Still Green

Sometimes on the road we find ourselves stopped for rest in the middle of a rural concretescape. Somewhere no one lives. Places that are built solely for the use of tractor trailers, buses and cars. Like cow paths for monster machines.

You’re hunting for a calorie that isn’t cooked by Colonel Sanders (or happily eating with him). You’re sprinting across four-leaf clover exit ramps. You’re crawling under chainlink fences that have no apparent purpose. They’re there to reinforce the orderliness ordained by the non-town’s non-founders years ago, a defense against nothing.

And sometimes, in a place like that, you glance at Google Maps expecting to see a satellite view of gray, nothing but pavement. But it’s surprisingly green. You can actually hardly see the concrete rash that feels like it encompasses the entire land at the moment. It’s in a sea of trees.

And you’re relieved!

There aren’t enough trees to do all the carbon guzzling we need them to do now. But there are a lot. In the meantime we use these roads, we build them and we get from here… to you?

At a Kansas taqueria.

It’s my dad’s birthday today. Happy Birthday, Dad! I love you!

It was also my mom’s birthday last week. Her birthday didn’t fall on a newsletter publishing day. But I still could’ve said something. Oops, dingus. Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you!

Speaking of birthdays. A few days ago would’ve been Casey’s grandpa’s 100th birthday, but he died earlier this month. I want to take a moment to celebrate Cesar Gomez and the beautiful life he helped create for his five kids and their grandkids.

A doctor since 1950, having emigrated from Puerto Rico, he spent two years in Korea (in the same MASH unit that would go on to inspire M*A*S*H), and then returned to St. Louis to help pioneer gastric bypass surgery. He was famous in the family for, among many things, rapping his rings against a doorway to announce he was ready to leave the function. Don Cesar! We love you!

Cesar Gomez.

And: David Handelman. In addition to his long and extremely accomplished writing career, David was the unofficial official archivist of my family’s livestream show, The Tweedy Show. He would often send me records and interesting music-related stories. In the past four years he had become a prominent part of the scattered group of people that make up Wilco’s kindest and most helpful friends. His death this month was a shock. I want his family and everybody who love him to know how much my family appreciated his enthusiasm and talent. Thank you, David.

Waxahatchee is in Kalamazoo, Michigan tonight. The former home of Gibson Guitars, the current home of Bell’s Brewery which is where we’re playing. I love midwestern post-industrial towns. It’s just… home. Kalamazoo has signs of health. Plus, it’s called Kalamazoo. Can’t beat that.

Thanks for being here. By the way, there are 500 more of us in this newsletter club thanks to Katie’s and Austin Kleon’s super kind shout-outs earlier in the week. If you’re new here: welcome, I’m Spencer, I play drums, this is where I write.

xo,
Spooncer

P.S. Watch Mavis and my dad on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, singing “Freedom Highway.”