2025 Things (good)
100% That Witch * Cat Pals * Southwest Outlook
Barn Cleanup * Meow Wolves * ReJoist
Green Monster * Cozy Chairs * Space Divers
Do You Know The Way To Santa Fe
Took an epic train trip across the country to New Mexico, ostensibly to see the bizarro art installation that is Meow Wolf (but also because Henry was in a big Red Dead Redemption phase and had never seen the desert).
Highlights included dining in the train lounge, the terrific little hotel Casita Bonita, sopapillas as bread AND dessert, visiting Bandelier National Monument, "green, red, or Christmas?," great vintage cowboy shirts for dirt cheap, food at Cowgirl BBQ (although the family next to us and their awful, entitled children Chase, Walker, and Fulton nearly drove us insane), Maria's (Greg's recommendation), having breakfast with George RR Martin at The Pantry (story here).
Downsides were the fact that a member of our party was knocked out with elevation sickness for about 24 hours, and car rental tomfoolery (to be revealed later).
Plowed
One project we always wanted to undertake was refurbishing (or at least cleaning up) an old plow that had been on the property forever. Hours of sanding and painting were followed by carefully raising the plow out of the half-submerged ground, placing it on a wheeled cart, and then hooking it up to the trusty Subaru and pulling it into place:
Trip to Salem and Fenway Park
My personal in-house witch always wanted to see the sights and spookiness of Salem, Massachusetts, so we hopped on a train (at 3:15 in the morning in Toledo) and rode the rails out there.
Highlights included: Our Toledo hotel room overlooked the Mud Hens stadium, the wacky lady on the train who told us the story of how she was nearly adopted by JFK as an orphaned child, Howlin Wolf Taco, dinner at the Hawthorne Hotel, a late night ghost tour, The House of Seven Gables (book and building), the Peabody Essex Museum, The Babe for dinner, Fins overlooking the water, and the hokey animatronic(ish) Salem Witch Museum.
The downsides were the horror of the Witch City Mall bathroom, and Amtrak was doing line work so we needed to take a five-hour bus ride with infuriatingly obnoxious motormouths (more on that later).
Taking the train back required us to stay the night in Boston, and we always wanted to see Fenway Park so we ended up getting tickets for the Red Sox/Tigers game. We crammed in there in the shadow of the Green Monster and sang "Sweet Caroline" at the top of our lungs.
The Suite Life
Some of our best friends ended up winning a raffle and the prize was a suite at Comerica Park to see the Detroit Tigers play. We were lucky enough to get invited and it was a chummy and grand experience. 10/10 would recommend (even though the Tigers lost).
Additionally, I caught a good number of Tigers games and even threw in a Lugnuts game on Father's Day this year. It was a fun year to be a fan.
Tajin and Cotija
Tajin is the red and salty spice you sprinkle on elotes that makes them delicious, and cotija is the sweet and salty cheese you also sprinkle on elotes that makes them delicious. Both are available at your normal-ass grocery store and make the difference.
Kalahari, Ohio
My darling bride and I escaped for a couple of off-season days to a local waterpark in the gray days of late winter. Kids were all in school and it was cheap, so we reserved a little roped-off seating area and had people bring us drinks and pretzels all day while we sat in the atrium-filtered sunlight. Recommended.
Four Alarm Pomeranian/The Onion was Unsuccessful
For a couple of nights I had dreams where I saw black billboards that had very profound sayings on them.
When I woke up, I remember the sayings, but somehow am missing the profundity.
My Blue Sky Babe Sudzer
What a year for the lady who lives in my house. A new job at a local coven where potions are brewed and wonderful smells are created, the non-profit tennis foundation where she has been volunteering taught hundreds of kids in underserved communities in our area while continuing to build their footprint, planted a garden, train trekked across both halves of the country, and she remains a positive, hilarious, and tireless human being who puts up with nearly all of my nonsense.
The Offspring
Not the band, the boy. Henry had a solid first year at The College for Creative Studies in Detroit with many accomplishments, including having the lamp he designed selected for Industry Day (something that doesn't frequently happen for first-year students). His portfolio is available here.
Additionally he worked a full time job over the summer, ran D&D campaigns, took summer courses at Washtenaw Community College, hung out with friends, and was generally a good dude.
Space Dive
A true highlight was finally visiting Space Dive, the art project/nerd tomfoolery that emerges in a Detroit bar/performance space for a couple weekends a year. In order to enter, you MUST be wearing a Star Wars costume and people go all-out. There's a band that plays wacked-out space jam music, kids run around with Nerf guns, vendors have shops with cool but subtle wares, and the whole thing is immersive, authentic, and feels borderline illegal. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Lots of Good Times Up North
At the surface level, I re-stained the deck and replaced a siding board at the Cottage, but at a much deeper and architecturally important level, my buddies and I replaced some of the joists and posts under the deck, which was a long-time project that we'd been putting off. In the end, the pieces we removed were so damaged, you could break them apart like styrofoam. Now, it's double-reinforced and should last another 60+ years. We were so thrilled with our work that we rode a bike into the lake.
Donkey Donkey Tamed!
One of my lifelong goals was to get the extremely floofy barn cat to trust me enough to pet her.
It took literally years of me just hanging out by the barn door or in the yard, inching closer while she angrily grumped at me.
Over time (and with a little bit of ham), I was able to convince her that a little skritch on the head wouldn't be so bad,
and now she tolerates me (especially around mealtime or when I have some ham).
The Return of the Zorro Pocket Knife
When we left off in 2024, I had recently lost my beloved Zorro pocket knife, but I hinted at a possible silver lining. After posting some "Lost Pocket Knife" flyers on the internet, a kind Redditor wrote: "I can't help you find your lost knife, but I happen to have the exact same one. It's of no sentimental value to me and I'd be happy to mail it on to you. Ping me here or via message and we'll sort it out."
A couple weeks later, a package came in the mail with the exact model of penknife I had lost. Free of charge, no questions, he even paid for postage. And now a guy with a potentially huge collection of knives now has my address. A risk I'm willing to take.
Other Victories and Highlights
We finally found chairs for the library, went to the Motor City Comic Con, AADL Library "Behind the Scenes" Tour and AALF tour, donated the high-cube truck and moved the convertible, Drop Top Pizza, cleared out the junk trees on the West side of the barn and the potato cellar, got cool headshot photos taken by Emmy & Ollie Photography, Reese Graduated/Ethan got engaged, and I found a new enjoyment doing crossword puzzles.
I also spent time this summer pulling together some of my favorite Boogaloo and Latin Soul Sides for any cookouts or outdoor festivities.
Shows I attended:
Sturgill Simpson
Television City/Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate)
Hamtramck Blowout
Sammy V's 50th Birthday w/Jim Roll and Brian Raleigh
TV
Detroiters
Doctor Who
Wednesday
The Witcher
Stranger Things
Andor
Taylor Swift's The End of an Era
Podcasts
Once We Were Spacemen
A fun new podcast this year is Once We Were Spacemen, hosted by Firefly alumni Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, they just pal around, shoot the space shit, and interview other actors.
Back In My Day
Another charmer is the new jawn Back In My Day where our former uncle Mark Graham and his wife Meghan introduce movies they loved when they were 12 to their 12-year old son.
The usuals: The Rewatchables, How Did This Get Made, Armchair Anonymous, The Big Picture, What Went Wrong, and Unspooled.
Internet & Technology:
JustWatch and Letterboxd
Letterboxd is a site that helps organize and discover movies, and JustWatch does a really good job of tracking where movies are streaming. Both have been around for a long time, but I just started using their tools this year.
"The Financier"
This was the funniest thing I saw all year.
Drumeo
A site that gives drum instructions, but the real highlights are where they play a track (without drums) and make a famous drummer figure out a part. This "Chad Smith Hears Thirty Seconds To Mars For The First Time" clip is a great example.
Mix It Up
Spotify (for all their innate evil) has a new "Mix" function for playlists that allow you to creatively transition the songs into each other. I now have a new hobby.
SNL's A.I. Photo Sketch
A.I. imagines what a 90s concert was like
Baby, if you ever wondered...
