Category Archives: Not at all Writing Related

D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: 50,000

April 27, 2020 David B. Coe

It is more people than can fit into the stands of Fenway Park. Or Wrigley Field.

It is actually higher than the capacity seating of 28 of Major League Baseball’s 30 stadiums (the exceptions: Yankee Stadium and Dodger Stadium)

It is more people than die in car wrecks in the United States each year.

It is higher than the number of annual Breast Cancer deaths in the U.S.

It is more than the median annual income for a full-time wage earner working forty hours per week.

It is more points by far than any professional basketball player has scored in an entire career.

It is three times the total population of Colonial Boston in 1770.

It is nearly twice the combined number of species of mammals, birds, and reptiles in the entire world.

It is far more than the number of species of fish in all the bodies of water in all the world.

It is more than three times the number of years humans have inhabited North America.

It is about as long ago as the Upper Paleolithic Age (read: Late Stone Age) began.

It is exactly the number of words people shoot for during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

It is more than Donald Trump’s vote margin in Pennsylvania in 2016, and more than his combined vote margins in Wisconsin and Michigan.

It is more Tweets than Donald Trump has dumped into the world since declaring his candidacy for the White House in June 2015.

It is, if you haven’t yet heard, the number of Covid-19 deaths in the United States as of this past Friday.

Given under-reporting and overly optimistic “back to work” orders, it is, quite likely, less than half what our nation’s total will be for this first wave.

Sorry to start the week on such a down note. But that’s where my thoughts have taken me.

Wishing all of you strength, courage, and good health.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: Musical Favorites — A List Post

March 30, 2020 David B. Coe

Okay, I am tired of Covid posts, of contemplating the meaning of life in the time of plague and all that. Today’s Musings are of an entirely frivolous sort. I have been listening to A LOT of music. Oldish music. Boomer music. Dad music. The music I have listened to and loved since I was a kid being turned on to 60s and 70s rock by my older siblings. (I wrote about this in the context of another music post earlier this year.)

And because I’m bored, and having trouble focusing on the work at hand, and also a huge fan of the movie High Fidelity, I started making lists in my head. What sort of lists? I am SO glad you asked….

[And before I go on, this is my list of MY favorites. I know they may not be “the best.” I’m sure that we could survey one hundred of you and wind up with a hundred different answers for all of these. I did this for fun, and because I thought you might find it entertaining. I am not looking for a fight and will not engage in arguments about any of this. Okay?]

My Favorite Musical Performer: This is a no-brainer, and it is a sentimental choice. My very first real album (not something put out by Hanna-Barbera) was James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, which I was given when I was seven years old. Ever since, James Taylor has been my favorite, the artist I go to when I need cheering up, when I seek solace or comfort. His music has literally been the soundtrack of my life; his various albums are signposts that help me date certain key moments of my personal history. I know he’s not the best musician or the best songwriter, but he is the one I love most. Also, he and I share a birthday. For what that’s worth.

My Favorite Band: Little Feat. A little bit rock, a little bit country, with elements of funk and R and B and Creole thrown in. I was turned on to Little Feat by my oldest brother, Bill, who was my guru for all things Rock ‘n Roll. Their live album, Waiting for Columbus, is, in my view, the greatest live album ever made. And I say that as a huge fan of the Allman Brothers’ Live at Fillmore East. Sacrilege, I know. But this is my blog. So there. For a sample of their sound listen to the live version of “Dixie Chicken” or any version of “Rock ‘n Roll Doctor.”

My Favorite Songwriter: There are a lot of wonderful songwriters out there, including James, Jackson Browne, Dylan, Lennon and McCartney, and, the one who was very nearly my top choice, Paul Simon. Among newer artists I think Adam Duritz and, yes, Taylor Swift are both remarkable writers. But to my mind the finest songwriter of the last half century is Joni Mitchell. And I think if she was a guy, it wouldn’t be a controversial choice. Her lyrics are simply brilliant – emotional, unexpected, evocative. Listen to “A Case of You” or “Song For Sharon.” I know some don’t like her voice. Sometimes I don’t either. This is about the songs and lyrics themselves.

My Favorite Musicians: Okay, this is a tricky one – I’m kind of thinking about this the way I might an all-star team: putting together my favorites by instrument. I’m not necessarily looking at creating the perfect band. Some of my choices don’t go together so well. But… well… this is my game and these are the rules by which I’m playing.

Lead Vocals, Male: So many great voices to choose from – Roger Daltry, Bob Seeger, David Crosby (a personal favorite). But I think my favorite guy’s rock voice might be Phil Collins. Honorable mention: Adam Duritz of Counting Crows fame. And Michael McDonald from his Doobie Brother days.

