Category: Personal

Back to Blogging

~ Jon Williams ~ Leave a comment

I started my first blog all the way back in 2004—January of 2004, in fact, so we’re closing in on 19 years ago. In those days, I had a pretty fair amount of time I could dedicate to writing, so I posted there a lot for about a year. Then circumstances changed, I had less time, and I posted there less and less. I wouldn’t say I ever entirely abandoned it, but if I ever had any regular readers, their opinions may differ. But it was always at least in the back of my mind.

Fast forward a few years. I’m not exactly how or when Twitter entered my consciousness, but when it did, I was intrigued, mostly because of its implications for my blog. Part of the reason I felt like I didn’t have time to write is because I tend to write long (see: this post). If I signed up for Twitter, I figured I could throw a widget up on my blog so I could post little micro updates in between my infrequent longer posts. So in January of 2009 I became a member of Twitter, hoping to use it primarily as a supplement to my blog.

Well, of course it didn’t exactly work out that way. Oh, I added the widget to my old blog, where it still resides to this day, and I’ve put out plenty of tweets, but not with the frequency I thought I would when I started. There’s too much nuance in most things for me to be satisfied with just a 140-character (later 280) thought, and while I was aware of the “Twitter thread,” it seemed to me to be less optimal than a blog post. So, you know, I did neither. But it was a great place to toss out cat pics, sports takes, and Wordle scores.

Which isn’t to say that I didn’t use Twitter very much. While I wasn’t much of a poster, I’ve always really liked hopping on to read it. As blogs fell off over the years, Twitter was a great way to read people’s thoughts on the goings-on of the day, more or less in real time. Probably the most prominent example I can think of was the night Osama Bin Laden was killed—I watched the news coming out as it unfolded on Twitter, and I woke Brandi up so we could watch President Obama’s address. That was a big deal, but it was also great for everyday news stories, sporting events, pop culture events (I couldn’t wait to hop onto Twitter after episodes of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones), etc. And you never knew when you’d come across something random that would make you laugh hysterically or lead you into some rabbit hole. Just like blogs used to do! Twitter was definitely my social media addiction. 

But then Elon Musk bought it. I wasn’t thrilled about his plans to allow “absolute free speech” that would permit misinformation and abuse to proliferate without consequence, so I was wary of what his leadership would bring. Then the whole thing blew up about charging users to be verified—the whole idea of verification was to help ensure users that information was coming from an account that was actually who it claimed to be. It wasn’t a status symbol; it was a public good. But that’s something that Musk and other billionaires don’t seem to understand. So he sought to commoditize it, right before an election no less…and that was kind of it for me. I haven’t been on Twitter in almost two weeks. And that was before he fired or lost almost his entire staff, putting the stability and the future of the entire platform in doubt. 

I haven’t deleted my account or anything, and I’ll probably go back to it at some point. Maybe even today! For most things I use it for—sports, pop culture stuff—Musk being in charge and his approach don’t even matter (I was really tempted to hop on last night for ridiculous hot takes on a Cincinnati Reds trade, but I held off). But for news and anything remotely serious, I think we would all do well to take anything on there with a large grain of salt, until and unless the verification issue goes back to the way it was. I mean, it isn’t like misinformation wasn’t a problem before, and if anyone can pay for a blue checkmark and claim to be whoever…it’s a nightmare. And that’s assuming Twitter survives in the long term, which is by no means certain at this point. 

All of this is to say, with the uncertainty surrounding Twitter, and all the people who have left whether it survives or not, I’m really hoping blogs will make a comeback. I can’t imagine they’ll ever return to the prevalence they once had, but you never know. As for myself, I’ve been playing around with this new one and trying for a while to get it off the ground, so I’m going to try to be on here more often. This format really does suit me better, anyway. I just need to remember that every post doesn’t have to be a full-on essay; just a paragraph (or even a line or two) is fine sometimes. 

