What was it we were thinking of?

Sunday. One more day on my own until the season turns. Tomorrow it is all writing contest preparation, the eldest comes home (the wife prefers elder, reminding me that there is one older than they ... but not more aged) and the holidays are underway.

Will we run together? Maybe Turkey Trot? I do not know. I do not care. Family will be present and I will be full of joy. 

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 30:11
Pace: 9:40

Us - Peter Gabriel (1992)

Come Talk To Me

Steam (Oh, Oh, Let Off Steam Mix)

Digging In the Dirt

Kiss That Frog (Mindblender Mix)

Secret World

I love Peter Gabriel, I do. But mostly his upbeat work. The slow songs seem to me, sometimes, very, very slow. And similar. And besides, I need to run.

This album will always remind me of the first year of Guerrilla, for many, many reasons, and not only the timing. Though, sure, mostly the timing. Good timing. Frenetic. Sexual. Transgressive. There it is.

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 47°
Climate: bright & sunny

Mood: determined

 

Got a kink in my right ankle in the park, had to walk, worked it out, kept limping along, and soon it went away. But I think this might happen more often these days.

 
Stretches: yes

Sit-Ups: 40

Upper body: 40 reps.
Water: yes

Breakfast: oatmeal w/dried fruit, butter, brown sugar & cream

Lunch: linguine alfredo w/green vegetables, fizzy water

Snack: raw cookie dough, cookies

Dinner: squash curry over rice

Beverage: Festivus!

She's so funky, yeah.

Waking early is beautiful. And it is hard. The wife has been engged the past several nights, and I have not. I read, I write, I sleep by nine. But I wake before five, to write, and prepare myself with peace and ease. But I still have to get out by six. This is the final push, there will be more air starting next week.

It feels as though I have not run in a month. I missed one day. My knees can tell the difference. 

Distance: 4 miles

Duration: 38:16
Pace: 9:33

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 67°
Climate: partly cloudy, cool

Mood: good

Eesh. Stretch those shins. As the weather turns these runs do seem a bit arduous. But then, I may be overdoing it. More breaks. More short runs. Keep the engine running, you don't need to tear it up every time.

Stretches: yes

Water: yes

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (1980)

Intruder
No Self Control
I Don't Remember
And Through the Wire
Games Without Frontiers
Not One of Us
Lead a Normal Life
Biko

This was one I discovered later, starting with his fourth album (alo called Security) and working backward. I was surprised to learn that "Shock the Monkey" was by the same guy who did "Solsbury Hill" which I remembered from when it was played a lot on the radio in 1977.

I'm still not a huge fan of his first two albums. Was he a prog? Was he a rocker? But this one, this third one. This is where he truly started to figure out some things. It was when he became Peter Gabriel. How many industrial rockers of the 1990s owe their career to this one record? 

Hell, Trent Reznor owes his entire career just to the song "Intruder."

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, fresh fruit w/granola & yogurt

Lunch: Cobb salad, bread & butter, Cheetos, pumpkin roll (autumn!)

Pre-Run Snack: half-banana, nuts

Dinner: borscht w/potato, egg  sourcream

Alcohol? IPA (1x)

The lovely people at our test school have provided lunch this week, and they are very nice and complete.

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 171 lbs. (+1.0)

Goal: 165 lbs.

Reading: Corley, E.

Writing: 30 min.

Get the blood to flow.

Pandemonium 2023

I was a good boy last night. Not only did I have a wonderful time participating in Panedmonium, I had one drink and came home and went to bed at a decent hour. After yesterday's nonsense, I wanted to be sure today was productive and relaxed.

Yes, and. I have been working on the new play script, and also made cookies (okay, that was a failure) talked to my brother and did laundry. Also? Taking a run.  

Distance: 1 mile

Duration: 9:17

Route: Haselton Loop 

Temperature: 70°
Climate: overcast, cool & damp

Mood: good

Pleasant mid-afternoon miler. Tomorrow I hope to do a pre-work 5K. Depends on if it rains!

 
Stretches: yes

Sit-Ups: 20
Planks: 90 sec.

Water: yes

It's cute, Peter Gabriel has finally produced a song that sounds exactly like all other Peter Gabriel songs.

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, bagel & egg sandwich, cookie (1x) 

Lunch: n/a

Happy Hour: almonds & dried cranberries, Manhattan

Dinner: tuna casserole w/peas, fizzy water

Treat: scoop of ice cream

Alcohol? yes

Reading: HTD

Writing: typing that sweet, sweet script.

What's That Lyric?

Road to Joy - Peter Gabriel

Hi there!

Sledgehammer was released a little over thirty years ago, on April 25, 1986. In a year that was recently - scientifically - determined to be the worst in popular music history, I was astonished and thrilled by this song. Awesome horns, excitingly syncopated guitars, a funky, funky bassline, that slippery percussion, and lyrics that playfully extend absurd and absurdly obvious metaphors for fucking.

My interest in his work had started with his last complete album of original work, Security, and in the intervening years (1982-86, my entire high school career, actually) I has absorbed pretty much everything he had ever recorded, on his own and with Genesis, including their justifiably difficult to find first album, From Genesis To Revelation, which is really, really, really bad.

But I bought it.

And that was kind of the point. While I enjoyed delving into early 70s prog rock, and had piecemeal discovered that a great many tunes from my preadolescence for which I had a deep, subliminal affection (Solsbury Hill, for example, or Follow You, Follow Me) came from the same interconnected ensemble of artists, by my senior year in high school they were all a bit passé, weren't they? And you couldn't dance to them, and that was extremely important.

Listening to Sledgehammer for the first time, driving in my car (well, Mom's car) cruising down the highway from visiting my new girlfriend downtown, I was first struck by the fierceness of the attack, and immediately recognized the vocals, and that was so exciting.

A new Peter Gabriel album! A new girlfriend! These two events are intricately connected.

Distance: 5 miles
Duration: 40 minutes (or so)
Route: Boulevard-Noble Loop

The album So was released on May 19, 1986.

I have always found it gratingly ironic that an artist who had championed the end to apartheid long before most of his contemporaries lost out on the Grammy for Best Album for this record to a man who exploited the effort and talents of numerous black South African musicians to create Graceland.

So alternates, track by track between funky and upbeat - Sledgehammer, Big Time - and dour and downbeat - Don't Give Up, Mercy Street ... which I have chosen not to include in my running playlist, not because I don't like them but because I came to run, not brood.

Visceral and ethereal. He loves doing that, sliding back and forth, striving to represent his idea of godless, earth-bound spirituality. Peter Gabriel was thirty-five when he recorded this one. Once upon a time I might have thought that was when a man was at his physical strongest. Maybe some are. Not me.

Long before the movie Say Anything (1989) the song In Your Eyes was that summer's signature tune for walks on the beach, crazy-long make-out sessions, and basically any time the evening stretched on well past that point you know you really have to begin driving home because she has to be back by ten and you have to get up for school tomorrow, but five more minutes doesn't really make a difference at this point, right?

Temperature: 57°
Climate: The light! The heat!
Mood: I am complete.
Weight: 164.5 lbs.

Well. Today would have been a good day to run a half marathon.

So - Peter Gabriel (1986)
Red Rain
Sledgehammer (Extended Dance Version)

That Voice Again

In Your Eyes
Big Time (Extended Version)
This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds) ft. Laurie Anderson