up back in 1989 or so.
I don’t listen to the radio a ton, but I’ve noticed a run of recent cover versions appearing on the airwaves lately: “Zombie” by the Cranberries, covered by Bad Wolves; “Gone Away” by the Offspring, covered by Five Finger Death Punch, and “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel, covered by Disturbed. The Disturbed cover reminded me of how they had released a cover of “Land of Confusion” by Genesis ten or so years back. Back then I was listening to Nephew #1 and his middle school buds talking about their favorite songs at the time, and one mouthy little punk started holding court on how Disturb's "Land of Confusion" was the best song out there. I had an overwhelming urge to poke a tiny hole in his self-perceived musical omniscience, so I innocently asked the group of them, “Have you guys ever heard the original version?”
This momentarily threw off his swagger. I could tell his first reaction would have been to challenge me that an original version didn't exist, but since he couldn’t say that conclusively and recognized I was old enough to know better, he pulled back a little. “There is one?” he asked. I nodded. “Yep. From Genesis. Came out in ’86.” I’m sure to him 1986 seemed like pre-color television history, so I just let him digest that. It didn’t take long for him to shrug it off, though. “Whatever,” he replied. “The newer one is still way better.”
I desperately wanted to point out there was no possible way he could judge this if he had only learned an earlier version existed ten seconds earlier, but having taught as long as I have I knew better than to try and logic my way through making a point with a kid who thought the apex on the good idea pyramid would be to ride a grocery cart downhill without a helmet. Besides, I had made a similar argument back in 1982 with my cousin Eric, when there was no way I would bend on the idea that “Crimson and Clover” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts was a better song than the original by, I believe, Tommy James and the Shondells…whatever the hell a Shondell was supposed to be.
To this day, I still hold true to that opinion. In fact, there are several covers out there I probably like a lot more than the originals, and likely for as many different reasons as there are different songs. I loved Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” in high school, and I still do. There was a cover of it by the post-millennial band The Ataris that was also really good, but not better. That didn’t happen until another 80s act, The Hooters, covered it in 2008 on an attempt at a comeback album with a heartbreaking reinterpretation. If you’ve never heard it, you owe it to yourself to track it down and give it a listen someday.
My family is made up of dozens of music fans, and we like to put together a lot of musical quizzes / challenges / games / lists on Facebook, just to stir things up and share opinions through the comment conversation. For anyone reading this, especially if you’re coming here from the Facebook link, I’m going to challenge you to list at least one cover song you really like, or one that you simply can’t stand. Or hey, go for one of each if you want, or even a Top 10 list if you feel so inspired. If we get a few people sharing some ideas here, I might even put the work into thinking up my own top 10 list.
I’m pretty sure Weezer’s cover of “Africa” won’t be on it, though.
Memorial Day has come and gone, so we are officially in the homestretch leading to summer break. Depending on how one chooses to look at the calendar, our district either has seven or eight days left. I’m going with seven (even though it's technically eight).
My terribly generous Secret Santa gave me a cube of Post-It Notes for one of my gifts this year. I’ve been saving them for the summer, knowing it was likely I’d once again be turning my refrigerator door into a summer To-Do list. In the past I’ve organized my summer tasks and sorted them by color. I have five colors to work with this year, but I’m not sure how to categorize things.
One color will have to be devoted to procrastination jobs, the kinds of things that really need to get done and I always put off until the summer because there’s more time: getting the light above the kitchen sink fixed, cleaning out the garage, going to that dentist appointment that doesn’t require taking a half day off and calling a substitute, getting the oil changed and tires rotated.
But what about the other four?
Do I list the books I want to read or the movies I want to see? That kind of makes them feel like homework assignments, and ones that aren’t so hard to accomplish if I’m planning on doing them anyway.
Do I set the paces for long-term goals? How many trips to the Y each week? How many words written or pages revised daily? How much time spent each day practicing my new guitar? These ideas make me wonder how much I want to set myself into a full routine when I’ve been looking forward to having so many wide open days ahead of me.
Should I list school-related projects? I always intend to do some because the end of one school year seems like an exceptionally fertile time when it comes to thinking of ideas I want to try implementing when the next one starts, but I know myself too well. Truly ambitious school projects simply won’t get done in the summer.
When I start planning out my summer fridge list. I always think back to a kindergarten teacher I know who once said she was starting her summer break with one goal in mind — figuring out the perfect recipe for a strawberry daiquiri. She told people this like it was the punchline to a joke, but I really think she meant to do it. To me, it seemed like a near-perfect summertime goal (at least for someone who really liked strawberry daiquiris). It wasn’t so ambitious that there would be a lot of room to fail. It would leave her with plenty of time to just enjoy the slowly passing days. She’d have some fun with it, no matter what, and probably would have something to show for it at the end.
This year, turning 50 sits in my head a little. I was given a pretty landmark gift for a landmark birthday -- a brand new electric guitar. I love the guitar and have always felt a hole in my life from not knowing how to really play it, and 50 seems like a great age to finally dive in to something like that. Why wait longer, you know? What could I be missing out on that I don’t even know I’m missing out on? Who knows how much time any of us have left to do the things we’d like to try?
Maybe one of my Post-It color categories should be used to list personal challenges or new experiences. Not a bucket list so much because I imagine I have at least a few more years left in me, but things I haven’t tried before, because maybe it’s never even occurred to me to try them. What better time to do things like this when I get a blessed seventy-nine days off from work?
Now it’s just a matter of thinking up what should go on that list.
