Around the Block

I am really good about getting a lot of steps per day. Over 11,000 almost every day for a few years. And I make sure some of that involves stairs or going up a hill. However, when it came to the more strenuous exercise, really getting out of breath and getting my heart rate up, I knew I needed to up my game.

So, last November 27, I decided to start doing a timed short run most weekdays. Around my block is just under a quarter-mile. I decided that would do. The first few times I did it, I couldn’t maintain a run for even that short distance. Too much rust.

I had some guilt about how I hadn’t maintained my fitness level from my younger years. At my peak, I could run 3 miles in 21 minutes, and I just didn’t do the work to maintain it.

But, as anyone who exercises can testify, gains happen fast when you’re first starting (or starting back). So, in November, I started at a little over three minutes, part of it walking. In short order, I could run the whole way around and could get around the block in just over two minutes.

The day after Christmas, I finally broke the two-minute mark with my new late-middle-aged record of 1:56. By January 11, my NEW-new record was 1:42. And then I coasted a while and was less consistent.

However, when we began our quarantine in March, I got back into it more seriously. And I nudged Harrison to join me. Being young and in decent shape, he was pretty quick to match my best times, or get pretty close.

I finally broke another new record in April ... 1:38! 

Harrison was stuck at 1:40. And on we went, most every weekday morning, through May and June.    

Then, at the very end of July,  Harrison shattered the around-the-block record with a time of 1:34! He’s been under 1:40 several times since then. I can still get in the 1:30s, too, but haven’t (yet) matched his (temporary) record.

It’s now been over five months that we’ve been doing this. The ritual is that we walk the dog around the block, then one of us holds the leash and times the other one’s run around the block. We switch, and then we all three take another spin around the block. Bella loves it. A lot of days, H and I also take a longer early-morning walk, the Sun not yet up, two miles or so. 

Sometimes we’re silent for long stretches. Sometimes we just bullshit about this or that, songs we like, whatever show we’re watching, and so on. Other times we talk about life in a deeper way. I like it a lot.

This is such a difficult time we are all living through, but I am really grateful for this sweet part of it. 

I’m calling this one “But That Can’t Be Right”

13 Songs: Everything Falls Apart

Death, Trouble, and Hard Journeys

1. “Everything Falls Apart,” Dog’s Eye View.
“Don’t look now, things just got worse.”

2. “Next Best Western,” Lucy Wainwright Roche. 
“The highway takes its toll, the green light flashes go.”

3. “When I Get to Heaven,” John Prine. 
“Dah-dah-dah, doo-doo-doot.”

4. “Opelousas (Sweet Relief),” Maria McKee
“It’s in a bottle of wine or just losing some time.”

5. “Nobody Dies,”  Thao and the Get Down Stay Down
“What to say? What to say? What to say?”

6. “All Kinds of Time,” Fountains of Wayne.
“The clock’s running down.”

7. “Hummingbird,” Tim Easton.
“I take you on.”

8. “Might as Well Get Stoned,” Chris Stapleton. 
“Since my whiskey’s gone . . .”

9. “If You Have Ghosts,”  John Wesley Harding.
 “The moon to the left of me is a part of my thoughts and a part of me is me.”

10. “A Long Way Home,” Dwight Yoakam.
“Without one clue that it’s a long way home.”

11. “Step into the Light,” Mavis Staples. 
”See what you will as you’re climbing up that hill.”

12. “Farther on up the Road,” Johnny Cash.
“Got a song to sing. It keeps me out of the cold.”

13.  “Runnng on Empty,” Jackson Browne and David Lindley
“Running into the Sun, but I’m running behind.”



https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4LoXbQ6mGXXY5Y0caSYwB2?si=KbJkCKYBTA2b8EPmLooqzA

Jeff’s Next Page is 5 years old!

So, I missed it yesterday, but this blog is half a decade old. 

Back when I was just starting this, I was feeling a need to jump-start my creative life. Because of other priorities — my marriage, family life, friendships, the work I do for money — my creative energy tends to be invested here and there, in a scattershot way that can lead to some satisfying projects and experiences, but doesn’t really build. 

I decided it would be good to have a place to write out my thoughts in a way that is a little more sustained than a social media post. I thought it would be good to make some art and use this blog to talk some about whatever art I made. 

And thus it has gone! Now I have a YouTube channel with short videos of songs and poems I’ve written, and I’ve once in a great while managed to land a poem, story, or essay in some cool online journals, wrote a published an ebook novella, and I’ve upped the ante as a storyteller/performer. 

 Still not famous, and don’t expect to ever be famous in the worlds of literature, music, or performance. I can say, though, that my creative world is alive, humming with energy, and that I have a small but interested readership, listenership, etc.

For those of you who come here to read my writing, and who follow my creative work, thank you! 

Nobody wants to hear about Jason’s dreams

Jason Isbell is hanging in there with his attempts to get us to hear about his dreams. 