Lead Vocals, Female: Again, so many great voices. I was never a Heart fan, but Ann and Nancy Wilson could sing. That said, I have to go with Melissa Etheridge. LOVE her voice. Bluesy, gravelly, powerful. She’s also a remarkable songwriter and has been a courageous voice for social justice. And I could listen to her sing all day long. Honorable mention: Bonnie Raitt, Christine McVie, and Susan Tedeschi.

Lead Guitar: David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. His solos have a blend of edginess and elegance that I just love. Listen to the guitar work on “Comfortably Numb.” Mind-blowing. Honorable mention to about a thousand people, among them: Dickey Betts, Stephen Stills, Patrick Simmons, Jerry Garcia, Mick Taylor as well as the giants, Clapton and Hendrix.

Rhythm Guitar: Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Yeah, I know he also plays lead, but I think that while he is a very good lead guitarist, he is a masterful rhythm guitarist. That’s just me, but it’s how I feel. Honorable Mention: Bobby Weir.

Slide Guitar: I include this because it’s probably my favorite instrument to listen to. And it’s a chance for me to mention Lowell George, the creative force behind Little Feat, and the best slide guitarist I’ve ever heard. Honorable mention: Bonnie Raitt, Duane Allman, Jon Pousette-Dart, and Derek Trucks.

Keyboards: I will admit that I know far less about keyboards than I ought to. I love Elton John, and so does my wife. But I’m not sure how he fits with this list. Among my favorites are also two from the same band, which is a little unusual. Gregg Allman played organ and piano for the Allman Brothers Band and was very good at both. And Chuck Leavell’s piano solo on the song “Jessica” is one of the most joyous passages of rock ever recorded. So they will share top billing for me, with honorable mention going to Billy Payne and Billy Powell.

Bass: “Do not be deceived by nor take lightly this bit of musicianship that one describes simply as ‘bass.’” Kenny Gradney of Little Feat. Just a remarkably expressive and creative bass player. Honorable mention: Tina Weymouth and Phil Lesh.

And finally Drums: This one, to my mind, is not even close. There are drummers, and then there is Keith Moon, of The Who. His work was mesmerizing, surprising, powerful – just terrific stuff. Honorable mention to Steve Gadd and Charlie Watts.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this. Maybe next week I’ll do movies and movie stars…

Have a great week!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: In Defense of the Grateful Dead

February 24, 2020 David B. Coe

Hi, my name is David, and I used to be a Deadhead.

Yep. I saw them some twenty-five or thirty times in my youth. I slept outside, on line in front of arenas, in order to get the best possible tickets to shows. I traveled to different venues during tours to see them multiple times. I learned to play lots and lots of their songs on guitar, and I knew which were Jerry tunes and which were Bobby tunes. (That was a thing. It related to who sang lead and, often, who wrote the song. Really, you don’t want to know.)

I was not as devoted a fan as many I knew, but I was pretty devoted. I had t-shirts, bandanas, lots and lots of records, even more tapes of live performances. It is possible – possible – that I got stoned a lot and listened to tape after tape after tape.

Gradually, during my graduate school days, my ardor for the group diminished. Eventually, I stopped listening to them almost entirely, my tastes shifting in a number of different directions. One or two of their studio albums remained in my listening rotation, but otherwise, I let them go.

When my oldest brother died a few years ago, he left behind a massive music collection that included several Dead disks, including some in what’s known as the “Dick’s Picks” collection. These are CD versions of those old concert tapes I listened to in college (curated by a guy named Dick Latvala). At least I think I listened to them. Did I mention that I might – might – have been stoned? Anyway, my other brother didn’t want the disks, and neither did Bill’s widow, so I took them. For more than two years they sat on my CD rack gathering dust, but finally, a few days ago, I took them out again and gave them a listen.

Here’s what I found:

Let’s start with the bad, because where the Dead are concerned, people often do. Yes, the vocals are shaky. Squeaky harmonies, flat melodies, the occasional forgotten lyric. Then again, the vocals are no worse than Dylan’s, or, frankly, Mick Jagger’s later live efforts. Not everyone can sound like the Eagles. And yes, the musicianship is sloppy at times. The Dead played a huge number of shows – well over two thousand. They rarely had hit records. They only broke into the top forty once, and that came late in their run, only a few years before Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995. So they made their money by touring. And there were nights when, let’s say, their attention wandered. The spacey jams that were their hallmark sometimes spilled over into tunes that had no business being spacey. Guitar solos spiraled out of melodic control, band members went off in separate directions mid-song, and, on occasion, they fell into the trap of playing the same songs – especially encores – night after night, leaving the songs punchless and at best ordinary.

