The Hammock Papers: "Those were heady days"

Showing posts with label "Those were heady days". Show all posts

11 August 2026

Spirit.

Reflect that nothing merits admiration except the spirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything.

Seneca, from Letters from a Stoic

Those were heady days.

10 August 2026

Routine.

Tom.

A long lost partner-in-crime. We lived in Park Hall back in 1984. Most nights he had a routine that I could easily get talked into:

Watch Letterman
Slap Idol's Rebel Yell on the hi-fi
Order pizza from Catfish Biff's
Get outside and skate the parking garage on 11th while we waited for our feast.

There were many nights when I noticed the eastern sky brightening as we made our way back to the dorm.

We were in that garage last time I saw Tom.

I got an email from him today and he was reminiscing about those heady days.

Here's to Tom and my long-lost Makaha ...

The South Campus Mix (put it in your Walkman Sport and run your headphone cord up through the back of your shirt)

Idol, "Blue Highways
Wall of Voodoo, "Lost Weekend"
Black Uhuru, "Darkness"
Furs, "Run and Run"
Killing Joke, "Let's All Go (To the Fire Dances)"
Steel Pulse, "Ravers" ... Woops outside your head
New Order, "Chosen Time"
The Specials, "It's Up to You"
The Police, "No Time this Time"
Birthday Party, "Zoo Music Girl"
Ronald Koal & The Trillionaires, "Destination Zero"
Adam & The Ants, "Antmusic" and "Killer in the Home"
Bunny Wailer, "Rootsman Skanking"
Third World, "1865 (96º In The Shade)"
English Beat, "Rotating Head"
INXS, "Old World New World"
The Cult, "Spirit Walker"
U2, "I Will Follow." "Out of Control," "Rejoice," and "Treasure"
Joy Division, "Disorder" and "Isolation"
Talking Heads, "Mind" and "What a Day That Was"
Bauhaus, "The Spy in the Cab" (still makes me laugh)
Clash, "Hitsville U.K.," "Police On My Back," "Sean Flynn," and "Ghetto Defendant"
Echo & The Bunnymen, "My Kingdom"

Don't forget to save a buck to get a gyro from Apollo's on the way back.

08 August 2026

Heady.

1981.

Sly & Robbie (It's often said that if you heard ten reggae songs, at least five of them would have Sly and Robbie on the record.)

The Wildcatetts weren't allowed do to a routine to this.

Grace, "Pull Up to the Bumper"...

Those were heady days.

Thanks, Shelli.

01 August 2026

Montrose, "Make It Last/Reckless"

20 July 2026

16 March 2026

Released.

The Who released Face Dances on this day in 1981.

"Another Tricky Day"...

Please note that the editor of this blog believes The Who was a necessary evil in the musical soundscape of the headiest of heady days and does not condone your attention beyond this post.

We should've known when Mike's mom told us to turn it down.

Order an extra side of ranch.

09 March 2025

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL