Dear Friends,
Monday is my favorite day of the week. It’s the day things get started. This is not news to you if you read this blog a lot. I have mentioned it before. One of my favorite things about this feeling, though, is the reaction that I get from people when I tell them my favorite day is Monday.
Usually, it is a student who asks me what my favorite day is, and I tell them what I just wrote here. “Monday,” I say, “because it is the start of something new.” I love to start something new. I’m good at it. It’s the follow through and completion that is my weak point.
I also love the band Happy Mondays. I became a big fan of them at some point in the late 80s and their sound just grew on me. When I saw them open for the Pixies in 1990, I didn’t know whether I liked them or the Pixies more. The Happy Mondays were that good. I saw them the next year in San Francisco with Bongwater and they were great then, too.
I have a soft spot for the Manchester sound. It’s probably not a soft spot, really, as there are just so many bands from that area of the world that I like. My buddy, Frank, is a big proponent of the Manchester sound, as well. I love to see his takes on these bands.
Happy Mondays have a very danceable groove. I love to spin their stuff when I am DJ-ing. Even those who are not familiar with them often seem to get a little happy when I play them. Any band that had a full-time dancer/hype man (Bez) is good with me.
I wonder what those guys are up to now? I haven’t heard much about them recently other than they are supposed to play at a festival in England later this year. Last year, bassist Mark Ryder, brother of singer/band leader Shaun, died. I’m wondering who will taken his place and how that will be for the rest of the lads when they play later this year.
*****
Another week of summer school kicks off this morning. It will be interesting to see what kind of turnout there will be during the third and fourth weeks. My guess is that there will be a few less kids this week, but who knows? I’m guessing I am just babysitting a lot of them, anyway.
The upside is that I am seeing improvement in some of their reading in just a short time. I’ve been talking a lot about the “why” of reading. You know, people seem to gravitate to the “why” of something a lot more than the “how” or “what” and a lot of students don’t seem to understand the “why” of school. This is a huge failure on the part of education right now. We need to do a better job of teaching the students how to invest in themselves and why that is so important.
We are going to have some fun this week, I’m sure, and after school gets out, I have plenty of fun stuff to do. Later today I take the car in to get its safety check, then on Wednesday I take Teresa to get her eyes checked, and on Friday, Bailey gets her checkup, too. At least it won’t be as busy as last week as there are not gigs to go see, but it’s still going to be a busy week.
Looking forward to getting some reading done today while the car is being checked out. I picked up a couple of books last week at the Kid Congo/Jim Ruland event, so I’m well into Ruland’s SST book. It’s pretty good, so far.
See you tomorrow.
The remnants of my Navajo Taco on Saturday. It was rad. Check out JJ's Frybread and Wings at 19th Ave and Northern if you are close by.
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