Pandemic Dispatches: Surreal World

~ Jon Williams ~ Leave a comment

Nobody told me there’d be days like these.
Strange days indeed.
-John Lennon, “Nobody Told Me”

In a normal timeline, I would have spent the past several days largely in front of a television for the first rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, worried about little besides upsets, buzzer beaters, and brackets. In fact, the last real day of normalcy for me was Sunday, March 8—Brandi and I went out for lunch and a beer, and as we sat at the bar, we talked about our plans to go to Cleveland the following Saturday to see the BGSU men’s basketball team play in the MAC championship game, should they make it far, and about where we would go to watch the Reds play on Opening Day. Within a few days, the MAC tournament had been canceled, followed closely by the NCAA tournament and the postponement of baseball’s opening day.

I have to qualify that as my last “real” day of normalcy, because…well, look. I’ve been working primarily from home since 2007, and Brandi and I have homebody tendencies. Our evenings (and not uncommonly our weekends) usually consist of ordering takeout and catching up on old episodes of Star Trek on Netflix. Practically speaking, my life hasn’t changed all that much.

But in small, subtle ways it has. I was working on establishing a regular gym habit after work, but now the gym is closed for who knows how long (officially through April 5, but LOL). On Saturdays, I like to walk to the library and spend a few hours there. Now the libraries are closed; instead I’ve been walking to the library and immediately back to just spend a few hours in my home office instead. Hell, I can’t even get a haircut, and I’m getting to the point where I could really use one (if this goes on for very long, my hair situation is going to get very interesting).

I’m lucky, though. Brandi and I both are. Our places of employment (including my “side hustle”) are still operating, so we’re still working our regular hours and earning our paychecks. Her company, at least the department she works in, is primarily work from home for everyone. I was my company’s only full-time remote employee, but the departments who can have shifted my colleagues to working from home. I’m interested to see how that is received, both by my newly remote co-workers and by the company itself. It could be quite a culture shock, hopefully in a good way.

And still that’s much that’s surreal about this whole situation. Seeing our condo complex parking lot full of cars during the day, when it’s normally empty (other than our cars), is one. I’m walking a lot now—with the gym closed, it’s the only way to exercise, really—and seeing so many cars parked throughout our neighborhood, and hearing how quiet it is, is another. Rush hour traffic is one of the very few things I dislike about Worthington and Columbus in general, and man, right now it’s nonexistent. Not that there’s anywhere to go. And that’s another thing—homebody aside, during my wanderings, I like to pop into the corner pub for a happy hour libation or two, and now it’s dark, and empty, and closed. I’m very much looking forward to doing that again once this is all over, if I can—I fear the landscape may have changed by that time, especially where small businesses are concerned.

Also. I went to the grocery store one day last week to pick up a few essentials. It was so close to being a regular grocery run. So much of the store was at regular stock levels. But soup? Pasta? Bread? Milk? Empty, or at least extremely picked over. (The only Campbell’s Soup flavor available, for example, was Spicy Chicken Quesadilla; if you wanted Progressive, you could have whatever you wanted.) I didn’t even bother to look for toilet paper—Brandi is…not a hoarder, exactly, but…a toilet paper enthusiast even in normal times, so we’re in good shape for a while in that department. I have to say, the toilet paper thing has me utterly baffled. This is not a virus that attacks the digestive system, so I’m not sure why that’s the item no one can keep in stock. I’m hopeful that the panic will wear off and more or less normal availability will resume by the time we’re in need, which, thankfully, is a week or two away.

I wrote earlier that Brandi and I are lucky in terms of our jobs continuing. We know plenty of bartenders, servers, and others whose jobs have shut down completely. That’s kind of my worst nightmare, to be honest. Although both of our jobs are still in progress and appear to be stable for the time being, I’ve been preparing for the worst, in kind of a low-key way. We both received our annual bonuses shortly before this began; we had plans for that money, but instead I just socked it all away in savings, just in case either or both of our jobs are interrupted at some point. And we’re lucky because we have that luxury, and because we’re, for the most part, not living paycheck to paycheck. We’ve fought really hard to get to that point, and I really feel for people who aren’t there, whose jobs took an abrupt and indefinite hiatus or may do so at any day, who don’t know how they’re going to pay their rent or their bills. I understand that evictions and utility shutoffs have been paused, more or less, but those bills are going to come due at some point, and that still doesn’t help with things like groceries. So yes, I feel incredibly lucky to be in the position we’re in.

