autumn

#1161: The Last Note of Freedom: Season 2024 Comes to an End

RECORD STORE TALES #1161: The Last Note of Freedom: Season 2024 Comes to an End

As much as Record Store Tales is about music, and personal music history, it has also become a related sub-story about mental health and seasonal affective disorder.  It was only during the early years of publishing Record Store Tales that I was forced to deal with it.  This has been a musical journey, and a rocky road of personal struggle, triumph, setbacks, and triumph all over again.  A big part of my problem is my seasonal affective disorder, which I have been open about for years.  I get depressed in the winter:  facts!  My genes are Mediterranean, and I was not built for snow or months of dark skies.  And so, it is sad to say that the cottage season of 2024 is officially at its end.  But what a year it was.

The year of drones!  Every year I want to level up my video-making abilities.  I never know what exactly that will be until I stumble upon it.  One year, it was the discovery of super-slow-mo videos.  This year I took the skies!  My cottage videos were dominated by drones this year.  A satisfying artistic triumph, and a super fun hobby that I highly recommend.

I called this chapter “The Last Note of Freedom” because that’s the song that I chose to use in my last cottage drone video of the year.  The same David Coverdale song that was inexplicably used in my high school graduation slideshow.  It always signals endings and beginnings to me, besides being a great song.  A good one one which to end the summer 2024 flying season.  Maybe this winter we’ll see if I can fly in the snow.

Meanwhile, back at home, this was also the summer that we discovered deep dish pizza.  I have always been curious but wary.  This summer, we found not one but two local places that serve up (and deliver) reasonably authentic deep dish.  (The “delivery” part is important because I don’t really enjoy going out to eat.)  And so, along with droning, deep dish pizza will become a winter activity when we have the blues.  I very much enjoy the thick gooey cheese, and the tomato sauce was a lot more enjoyable than I expected.  While it is not for everyone, and definitely a very different kind of pizza, I would say that deep dish is indeed pizza.  (There’s a whole debate about this.)

More food experiments will happen as we hunker down for another cold winter.  I’ve always wanted to try one of those ramen places, and soup is perfect for winter.  We also have to try a few “indoor steaks” when we start to go into beef withdrawl.

Yes, I’m optimistic.

And so as we say goodbye to summer and the cottage, we look forward to what comes this winter.  Lots of music, lots of new things, and always with a focus on creativity.

 

Droning On – Recent Videos with Music!

Lots of new videos up on the channel, with great music to go with them!

The First Flight of Dr. K – Marillion “Fugazi”

I actually let Dr. K fly my drone. This is the unedited footage. You can see the panic on my face, with my hands on my head in anxiety!

Following a Canada Goose and some beach dogs – Jeff Bridges & Colin Farrell “Fallin’ & Flyin'”

Really special footage here of a lone Canada goose in the morning. I hovered nearby, afraid to get too close.

Dawn flight in the fall to lone rock – Brant Bjork “Sun Brother”

This flight took me further than I’ve gone before, all the way to a lone rock on the other side of the river that my sister and I used to sit on.

#1154: The Roar

RECORD STORE TALES #1154: The Roar

When summer turns to fall at the lake, there is a constant roar. It is always there. It is a mixture of a churning lake only meters away, dulled by the branches of the evergreens, but amplified by the wind. The wind is steady now, always pushing us towards fall.

When we arrived on Thursday night, the weather hadn’t turned foul yet.  It was still warm, and the wind was tame enough to fly.  I took the drone up for its first lake flight in a month.  We haven’t been here for a long time.  And now, it’s time to wind things down.  No more stocking up on food and games for the season.  Instead we are faced with a full freezer needing consumption, and a shelf of Uno variants that we just never got around to.

Models kits unbuilt.  ZZ Top’s Eliminator, and a gold C-3P0.  Never got to ’em this year.  And now there’s no time for it this year.  Next year, maybe.

We drove up to the sounds of Triumph Stages, a cottage classic.  It took us almost the whole way.  When here, we played ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery for research purposes.  Opinions were mixed.  More on that another time.

My usual routine involves setting up on the porch with my speakers and some music.  It’s getting darker sooner, and this was probably the last weekend of the year for that routine.

Now, there is only the sound of the roar.