More Than a Feeling

I looked out this morning and I saw the sun in full fucking view. Even with two trees towering over our home and providing ample shade, we're privy to a fair amount of sunlight in the morning. The room I'm quarantining in (technically the "main" bedroom of the house, as I normally sleep in the finished attic when I don't have Covid) gets too much sun at the worst possible times — that is to say when I went to bed late and didn't get enough sleep.

Tom Scholz, songwriter and main man from arena rock band Boston, famously looked out one morning and didn't see the sun. He then somehow tied it into love lost (including his older cousin; creepy for even '75) and made one of the most famous guitar songs of the '70s. One that I always wrote off and decidedly didn't know about the whole cousin-love thing until recently, but COVID has me exploring things I always chided without really knowing, including (but not limited to):

• Boston (the band, as I still don't like the city all that much)
• NASCAR (I can be a public transit lover and like cars that go vroom)
• Bone broth (though I will try being a vegan again when I'm not feeling like death)
• Grateful Dead recordings that heavily involve Pigpen
• YouTube as platform for entertainment, not mechanism of delivery
• Bi-phasic sleep, aka napping
• Not randomly moving all my shit from one productivity tool to another
• E-Reading — I'm sorry, but I have failed you greatly
  • Jailbreaking an old Kindle I used to stabilize a bookshelf so I can keep doing cool things
• Rupi Kuar (siiiiiiiiiiiiike that is never going to happen, unlike tears fall like leaves from the tree where you told me I am not yours, or something)
• Foghat (when I feel guilty for listening to Boston too much)

I decided to make Boston's self-titled debut album a fixation during this bout of Covid because I finally have true "brain fog." (I forgot my anniversary and bi-visibility day, which are basically the same day/thing.) With shit memory and a bit of a hazy approach to the world around me, I figured now was the perfect time to make sense of Boston. They're not La Monte Young. They're not Hiroshi Yoshimura. They're named after one of my least favorite cities and played in vans covered in rust spots around the country. It's Boston. Almost like Chicago. Or Asia.

But who the fuck am I? Turns out Tom Scholz was an MIT grad, engineer, and built a band because he built a studio first. Thus, what I had previously perceived to be the dumbest music on classic rock stations (which I regret to inform you now play grunge) was actually started by a man much more credentialed than I. Which led to me playing Boston several times over and "More Than a Feeling" at least a hundred times before discovering its origins, and then listening to it again, living in ignorance and that sweet, sweet Covid brain fog.

By the time you read this, I have probably gone back to try to figure out why I don't like the new Big Thief record or dragging my heels through the final five seasons of Cheers, which are a slog. And when Cliff Clavin makes another joke at his own expense, knowing full well that John Ratzenberger has turned his back on the kind of people his character is meant to embody (and is infinitely more pathetic), I will put the iPad down, press play on the Sonos, and hear that acoustic guitar slowly fade in once more.

Five Things I'm Checking Out

1) Cepacol makes all other throat lozenges look like jokes.

2) This painting of a Pokemon my sister made. She's doing a new thing.

3) Fastmail, my email provider, who I will never leave because they're better than Google in, like, every way possible.

4) "I Heard You Looking," my favorite Yo La Tengo song by a mile.

5) Father's charity. He said that when the time is right, he'll finally pass it down to me to run. (I truthfully have no relation.)

I'm trying to make these more lighthearted. I really wanted to talk about the West Virginia Coal wars but I forgot that I wanted that until just now, thanks to Covid. Probably for the better.

See you soon.

-Scott