Some joker slash WKRP in Cincinnati fan created a three-hour Johnny Fever radio block, by using clips from the TV show and dropping in the full songs on his intros and outros, plus commercials and Les Nessman news breaks.
Balatro
Balatro is a bonkers on-screen card game(ish) mixed with all kinds of multipliers and bonus rounds if you have the companion cards that amplify the points or the something something. I can't really explain it but the mechanics are crazy and it was fun to have Henry run the show while we shouted strategies and moves at him.
I wrote a handful of things this year:
Self-enTitled: That Song from That Band on That Album
The clearest way for a band to kick down the door, stride into the room and announce "Here we are, motherscratchers! Take Note!"? is by naming not only an album, but also a song after their own band name. The hubris! The gall! The self-importance! The trinity! The triumvirate! The trifecta! Let's celebrate those songs by that band off of that album (all with the same name).
Space Jams - The Funky, Futuristic, and Featherbrained Universe of Sci-Fi Dance Music
Inspired by Mon Mothma cutting loose on the dance floor in the recent Star Wars series Andor, we revisit Buck Rogers, Tron, and (ug) The Matrix Reloaded among others in our interstellar list of good (and so-bad-its-good) sci-fi funky performances and space jams.
Don't Give It Away: The Jason Isbell Advice Trilogy
Over the past two-plus decades of recordings, songwriter Jason Isbell has been crafting a trilogy of "Don't" songs, offering advice about parenting, facing your fears, and proper cookware maintenance. AllMusic offers an examination of these lessons through the years.
Movies
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Weapons
The Phoenician Scheme
Nosferatu
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Thunderbolts*
Babygirl
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
Wake Up Dead Man
Eddington
The Wild Robot
Fantastic 4: First Steps
The Roses
Superman
Jurassic World Rebirth
The Amateur
Anora
Frankenstein
Captain America: Brave New World
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
Becoming Led Zeppelin
Ballerina
Materialists
Companion
Wicked 1
Gladiator II
Avatar: The Way of Water
Kraven the Hunter
Honey Don't
And a special shout-out to a buddy of mine who co-wrote and directed a movie called Band on the Run.
A personal tale of a Detroit area rock band trying to get to SXSW in 1999.
Stuff I still want to see:
Train Dreams
Jay Kelley
Hamnet
F1
Bugonia
Tron: Ares
Blue Moon
Hundreds of Beavers
Mickey 17
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Bugonia
The Brutalist
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Probably my favorite book of the year, it follows a college student who inherits a cottage near Salem, MA, and makes discoveries via Dan Brown-esque puzzle solving and a little bit of magic.
Lexicon by Max Barry
A longtime fave author, Barry writes a noir mystery about tricksters and cads who use language to manipulate but are hunted by a shadowy organization.
A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie
A continuation of an earlier series, differing factions in a Game of Thronesian world battle for control. Lots of memorable characters and skullduggery are afoot.
Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey
Somewhere between the 'Court of Smut and Magic' book series and the more military style of Game of Thrones is this continuing tale (from a Michigan author!) where a crafty orphan who has grown up in a fancy Maison Close now must work as a spy and a courtier to save the realm from evil schemers. Really good worldbuilding and intrigue, especially as the series goes on.
2025 Things (bad)
Those we lost:
Brigitte Bardot, David Lynch, Ozzy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Rob Reiner, Jimmy Cliff, Ace Frehley, Jane Goodall, Brian Wilson, Val Kilmer, Gil Gerard, Chet Lemon, Cathy Sandborn, Lisa Haynie, Kevin Raleigh, Jim "Tex" Manheim.
Old Brown Shoe
The style of shoe that I've been wearing for a decade finally went out of production and I haven't been able to find anything I liked as much. A good-looking pair popped up on eBay for cheap enough to take a risk so I bought them. They arrived quickly and fit great! It looked like they had never been worn! I could ride these guys out for another couple years!
About two days in, the rubber trim that goes around the whole thing just kinda started disintegrating like a terrific Cure album. Then the next day the upper just sorta separated from the heel, then the whole things just started turning to powder in my hands. I couldn't figure it out, but the rubber just completely broke down at a molecular level. Were these things stored in an overheated warehouse? Or in an underground cellar in the Arctic Circle? Were these Chernobyl shoes? What the hell?!?