Seasons don’t fear the reaper.
Nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain.
We can be like they are.
– Blue Oyster Cult, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”

Evolution of a Beatlemaniac

~ Jon Williams ~ Leave a comment

NOTE: This was originally posted to a different blog of mine on July 13, 2013. Posted here February 10, 2023.

I was born in 1977. The Beatles broke up seven years before I even existed, and I was only three years old when John Lennon was murdered. That said, there are plenty of people of my approximate age who fell in love with the Beatles and their music from an early age because they grew up listening to them with their parents, who were fans from the group’s heyday.

I am not one of those people. The house in which I grew up was an almost totally music-free zone. My parents didn’t listen to music in the house, and I don’t remember my mom even listening to it in the car—if her radio was even on (it often wasn’t), it was usually tuned to a news station. They did give me a pretty solid stereo at a young age, but if I recall correctly, its initial use was mostly for read-along storybooks that were accompanied by 45rpm records or cassette tapes. Oh, and for the Star Wars soundtrack (performed by the Electric Moog Orchestra), which I had on 8-track.

I liked music, but as my exposure was limited, my tastes were a little eclectic. The first songs I remember digging are “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (because of this, I had a B.J. Thomas 8-track as well; I never owned a copy of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” until MP3 became a thing).

My musical breakthrough came in 1984 with the song “Thriller” and, more specifically, its music video. I was six years old, and already in love with anything remotely scary (due primarily, no doubt, to my exposure to Scooby-Doo). From the very first time I saw the “Thriller” video, I was hooked. I got the Thriller album on cassette and played it constantly until it was worn out, which didn’t take long.

“Thriller” drew me into MTV, which led me to “Born in the USA” and eventually to “You Give Love a Bad Name” and the burgeoning hair metal scene of the 1980s. Really, that’s where I turned into a full-fledged music lover. Laugh if you must, but Bon Jovi, Poison, Warrant, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, and Guns N’ Roses (etc.) filled my ears and covered my walls. I loved that stuff. Still do, as a matter of fact—‘80s hair metal still factors heavily in my iTunes rotation, complemented now by plenty of stuff that’s way more sophisticated…but, somehow, just not quite as fun.

As an aside…I mean, everyone I knew was listening to that stuff, but looking back, that’s some interesting musical material (mostly about sex and drugs in not terribly indirect language) for a kid still in elementary school. I had both Appetite for Destruction and GN’R Lies in 1988. Go ahead and look up the lyrics for some of the songs on those albums (I’ll suggest “One in a Million” for pure shock value) and imagine an 11-year-old kid jamming to them. Frankly, it’s amazing I didn’t turn out far more twisted than I am.

Anyway, as music took on more and more importance in my life, the Beatles barely entered my consciousness. I read interviews with the bands I liked and they all talked about growing up listening to the Beatles and blah blah blah, but I just didn’t get it. The only song of theirs I was familiar with was “Twist and Shout,” which would often play on the jukebox at the bowling alley when I was in a youth league. It wasn’t that I disliked it, exactly; it just sounded like primitive rock n’ roll to me. Which it was…but I just assumed that all of their songs were like that. Hence, I wasn’t interested.

There was a mention of “Hey Jude” in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, which I read for the first time when I was probably about twelve. If you haven’t read it, it’s set in this weird, post-apocalyptic western-type world that’s obviously not our world and yet is obviously connected to our world. The main character, the gunslinger, comes to this tiny little town on the edge of a vast desert at the beginning of his quest, and the piano player in the town saloon is playing this old familiar song. Although I couldn’t have articulated it at the time, and never heard the song in question until years later, that was actually the perfect representation for how I thought of the Beatles: a relic from another world that I wasn’t quite a part of and wasn’t sure I wanted to be.