On his new album, Reunions, the gifted songwriter includes a cool callback that his most attentive fans will appreciate. I take it as a funny reference to a moment in “Chaos and Clothes” (from 2017’s The Nashville Sound), where Isbell sings: 

In my sleep, I build machines
Nobody ever wants to hear about my dreams, 
Last night I saw a burning Ferris wheel,
The meaning’s anybody’s guess ...

I like the brief passage a lot. It’s funny to me because the very first thing Jason does after telling us that nobody wants to hear about his dreams is to immediately describe an image he saw in a dream. It captures a thing a lot of us may have experienced on both sides: you have a (to you) striking dream but can’t get anybody to listen, or you get stuck hearing about somebody’s rambling-ass weird dream. Because there’s not much narrative sense in dream logic, listening is often frustrating and boring. 

But having set up that dynamic in “Chaos and Clothes” — “I’m telling you about my dreams whether you want to hear it or not!”— it’s even funnier for him to revisit it in the new album. The callback comes in the song “It Gets Easier,” which begins:

Last night I dreamed that I'd been drinking
Same dream I have 'bout twice a week
I had one glass of wine
I woke up feeling fine
And that's how I knew it was a dream

Last night I dreamed that I'd been drinking
Cold burn of whiskey down my throat
My hand turned into a rattlesnake
And I laughed myself awake
And that's how I knew it was a joke

As far as these lines or that song, anybody might appreciate them, on their own or in the context of the new album. You don’t need to have already been a fan to like it. 

But ongoing fans can appreciate it at a different level: those lines don’t live only in the context of a song or an album, but a body of work. His work and your (my) ongoing fandom becomes a years-long relationship. The work sinks in for the people who like it enough to, you know, LISTEN-listen, to let the songs become part of our lives, and to pay deep and repeated attention. When you listen like that, noticing things like the callback I’m describing can become tribal membership stuff. There’s a running gag, and you’re in on it.

I don’t even care how intentional it is (though I think Jason’s a noticer and likely knows what he did). Cool with me either way. 

I mention it here partly just to share my enjoyment of a smart, funny, cool thing that struck me in a song lyric. But I also want to use it as a representative example of the pleasures of context. 

There’s a joy to be had in having some artists that you follow. You listen to all their work for years. You have favorite songs, sure, but there’s more to it. They have a vibe, a way of being in the world, and it resonates for you. Their voice in your head becomes like a friend on your life’s path. You pull for them to do great work. Your share your fandom with people in your life. Maybe the songs become an important part of your relational culture with people you love. And when you get to go see one of your short-list very-favorites play live, maybe quite a few times over different chapters of your life, man, it is a burst of pure oxygen. 

I’ve got artists that crossed my path at a certain moment when my ears were really ready to hear them. Some fall away. But with some —and Jason Isbell has become one of them — they come along for the rest of the ride and you come to understand the work in a deeper and more satisfying way. 

Kind of a While

I said, “You’re looking so good, 
Mmm, you’ve got the prettiest smile.”
She said, “I’m feeling good too, 
and it’s been kind of a while,
kind of a while.”

She said, “The days were blasting by
like a westbound train, 
the song in my head was 
‘I Wish it would Rain,’
But now I feel like the me
that knows how to be
free and wild . . .
It’s been kind of a while, 
been kind  of a while.”


I said, “I know just what you mean, 
when darkness stretches on for miles.
I was so hopeless and so lost,
for kind of a while,
kind of a while.

I couldn’t even breathe right,
yeah, it’s hard to explain.  
The closest  I can come is
 I was living in chains, 
Then you baked me a cake
and I laughed ‘cause
it was hiding a  file . . . 
It’s been kind of a while, 
been kind of a while.”

And we might know 
enough to know
There’s no such thing 
as a perfectly smooth road,
no places where the 
summers are cool
and the winters are mild.

She said, “The days were blasting by
like a westbound train, 
the song in my head was 
‘I Wish it would Rain,’
But now I feel like the media 
that knows how to be
free and wild . . .
It’s been kind of a while, 
kind  of a while.”

Words and Music by Jeff Knight

Who is Jeff Knight? What is Jeff’s Next Page?

Because I recently entered an original song, “Kind of a While,” in NPR’s Tiny Desk concert, I expect some newcomers around here. That being the case, hello and welcome.

I’m a writer and songwriter in Austin. I write poems, songs, and stories, used to do a fair amount of slam poetry performances around the state of Texas, have published some fiction and poetry here and there, and sometimes perform as a storyteller. I make my living as a writer and editor, currently working on new hire training for big tech companies.

If you scroll the blog, you’ll see posts about everything from the late great Adam Schlesinger to my thoughts on how marketing copy for craft beer can boost a sense of tribal membership. You'll also find links to some of my writing here and there on the web.

Meanwhile, my entry to the NPR Tiny Desk Concert Contest  is embedded below, published on my YouTube channel, also titled Jeff’s Next Page.