A Preacher, a Madman, and a Narcoleptic Street Tough enter a bus...
Our trip to Salem was top notch, but before we left we got the alert from Amtrak that they were doing line work at the last leg of our trip so we'd be kicked off the train and bussed the rest of the way. The trip there was rather uneventful, but coming back was a doozy.
A man in a full religious cassock got on and sat in the row next to us. This is fine. Takes all kinds. Next, a bearded older man in a kilt got on and sat next to him (I chuckled that the two guys in dresses sat next to each other). Beardo opens his mouth and says to The Reverend "I bet you're wondering why I'm wearing this kilt, well..." and then he didn't stop talking for 5 hours. Ancestry, religion, his childhood on Broadway being friends with Steven Sondheim and Elaine Stritch, his time in the CIA and the novel he wrote about it (but could only show it to his ex-fiancé), and on and on.
Directly behind us sat a man (who seemed to be in recovery, which is great), who sounded like Moe from The Simpsons and alternated between loudly mumbleswearing and then falling asleep and snoring loudly with his head forward (pressed against the back of our seats). Snort awake and then mutter about how the last time he was on this bus somebody stole $1,500 of his medication, then ZONK back asleep buzzsawing logs four inches away from our heads. I love you Amtrak, but in the future if there is going to be a five-hour bus detour we might just walk.
What's Up Doc?
There were a number of "planned and unplanned hospital stays" this year. Everybody checked out OK, but still.
I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque
We took a lovely train trip out to the Southwest and had rented a car to be picked up at the Hertz Rent-a-Car at the Albuquerque train station. The issue is that despite having a reservation for that location THERE IS NO HERTZ RENTAL OFFICE AT THE ALBEQUERQUE TRAIN STATION.
The folks that work there shook their heads and said "This happens every day. Please write to Hertz and have them remove that location from their website, because it isn't here." The sharper members of our party were able to locate an Enterprise Rent-A-Car within angry stomping distance so we didn't have to spend our entire vacation in the train station, but it was still infuriating.
Detroit Tigers on TV
Due to money and licensing and blah blah blah, the TV broadcast of my baseball team was locked behind a paywall in an obnoxious way. I pay a lot for cable and them cherry-picking out one of the few reasons I do was aggravating. Thankfully, a generous couple of pals hooked me up with a coupon code for three months of access which allowed us access from June to end of August, but still... I declare shenanigans.
Kicking the Can Down the Road
Work remained a challenge this year. I've been at the same(ish) company for 25 years and the industry is shifting in ways that I can't seem to keep up with. More staffing changes meant we "reductioned in force" a guy who I really liked working with (...again) and the product is suffering for it. 2026 will bring about changes, one way or another. I hope the ship stays afloat.
Rock 'n Roll Stars
Unfathomably, Oasis toured this year but tickets were expensive and tough to come by. I had always said that if they played again I'd go see 'em but it wasn't in the cards. I'll watch the inevitable concert video when it comes out and I can drink cigarettes and alcohol from the safety of my own couch. (note: this is not the worst thing that happened this year.)
Ideological Frustrations
The political climate of the year forced me to distance myself from people I love for my own mental health reasons. There are people who voted for that man and I really cannot fathom their mindset. Not just that he is evil and truly ruining the country (and possibly the world), but we knew this from the previous four years, and some folks still chose to side with his ideology.
The opposite side of the coin surprised me. As somebody with a lot of progressive/lefty friends, I've had a couple of close friendships damaged by a single-minded focus that impacted even our day-to-day conversations. These folks are angry and frightened and dedicated, but ultimately at times I felt the need to distance myself from their righteousness (as much as I agreed with it). I dunno man. It kinda fucked me up and I still don't think I'm handling this the right way.
100% That Witch * Cat Pals * Southwest Outlook
Barn Cleanup * Meow Wolves * ReJoist
Green Monster * Cozy Chairs * Space Divers
Made us internet famous for about 4 minutes.
When I woke up, I remember the sayings, but somehow am missing the profundity.
The obligatory playlist:
Here's looking ahead to 2026!