I was actually aware of the Beatles as individuals well before I realized they were members of the Beatles. My first musical experience with any of them, as a matter of fact, came on that very Thriller album which got me interested in music in the first place, as Paul McCartney joined MJ for a duet on “The Girl Is Mine.” George Harrison came into the picture in 1987 when “Got My Mind Set on You” became my favorite song for a period of time. Again, no idea he was a Beatle. I’m not sure how I knew about Ringo, but I did, mostly as a personality and general entertainer, not necessarily as a musician (the term “novelty act” comes to mind). For some reason I associate him with Entertainment Tonight, so I probably saw him on there. And I remember seeing a picture of John Lennon in his later years, looking old and kind of worn out, with short hair and those little circular glasses, and thinking, “That’s a rock star? No way…that’s not what a rock star looks like.” And again, this was him as a solo artist; no idea at the time that he was one of the Beatles.

I have no recollection of exactly how I figured out that these guys were the Beatles, but even when I did, it didn’t affect my opinion on the Beatles’ music. Remember, all I knew was “Twist and Shout,” “The Girl Is Mine,” and “Got My Mind Set on You.” Not exactly a broad sampling upon which to base my disdain. Eventually I found out that “Helter Skelter,” as performed by Motley Crue, was a Beatles cover; I thought it was a pretty radical song, but figured that was due to Motley Crue performing it way more than anything the original version may have contributed.

Hey, give me a break. I was like eleven at the time.

Not that age is really an excuse. Although my musical tastes (by which I should clarify that I really mean my taste in rock and pop; I can and do appreciate and enjoy other forms of music, but they’re not my drug of choice) expanded as I got older, my complete and utter disinterest in the Beatles remained mostly firm, although a couple more cover songs softened it just the tiniest bit in the meantime: “Norwegian Wood” done by P.M. Dawn, and “In My Life” by Chantal Kreviazuk. However, I was in my late twenties before I finally found a real gateway.

I was still working in the office at the time, and there were fierce battles between departments to determine who got to set the radio station that would play throughout the building during the day. When our department won, it got set to a classic rock station that actually lasted for a few weeks, until management figured out that the music we heard in the building was the same music being played over the telephone for customers when they were on hold, and given that some of the lyrics were very occasionally offensive, classic rock went away. In the meantime, though, I heard a lot of music that I was only vaguely familiar with previously, and I found that I liked quite a lot of it.

Now, at the time, my wife (although I don’t think her status at this particular time was “wife” yet; she was still in the “girlfriend” or, more likely, the “fiancée” stage) knew way more about classic rock than I did. So I strolled into the apartment one day after work with a song stuck in my head and said, “Okay, tell me about this ‘Man on the Run.’”

It’s not terribly often that I see Brandi’s “What the hell are you talking about?” face, but she turned it on me full blast that day. “You know,” I said. “’Man on the Run.’” I sang the chorus for her, and was a little taken aback when she rolled her eyes.

“You mean ‘Band on the Run’?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s…oh. Um. Hang on.” I replayed the song in my head. “Yeah, I guess that could be it.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Paul McCartney. With Wings, I think.”

And thus a seed was planted. I really dug that song, so I hopped onto iTunes and found Wingspan, McCartney’s greatest hits album. I saw that “Band on the Run” was on it, and when I played the preview, lo and behold, that was in fact the song I was talking about. I clicked around a little bit and found a few more I had heard and liked without ever knowing who did them. So I bought the album.

When I find something new that I really like, I can’t get enough of it, and I want to gorge myself on it and learn everything about it. For example, one of my favorite things right now is Game of Thrones. I don’t just want to watch Game of Thrones; I want to watch Game of Thrones repeatedly, and read the books, and collect action figures or whatever paraphernalia I can get my hands on, and move to Westeros and follow Margaery Tyrell wherever she goes (as long as she doesn’t spend too much time in Flea Bottom…or with Joffrey).

So it was with McCartney. I got really into Wingspan and played it constantly on my iPod. I knew it was just scratching the surface of a long and storied musical career, though, so I branched out. I checked out some of his songs that weren’t on the greatest hits album, and read quite a bit about him. Eventually this brought me to the Beatles, when I learned he was the one who wrote “Helter Skelter.” I tracked it down and, finally, listened to the original.

Huh. This is still pretty radical, even without Motley Crue involved.