But there was good as well. Great even. At a time when most rock bands played the same songs – the same setlists – night in and night out, the Dead were remarkably eclectic. Part of the reason Deadheads like me went to so many shows and listened to all those concert tapes was that nearly every concert was different. We never knew what they would play, or what song might seque into another. Deadheads used to compare setlists the way naturalists compare wildlife sightings. Hearing a rare song, like finding a rare bird, was a true thrill.

And despite the aforementioned sloppiness, their musicianship could be truly stunning. The band’s sound revolved around Garcia’s guitar work which was, at times, spectacular. Jerry Garcia played with some of the world’s greatest musicians, appearing on not just rock albums, but also bluegrass, jazz, and country recordings. His pedal steel guitar work on Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “Teach Your Children” remains some of my favorite guitar playing of all time. His live solos, when he was on, were innovative, powerful, even mesmerizing. He did way too many drugs, and later in his life and career his health suffered, as did his performances. But if you’re interested in hearing what he was capable of doing, I would encourage you to listen to this (beware — the graphic spins slowly). And to this. The man could play.

Yes, the Dead were an acquired taste. But there was a reason they inspired such devotion and passion from their fans. They were imperfect – some nights they simply couldn’t be bothered to play a decent note. On other nights, though, they were utterly inspired. And at all times they were unlike any other band that has ever been. I’m glad to have their music back in my life.

Have a great week!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: Superbowl and the Reach of Sport

February 3, 2020 David B. Coe

I find the entire spectacle obscene. The money spent on those television ads alone, if put to different purpose, could improve the lives of millions who desperately need to have their worlds made better. And yet, it is as American a moment as any annual event on our nation’s calendar. It is a shared experience of unparalleled reach.

Last summer, while Nancy and I were in Ireland, traveling and sightseeing before WorldCon, we discovered the Irish national sport. We had just reached the Midlands city of Birr and were getting a Guinness before dinner. (A lot of our sightseeing resulted in us seeing the inside of a pub…) While we were enjoying our stouts and chatting with the locals in the bar, we noticed that the game on the small, wall-mounted television was not anything we’d seen before.

Ireland’s national sport is not Gaelic football, as one might think, nor is it soccer. It is a sport called hurling, which, along with its sibling sport, played by women, called camogie (and actually that night we were watching a camogie match) has a history dating back approximataely four thousand years. As an organized sport it is some 800 years old.

Hurling/camogie is called by many the fastest game on grass. To the untrained American eye it appears to be a blend of lacrosse (it is played with a stick – the hurley – and a small hard ball – the sliotar) and Gaelic rules football (the pitch is set up much the same way, with goals and goalposts at either end). The action in hurling/camogie is breakneck and non-stop, the game is rough and dangerous, and the skill required of its players is mind-boggling. The wooden hurley ends in a flat blade on which players catch the sliotar and then cradle the ball as they run. Read that sentence again. The stick is bladed. There is no net in which to catch the ball as there is in lacrosse. Players catch and carry this hard, slightly rubbery ball on a slat of wood no bigger than the palm of one’s hand at the end of a stick 30 inches long.

Hurling/camogie is as fantastical as Quidditch, except it’s real. And, in Ireland, the fanfare surrounding the hurling championship is no less frenzied than that surrounding our Superbowl. Sure, there is less money involved. Companies don’t spend millions for a single advertisement during the match. But for the duration of that championship game, the nation slows down to watch. Other concerns are briefly set aside and a huge swath of the population is caught up in the immediacy of the moment.

This seems a good day (I’m writing this on Sunday) to reflect on the power of sport in culture. I am a huge sports fan. I love just about any sport, although, I will admit on this Superbowl Sunday, American football might well be my least favorite of all the major league sports, not just in the U.S., but anywhere (and not just because I’m a New York Giants fan). I much prefer baseball (even with all my complaints about the way it’s played today) and soccer and basketball and even hurling. I won’t take much time to explain why – I’m not looking for an argument. But I will say that I prefer games that rely more heavily on finesse and refined skills (like basketball and soccer and baseball) to the brute force of football. (Before you get on me for this, I fully acknowledge that players like Pat Mahomes and Raheem Mostert, Tyreek Hill and George Kittle have incredible skill and talent. But to my mind, as someone who has been watching for literally 50 years, the game itself is one that emphasizes brute power and violence.) And for all the talk about how exciting football is supposed to be, the ball is actually only in play for about 12 minutes per game (the figure is only 18 minutes for baseball, so I realize that I’m not being entirely consistent here).

