Weeknotes: April 7–11, 2025

Monday, April 7

C-G-D-G-B-D. It's a version of C Wahine, a Hawaiian slack key tuning I'm playing around with this morning. The low C vibrates against the back of my guitar and into my chest like a Pacific frequency. Outside a pale blue sky is flooding the weak clouds in a slow diffuse throb. 

During a Zoom meeting we discuss a now-beleaguered company that we used to be a part of and it depresses me. I break for lunch and listen to a podcast dissecting last night's season finale of The White Lotus. In late afternoon I put the Tigers game on the radio. The entire homestand against the Yankees has been rescheduled because of the cold weather. Early April night games are a gamble in the Midwest. Two weeks into the season and the team is playing really well. I'm excited about them. They beat the Yankees 6–2 and who doesn't love to beat the Yankees?

I go for a drive, chasing the evening light and listening to Michael Rother's calm, radiant music. At Mary McCann Preserve, I hop back and forth over muddy lanes to get to the rail line at the back of the property. A dozen or so inert train cars are linked together on the track and have been there since I discovered this park during the pandemic. I'm collecting photos using different lighting strategies for my photography class, trying to find my way around manual mode. Right now I feel uncreative and pressed for time and I wonder how many lame photos of rusting train cars and derelict factories the instructor has to sift through every year from novice students like myself. They must be the G, C, and D chords of photography. 

Tuesday, April 8

After coffee, but before work really takes hold, I revive my morning meditation routine. I fell out of the habit a few years ago, but think I could really benefit from some mindful head-clearing (or headful mind-clearing?). The last few times I've been out trail-walking, I've felt the tendrils of brain rot taking hold. I see spring buds and hear robins, but inside I'm still doom-scrolling. The world is relentless right now. My head needs spring cleaning. 

Over lunch I put on Bob and Doug McKenzie's Great White North LP. If you're going to own one  Canadian comedy record from the early-'80s, it should probably be this one. My brother and I used to love Strange Brew, the movie they made a couple years after the album. It was on regular VHS rotation in our house. "Good day!"

Wednesday, April 9

The Tigers almost pull off a dramatic 9th inning rally to sweep the Yankees. Almost. It's a great first homestand; they went 5-1. I'm getting into the rhythm of this season's radio ads. There's the godawful faux-emo jingle for Fieger Law ("all we do is win!") that makes me cringe every time. Then there is the ad for the Michigan Corn Growers Association whose abbreviated tag no doubt reads well on paper, but on the radio sounds like "Am I corn?"

I walk out of photography class at 9PM into a cold hard rain and tune in to WCBN for the short drive home. As the rain turns to sleet, I bop to a whimsical arrangement of ukulele, handclaps, and the unmistakable beat of a Casio SK-1. By the time I pull up in front of my house several wheezing recorders have joined in, tootling along melodiously. I stay up until midnight redesigning a flyer for a fake cafe for tomorrow’s typography class. When I'm done it looks like a gig poster for a band called Grand Opening. 

Thursday, April 10

K is back from Italy. We catch up by phone and discuss photo projects about waterways we love. She has been taking the same photo of a drainage ditch near her family's farm for decades. One of them graces the cover of my second album which I recorded at that farm. I keep taking the same photo of the Huron River two blocks from my house and I'm wondering if I should turn it into a series.

I finish my review of Valerie June's new album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles. I always appreciate her albums. I think she's a wonderful, memorable songwriter, even if her idiosyncratic voice puts me off a little bit. I have trouble with certain vocal affectations and it often prevents me from enjoying artists. Just last night my friend John was trying to push Andy Shauf back on my plate. He's another artist who writes gorgeous songs with the kind of arrangements I love, but that thing he does with his voice… I just can't get past it. I'm sure there are people who are put off by my voice too. Taste is a fickle thing.

Friday, April 11

I’ve been drafted to house-sit my parents’ dogs for a night, which I’m very glad to do. I’m still running in a low gear of post-Covid fatigue as I head out in late afternoon, but after feeding the dogs, I rally for a nostalgic evening jaunt into my hometown.

I sit on the ledge of a small amphitheatre which was once the Brighton Gazebo. On summer Sunday nights cover bands like Moose & Da Sharks and Steve King & the Dittilies would play rock & roll oldies to families lazing in lawn chairs. Most of the time, though, the gazebo was a hangout for bored pre-internet kids who scrawled inept but entertaining graffiti tags like "Sambo is a Vibrator" and "Every Girl Have Big Tit" onto its timber. My friends and I used to skate here, ignoring the "No Skateboarding" signs. I notice there is still a "No Skateboarding" sign up and the ledge is pocked with aluminum deterrents. I see you, fun police.

Across the placid, sunlit water of the Mill Pond a group of people lounge around a tidy new gas-fed fire pit on Main Street. My mom and I used to feed ducks there. On the other side of the street is a little gallery of shops where I played a cafe gig when I was about 16. I message my oldest friend to tell him that our hometown reminds me of Hill Valley, but the futuristic version from Back to the Future II. A kid on an electric scooter zips by riding on an orange Home Depot bucket. His friends egg him on and I watch him wipe out on the other side of the bridge.

I drink from a plastic cup of beer, which I bought at Town to Trail Outfitters, a nice specialty shop that sells brands like Fjällräven and KÜHL. It’s run by a guy my brother went to school with and whose younger brother was in my class. Apparently they inherited a liquor license from the previous tenant, a Japanese steakhouse, and decided to install a bar in back. When I was growing up, that space was the local dime store, D&C, run by Mr. Schmidt, a kindly bespectacled old fellow who even then seemed like someone from a distant era. My granddad would take us there to buy cap guns, little plastic army men, and candy. I loved the D&C.

I walk up the tridge (an elaborate three-way bridge built when I was in high school) behind Dairy Queen and Stillwater Grill to a little strip mall where a new brewpub has been installed. They blow the keg on my order and offer my ⅔ beer on the house. Just inside the front window a piccolo snare and splash cymbal combo basks in the evening sun. No other drums are present. I drink outside and when I come back in to return my glass a guy is tuning up a Les Paul to apparently play a solo electric guitar set. Good luck, but no thanks. I walk back to my car and watch the Tigers game in my parents’ living room.