Still, my doubts about the Beatles persisted…but a flash of interest had been sparked. I couldn’t quite reconcile “Twist and Shout” (and what I assumed was their general sound) with “Helter Skelter” (which kicked ass). So I started reading about them a little bit to get the gist of their general musical story. I saw that “Twist and Shout” was from their first album, and that it was, in fact, fairly representative of their early sound, but that their sound started to really leap into new territory starting with Rubber Soul and Revolver, and that it had continued to evolve from there.

It probably seems counterintuitive to learn about a band’s style by reading about them before actually, you know, listening to the music, but hey, that’s me. I’m a reader. And it worked: I was intrigued, ready to lay aside my preconceived notions about the Beatles and actually give them a chance. I had “discovered” McCartney through iTunes, but, of course, the Beatles’ music wasn’t available on iTunes at the time. So I did what any reasonable soul would do.

I went to the library.

Yes, you can get music from the library, and that seemed like the perfect way to do a little exploring without dropping a ton of money on a band I wasn’t sure if I would like or not. Since I had learned that their sound began changing with Rubber Soul and Revolver, I decided to start with those, especially when I saw that Rubber Soul’s track listing included both “Norwegian Wood” and “In My Life.”

Oh, well done, Beatles. You’ve had me convinced my entire life that you were outrageously, apocalyptically overrated, the Brett Favre of rock music, and then I go and do something crazy like listen to a couple of your albums, and it turns out you’re pretty good after all. Damn good, in fact. Well played indeed.

From there, I checked out a few other albums at a leisurely pace, depending at least in part on their availability—surprisingly enough, the Beatles are quite popular at your local public library. I don’t remember now exactly which ones I got. I remember getting 1, a compilation of their non-album #1 singles (including “Hey Jude,” which, as it turns out, is spectacular). I also checked out one of their early ones for a bit of compare/contrast, and was pleasantly surprised—not as enjoyable as the later stuff (at least not for me), but way better than I expected.

So at this point I had gone from distaste to disinterest to curiosity on my way to becoming a casual fan. Then, for Christmas in 2010, Brandi got me a hellacious gift: the entire Beatles box set containing all their albums and non-album singles. For weeks I filled the house with it to the exclusion of just about anything else, and I was hooked. And as with anything else, I wasn’t just listening to the music, I was reading books about the music and the band (which, given my general non-interest in non-fiction, is pretty significant), watching YouTube videos, looking up detailed info on the songs’ background, you name it. I’m to the point now where I’m thinking of writing a close reading of the lyrics to “Hey Jude,” and hearing “Two of Us” or “Tug of War” (or any of a number of songs about the contentious Lennon-McCartney friendship/partnership) at the right time (say, after a couple glasses of wine) can get me to wax embarrassingly philosophical.

And still, my interest continues to evolve. I continue to accumulate solo albums from both Lennon and McCartney (who is currently in the midst of remastering and reissuing his solo and Wings albums, which is convenient), and eventually I’ll probably do the same for Harrison (as when I got interested in McCartney, I have his greatest hits and a smattering of others). Ringo, not so much; from what I’ve heard, his solo oeuvre is, ah, not exactly my thing.

The great thing about this, aside from enriching myself with the music of the Beatles and their solo careers, is that it’s opened me up to the possibility of embracing other bands I was not so keen on. I’ve already conquered Led Zeppelin—their complete catalog on CD was my Christmas gift from Brandi this past year. And although I don’t have quite as high hopes for this one, currently in my possession is a 2-disc greatest hits set (Grrr!) from the Rolling Stones. They do have a couple of songs that I really like (“Beast of Burden,” “Start Me Up”), but I’d say the vast majority of their stuff just doesn’t do anything for me. So I’m going to jump in with both feet and see if I can find a way to see what other people see (or hear, more accurately) that I’m missing.

Anyway, all of this culminates on Sunday night, when Brandi and I are going to see Paul McCartney, live and in concert, in Indianapolis. I tried to get tickets when he played Cincinnati a couple of years ago and couldn’t quite swing it, so when I heard he was coming to Indy (not quite as close, but close enough), I jumped on it right away. After all, Sir Paul is getting up there a little bit, and you never know when he might decide to hang up the touring shoes.