That said, I will watch today’s game. Because it’s an Event, and even the commercials will be talked about for days to come. Because even the dullest sporting event can have moments of unbelievable excitement, suspense, and surprise. And not least because the vast majority of the rest of the country will be watching as well. That might seem like an odd reason – conformity for conformity’s sake. But we live in a country of 330 million people. We live in cities and tiny towns, blue states and red states, mansions and cramped apartments. We come from different nations, different religious backgrounds, different races, different gender identities. Even with the power of today’s media and popular culture and technology, how many experiences do we as a country actually share in real time?

The Superbowl is big business. It’s glitzy and crass and ridiculously over-hyped. I find the entire spectacle obscene. The money spent on those television ads alone, if put to different purpose, could improve the lives of millions who desperately need to have their worlds made better. And yet, it is as American a moment as any annual event on our nation’s calendar. It is a shared experience of unparalleled reach. Viewership of the game is actually on the wane, and still we can expect that close to 100 million Americans will watch tonight’s game. That is as significant and telling as it is insane.

So I’ll watch, tolerating the hype and the flash, hoping for an exciting game filled with twists and turns. I’ll marvel at Mahomes’s feathery touch and Mostert’s ungodly agility. I’ll enjoy the big plays and get caught up in the inevitable controversies. I’ll even watch the commercials with interest. In other words, for this one evening, I’ll be a typical American. And I’m okay with that.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

The South Australia Coast — Photo Friday

January 3, 2020 David B. Coe

Good morning and welcome to the first installment of Photography Fridays, my new 2020 blogging feature. The point of this is to share with you my passion for photography, which is nearly as strong as my passion for writing. I also hope the feature will encourage me to get out and use my camera even more than I already do.

Today, though, I begin with a few photos I took during my family’s recent trip to Australia. We lived Down Under for a full year back in 2005-06, and returned there late this fall to see our younger daughter, who was completing a semester abroad in the Brisbane area. After joining up with her, we traveled to Adelaide in the state of South Australia, and drove out to Innes National Park, at the very end of the Yorke Peninsula (our route altered by fire-related road closures).

Innes is an amazing place. It includes some of the most dramatic coastal terrain I’ve ever seen. It’s a haven for kangaroos as well as emus and scores of other bird species. It has also been, over the past century and a half, the scene of dozens of shipwrecks, the remains of which still lie on beaches and reefs around the park. The surf was stunning while we were there – huge waves crashing down on rocky shores and sending plumes of foam and spray thirty-plus feet into the air. The water was deep blue and amazingly clear, the cliffs a palette of warm earth tones. And yet, I found that my favorite images worked best in black in white – stunning contrasts of light and dark, of patterns and textures and shapes. Here are three. I hope you enjoy them.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related, Writing

Happy New Year and Welcome to 2020

January 1, 2020 David B. Coe

Happy New Year!

I wish all of you a 2020 filled with joy and laughter, good health and good fun, lots of love and friendship. I also want to thank you for your continued support of my work. It means more to me than I can say.

I wanted to let you know about something new that I’ll be starting this year. Or, in a way, something old that I’ll be restarting. I have neglected my blog for the past several years, as blogging has gone from “THE THING that writers do” to “a thing that many writers used to do.” To be honest, I miss blogging, and with the projects I have on tap for this year, many of which may wind up with smaller presses or even — gasp — self-published, I want to re-establish my online connection to readers.

So, I will be posting regularly (or as regularly as proves possible and feasible) throughout the year, aiming for three posts per week. Mondays will feature general posts — musings on work, or life, or music, or sports, or (if I dare) politics, or whatever else happens to catch my interest. Monday Musings, if you will. We’ll see if the name sticks…

Each Wednesday, I will post a writing tip — craft, business, whinging, whatever. Writerly Wednesdays. Or not. We’ll see about that name, too. But I promise that the content will be geared toward writers of different levels. I will be open to suggestions as to subject — more on that as the year progresses. I can tell you, though, that some of the Wednesday posts will be basic, others more advanced. All, I hope, will be informative and helpful.

And finally, Fridays… As many of you know, I am a dedicated amateur photographer. I love capturing images almost as much as I love writing. And for a while now, I have been looking for some way to motivate myself to be more intentional about taking photos. I tend to use my camera extensively when I travel, but when I’m home, I allow work and other day-to-day stuff to get in the way. So, as a way of forcing myself to use my camera more, I will be posting a new image every week (after this coming Friday, which will likely include an image from my recent trip to Australia). Photography Fridays. Maybe. I suck at naming stuff…

Anyway, that’s the plan. Musings on Mondays, Writing Tips on Wednesdays, Photos on Fridays. I hope that you’ll keep up with my posts and enjoy my renewed dedication to blogging.

Again, Happy 2020. May it be your best year yet.

— David

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