Quiet Saturdays - Alone With My Head

The Boomtown Rats famously released the tune “I Don’t Like Mondays” all the way back in 1979. 

It’s opening is unmistakable. Skip to the end of this post and reacquaint yourself, as necessary. I’ll wait.

Saturdays drag when there’s nothing formally on the schedule. It’s the lone day of the week without a show to perform, the enhanced version of self gets a pause. So, what do you do?

When your head is normally wrapped up in everyday household concerns, errands, appointments and constant refreshing of social media, blogs and websites as part of show prep, the hustle from pre-sun to 11pm, the silence is loud. I try to nap - but that’s usually a futile, miserable experience that leaves me pondering all of the things undone. I’ve been a terrible sleeper forever - can’t find the quiet and peace. 

I ponder the “Hamilton” experience of “writing like I’m running out of time” and the myriad pursuits for the second half of this existence. Being “better” in countless ways. 

So, Saturday the 19th was a long-ass day. I awoke early, as normal, even with no alarm set. Boo.

Went for a walk around the neighborhood with my ever-expanding playlist blaring. 

Returned to get to a beautiful split-screen experience while enjoying the first sips of morning coffee. College basketball and the NCAA Tournament earned the big screen (North Carolina and Baylor was one of the worst officiated games in history), but I also returned to Netflix for more of a show I discovered late Friday night. “Is It Cake?” That’s it - bakers put together elaborate cakes in the shape of a handbag or a satchel of cash. The cake version and real version of objects are placed on pedestals. Contestants then have to determine, from a distance in the studio, which is the real deal and … which is cake. 

Add some “Saved By The Bell” in marathon form, the first episodes of “Minx,” more music and we’ve landed into the mid-afternoon. 

Eff it. I had to try napping. I surrendered and passed out quite quickly, managing to find 75 minutes of slumber. Success. Predictably, it took 15 minutes before I began to lament the loss of that time. How dumb is that? 

More college basketball brought me into the evening and the start of my grid-building for my Sunday morning FOX Sports Radio show. The storylines surrounding the NFL are plentiful this time of year, so that didn’t require much time to create the list. But once on the page — the stories play in the Dome for the rest of the evening hours, constant revisions to what I call the “spidering effect.” You take the base story and see the interconnected web reveal itself. 

I laid out several ongoing projects and ambitions, trying to build the parallel “To-Do” lists. 

And I wandered into “Gilded Age” on HBOMax for a spell and sipped my 2021 Glogg. 

——-

The annual 1-900-LUZ-MY-AZZ process begins Monday. This time, I hope to make it last. Channel the stressors and angst to propel forward. I’ll chronicle what that project entails on Monday. 

Gotta get the mind to pause again. Stop a moment to give thanks and appreciate the good. The alarm for Sunday’s early performance awaits. 

And now — The Boomtown Rats. 

Country Roads - Part 2

Orange Chicken, Baseball Cards & A Classic Song

I'll keep it simple for this second entry. 

I smiled while sitting in a bit of traffic this afternoon. Sure, people are clearly reverting to pre-pandemic driving dopiness. Failures to signal lane changes, last-second decisions to turn into strip malls for some fast food and "Honor Student" bumper stickers signaled the triumphant return to action for Hawthorne Boulevard. 

So, while this crowded street added a few minutes to my route, it made for a quick feel of normalcy. 

OK, I wasn't enamored with it in the moment. It delayed my final show prep a few minutes. I grabbed my water jug and brewed some coffee and sat down to compile a few additional notes. We'd gone with a quick comfort food lunch option, and the takeout included a pile of orange chicken and chow mein. Therefore, dinner wasn't on the brain. 

It's the end of a long week --- just keep the caffeine flowing.

I flipped on the television for background noise and then saw a reminder on social media that today commemorated a huge rite of spring. The new 2020 Bowman set from Topps arrived. We don't have games on the diamond yet, but fans were jonesing to celebrate the new class. The hype machine is in full effect for 17-year old Jasson Dominguez, a prospect in the Yankees organization. And the Bowman set is the traditional home for rookie cards. I loaded the Instagram page of the local shop that was commemorating the release with a huge break session. Someone pulled an autographed version of the card numbered out of /25. That'll net the owner a nice car on the secondary market.

Finally, we've been celebrating a lot of pop culture on the show during the quarantine. The re-watching of classic movies, binge-watching shows we'd missed in their first runs and the release anniversaries and stars. One of the songs appearing frequently across Tik-Tok, as I've been told, is the Kingsman rendition of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver. I don't recall what triggered it in my head, but I started belting it out, just like Merlin (Mark Strong) in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle." It brought another pretty good laugh shortly after a heated debate on the show. 

And then we started pondering the Mount Rushmore of video games. We'll revisit that in a future blog.

Peace and love, all. Sing it loud. 

"Almost heaven, West Virginia

Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze"

(Note to self: There's a lot of country out there to traverse.)