It seems fitting, considering how he was at least tangentially involved in my initial interest in music in the first place (his duet with MJ), and turned out to be my way into the Beatles. Seeing a Beatle is as close as I’ll ever be able to come to seeing the Beatles, and either way, I expect it to be pretty awesome…perhaps all the more so given the long and winding road I took to get here. (See what I did there?)

Losing a Friend

~ Jon Williams ~ 1 Comment

NOTE: This was originally posted to a different blog of mine on December 21, 2005. Posted here December 31, 2025.

TW: pet loss

Cupid (1991 – 2005)

I still have a pretty vivid recollection of the day Cupid came into my life and family, which happened on Monday, February 10, 1992. I was fourteen years old, a freshman in high school. Having had a rough day at school, I was lying on the couch when my dad got home from work. He asked if I wanted to go get a dog. A friend of his had a dog who had just had puppies, and we had been offered one if we wanted to come pick one out. I wasn’t inclined to go anywhere, but Dad kept asking, and finally he insisted. So I got in the van and we headed to his friend’s house out in the country.

We were led out into the yard when we got there, and we found a mass of squirming puppies frolicking on the grass. I don’t remember how many there were, probably seven or eight, all of which were mottled brown and white…except for one yellow one which immediately caught my attention. The guy who owned the dogs said I could have whichever one I wanted, but I was a little hesitant to take the only one that was different. After a few minutes of trying and failing to pick out another one, though, I finally asked if we could have the yellow one. A few minutes later we were loading her into the recycling bin we had brought along and putting her in the van.

I deliberated over a name for her for a while. I can’t remember any of the other possibilities I had in mind, but we finally settled on “Cupid” since it was just a few days before Valentine’s Day. I’m not particularly sentimental about Valentine’s Day, nor was I then, but it just seemed to fit (even though the original Cupid was male). This was occasionally shortened to “Cupe,” and as she got bigger and rounder, she also picked up the nicknames “Fatty,” “Chubs,” and my personal favorite, “Chubbalicious.”

For the first few days we had her, all she did was follow me around the house. I remember thinking that it would be pretty annoying if it continued, but it didn’t. Actually, as Cupid grew out of her puppy stage, she really wasn’t much of a people person. Sure, she’d come to investigate whenever someone new came in the door, but after an obligatory bark and sniff, she was more than content to go lie under the table and leave them alone. If someone (besides me) would go seek her out, she’d allow herself to be petted for a few minutes, and then she’d go find somewhere else to hang out.

It’s amazing, really, how loyal Cupid remained to me. I left for college shortly after I turned eighteen, and she wasn’t quite four yet. I was home for some weekends and then for summers, and I came home for a little over a year after I graduated college. Then I moved out for good and haven’t really been back for an extended period since then. Still, there’s no question that she remained my dog. If I sat on the floor, she’d come sit next to me and lick my face; she’d let me lie down next to her and put my head on her belly. I don’t think she would have done those things for anyone else. I’m just amazed that she continued to remember me so well when I essentially wasn’t there for so long.

I’ve been home twice in the past few weeks, and I knew she probably wasn’t going to live a whole lot longer (although I didn’t expect it to come nearly this soon). She had lost most of her hearing–she didn’t come to greet me at the door anymore because she couldn’t hear me come in–and she was having trouble going up and down the stairs. At fourteen years old, she was pretty old for a dog. I got the call from Mom last night, and she said they had to have her put down. She had been getting sick, so they had taken her to the vet, who had found a tumor on her liver. He thought he could get it out, but when he opened her up to do so, he found that it was too much. He told my parents he could just close her up and she’d live a little while longer that way, but they chose not to let her suffer. As much as I would have loved to see her one last time, I’m glad they let her go. I couldn’t bear the thought of my friend suffering for even just a few days–and that’s probably all it would have been. I’m sad that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, but that would have been too much to ask.

On the bright side, I’m glad that I was home a couple of times recently and got to spend at least a little bit of time with her. She was a good dog, and a good friend. It’s going to be very strange to come home without her there waiting for me. While I’m sure I’ll get used to it, I’m not looking forward to doing so.