The Friday Recap 3-31-23: Overkill, Us & the Universe, & Glen Campbell
Insight into my twisted little brain
I keep threatening to write on a more defined schedule. To date, the threat has been empty but upon viewing my content planning document1, I saw this note:
Recap your week: Something you’ve learned, something you saw (read/heard) that was interesting, and something you listened to (music or lecture).
Maybe it’s a cheap device and a bit hacky… but in the immortal words of Paul McCartney, “What’s wrong with that? I’d like to know… so here I go… again.”
Sure, he was talking about silly love songs but we call writer’s license on this one.
Learned: Overkill by Colin Hay
I wake up early - every single day, 365 days a year, including my birthday and Christmas. My routine is to grab a cup of coffee and learn something. The only time this has been disrupted in the past several years is when I had Covid, followed by RSV, last year (I lost 1 day each illness) and when I’ve had early morning flights - three that I recall.
Sometimes it’s technical. Sometimes music. Sometimes history. Sometimes science. And last week I learned how do a new braid for one of the girl’s hair. So.. it varies.
This week, one thing I learned, was how to play the song, Overkill, by Colin Hay. The cool thing is, it’s Colin teaching it.
I made reference to Colin Hay’s song, Waiting for my Real Life to Begin in my Contemplating Cancer post. I’ve been on a bit of a Colin kick the past year or two. In fact, I am playing music tonight in Ventura and plan to play, Down Under in my set. That link is the originally released, Men at Work, version.
Here is Colin playing it acoustically with a long preamble about Santa Cruz guitars. Song starts at: 5:00
Looked: Our Place in the Universe, Brian Cox
Over the past four or five years I’ve taken a significant interest in the cosmos and quantum physics, among other things. I’m largely ignorant on both topics but less ignorant than I was four or five years ago.
I highly recommend the mobile app, Stellarium. I may have mentioned a conversation with the oldest grandchild living with us. We were looking at the star, Sirius, and discussing how she was less than a year old when the light we were seeing left the star on its way to earth. The light was older than her younger siblings.
If we could warp spacetime and go to that star - and we had a sufficiently powerful telescope - we could look back at earth and see her as a baby. That’s cool! It’s like time travel.
Side note: We could also see how fallible our memories are. Lotsa “mea culpas” - a fancy way of saying, “I was wrong!”
I re-watched Brian Cox’s2 amazing lecture, Our Place in the Universe. It’s an entertaining and, I believe, functionally useful hour spent.
Listened: Glen Campbell, After the Glitter Fades
I listen to a lot of music! New stuff, old stuff, etc. I have a penchant toward acoustic music. I’m enamored with CAAMP - my daughter Jess turned me on to them with this song (All the Debts I Owe). She said it reminded her of me. The singer’s voice!!! Wow!
But I was also listening to this - Glen Campbell’s version of Stevie Nick’s, After the Glitter Fades.
Couple notes: In the first chorus, Glen gives a call out to the mandolin player’s backing vocals “Yeah Carl” because they sound remarkable! Also, Glen’s vocal vibrato is mmm mmm good!. Finally, he’s an amazing guitar player. The Soundtrack to the movie Norwood3, with Glen Campbell and Al De Lory was a significant part of my musical heritage.
After the Glitter Fades, just three chords and the truth, is on tonight’s set list as well.
And Finally: Sick but working
I lost my voice over last weekend. This is the third time in the past 12 months. It’s f***ing annoying. Remember this piece?
It seems much better today but tonight’s performance at The Twist on Main in Ventura may prove “interesting.” :-/ I couldn’t rehearse much and as of last night, my voice was pretty limited.
However, I’ve been plugging along on my kickstarter campaign and some technology projects. I started using the software, Notion to organize and share that work. I created this video about how I am using it.
Nerd alert: I also published an article and video on connecting Google Sheets to BigQuery (a data warehouse) to enhance reporting capabilities. You can hear my voice is a bit tattered but we martialed through.
Notion is an interesting product for organizing, sharing, and outlining information. I’m wary about adopting a new platform because it can be an excuse to work on learning the platform instead of doing the work you are using the platform to organize.
I’m trying to be pragmatic and put it to use imperfectly, learning new features incrementally and as they are needed.
If you use Notion or something like it, let me know.
If you got this far, I hope you learned something, found something worth looking at, or something worth listening to. Let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Matthew Moran
March 31, 2023
I have three different content planning documents. It’s sad because there are some good ideas in there and I need to consolidate those ideas and execute on them. Too many options can cause you to freeze. It’s a backwards writer’s block.
If you are unfamiliar with Brian Cox. He is, quite literally, a rockstar astrophysicist. Which is to say, prior to astrophysics, he was in a rock band. Note: Queen Guitarist, Brian May, is also an astrophysicist. That’s cool!
I can’t recall a single scene from the movie but I remember every song!
You love music. I have said that I love music.
In fact, my profession of love for music is not quite sincere.
Truthfully, I loved music when I thought I still had a shot at being a rock n roll star.
Most muisc bores me. And most lyrics, with the exception of Dylan's and Lennon's, seem trite and sophomoric
BUT I FINALLY HEARD SOMETHING THAT REALLY IMPRESSED THE HELL OUT OF ME.
The song, or really the entire production of the song, including the dancing, the outfits, and facial expressoins of the musicians, really wowed the hell out of me.
I am tallking about Amy Whinehouse's Monkey Man.
Now I should be writing about the music in your posts. But I am such a self-involved narcissistic fuck that I'm going to ask you to help me understaand my new obsession with monkey man.
Whenever I like a piece of art, and I don't know why I lke it, I become unnerved by my lack of understanding. I want to know: Why does this wierd, wierd song drive me wild
A few salient and striking thinss about the song and her performance with black male dancers:
A) The dancers look like highly energetic 4 year olds. Their dancing is neither smooth nor cool. Neither barbarous nor balletic. They just seem to be jerking their limbs like 4 year olds who only recently learned to jump and so jump around in a discordant and chaotic manner.
B) Amy Winehouse looks like an extremely innocent and pure sex doll.
C) The music, toward the beginning, reminds me of Havana Geilla, an old Jewish song of celebration
D) The music then seems to be defined by moody, rhythmic African tones
E) Mpst of the vocatlzations are not of words, just a fantastic amalgam of weird and cooing and sometimes pouting emotions
As a musician, please tell me: What is Amy Winehouse doing with this. Why do I love this. What is gong on here.