The squirrel's granary is full: Ceaselessness, stairs, Beatles piece, more Beatles, Chicago Tribune football op-ed, three most important box sets, assertive audience recordings, Lucas McCain

Monday 9/15/25

People ride into North Fork to take on Lucas McCain. They ask around to find out where he is, get the info, go to that place, call him out, or try and shoot him in the back, or whatever the case my be. And no matter who these people are, they all have one thing in common: It never goes the way any of them want it to.

Be ceaseless and go ceaselessly. Yesterday I was at it from half past one in the morning until I went to bed. The closest there was to stopping was reading Poe by the harbor, which isn't done in a leisurely fashion to while away some time, but rather with purpose.

Worked on a number of film pieces so that a bunch are now newly in progress and need to be shortly finished.

There was what was written in this journal.

A Beatles piece came out in Best Classic Bands. From it:

Other gigs get their mentions—the final official concert of Beatledom at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park a scant year after the glory at Shea, and the unofficial rooftop session—like an inverted variant on the band’s cellar-dwelling lunchtime Cavern Club shows of yore—in late January 1969.

But some of the best Beatles music is that which serves as the tracery of their story. The “between” the flagging stones parts, where the Beatles are often their most Beatlesesque.

There’s nothing, for instance, that is more like them, if you will, than the gamut of 1963 BBC sessions, which could be subtitled, “What the Beatles sounded like when the Beatles hung out,” or some such, and is as close to the Beatles bone as you’ll get.

Among these less splashy live Beatles events was their fourth, final, and much less famous appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which was taped August 14, 1965 and went out over American airwaves on September 12, a time when autumn was in the air—a season of maturation and change—as the Beatles themselves were becoming something different. Whereas previously they were smart, these Beatles were growing wise. A cry for help—for something more—had rended the air, with the formulation of Rubber Soul following as if in a form of self-directed response.

There was also an op-ed on how watching football can help kill you in more ways than one in the Chicago Tribune. From that:

In a nation where hardly anyone is able to concentrate on anything, we are fixated on football. If something is to intercede, it’s often because we have no choice. The kid is being baptized, for instance, and you can’t put it off until Monday morning.

It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that as Americans get dumber and larger, football gains in popularity. We’ve learned much regarding the on-field dangers of the sport via CTE studies, but what about the dangers of being a typical football fan as per the dictates of American popular and “leisure” culture?

The way it works now is that a football game tends to beget another football game, until a totality of them comprises the day. We think, “I’ll just watch the first half” of the latest contest, or “Gotta see how I’m doing in my fantasy league picks are doing,” as though we were a real GM, and then tomorrow becomes today. 

On Saturday I walked five miles, did 100 push-ups, and ran ten circuits of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument. Felt very strong. Bounce in the step on said stairs. Bounce, bound, bounce, bound, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I feel physically as I did when I was eight-years-old. That's how I would put it. You're eight, kids are playing in the yard next door, you go out to play with them. You're body doesn't feel like a body because you're not aware of it in terms of sensation. Nothing aches or nags. It's just something waiting to go back in motion.

Went to Haymarket. Got strawberries, red peppers, red grapes. Pepper observation: Red peppers last the longest. Yellow peppers go the fastest, with orange the second fastest. This is impression-based and probably not grounded in any truth whatsoever, but if one pepper was better for you than any other kind I would guess that it was red. They feel like they hold more nutrients. Vitamin C and all of that. Peppers I ate Saturday were green.

Yesterday I did 100 push-ups and ten more circuits in the Monument. Had to be ten. Why? Because in doing ten more circuits that brought my total since July 31 to 200 circuits. Month and a half/200 circuits. Round and notable figure. That's minus a week, of course, when I hardly went out and could have stopped for good. With? Everything. Life.

I had walked five miles yesterday, and I thought that I would rather not do less than I had the day before, so I went out and walked three more miles to get up to eight. Yesterday marked 3346 days, or 478 weeks, without a drink. Was thinking as I made my way up the Monument yet again, seeing a clear trail of my own sweat as I did so: You had the Battle of Bunker Hill, and yet I'd venture that there is more of my DNA up on that hill than anyone's else.

With the exception of a horribly humid day perhaps two weeks ago now, the weather this September has been the best I recall it being here. September weather is the most underrated weather anyway. You have all of the people whining about the end of summer, and the people who want it to be October and staunchly autumn.

These September days range from the low fifties in the earliest hours to the mid seventies, sans humidity. They are hard to better. If you like it colder, sure, but in terms of their meteorological design, they flirt with perfection.

How does anyone prefer the days of July over these days? It is not the days, though, that people prefer; it's the doing of nothing. The sitting there. Sitting and sitting and sitting.

Went to Trader Joe's. Got sunflowers. No seasonal coffees available as of yet. I still have some autumnal tea from last year. Quite pungent.

Watched I Saw the TV Glow (2024) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) for a piece on school and horror I am writing. Both started and finished before eight AM yesterday.

Downloaded a remastered version of the Beatles' Convention Hall to State Fair bootleg video set, which features footage from their Philadelphia Convention Hall show and their afternoon Indiana State Fair on the 1964 North American tour, along with interviews from them and those close by. Also, Captain Acid's remaster of the A Hard Day's Night - Studio Sessions - Back to Basics set. Sent both of these along to my buddy Howard and will send them to a couple editors apace. Downloaded Dylan's 1994 West Point show as well. And a Moby Grape recording from 1969, plus a set from Travis opening for Oasis in 2000 in Chicago.

There are three voluminous boxed sets that I'd say are essential to an understanding of rock and roll: The Beatles' The BBC Archives, Bob Dylan's The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966 (eighteen-disc version), and the Grateful Dead's Europe '72: The Complete Recordings. I'll write books about each of the first two; content of the Grateful Dead box set will be part of the subject matter for a book I'll do on "Dark Star."

Was pleased to see that Mike Millard's audience recording of Pink Floyd at the LA Sports Arena in April 1975 will be included on the Super Deluxe Edition of Wish You Were Here. Deep Purple's Super Deluxe Edition of Machine Head also included an audience recording--from the Montreux Casino in April 1971. I like this idea of impressive audience tapes asserting their worthiness and gaining release on sets like these. Sort of demanding inclusion. Because they shouldn't be overlooked. Like Dan Lampinski on the East Coast (check out his 12/14/75 recording of the Who in Providence), Mike Millard was a major figure of the audience recording scene on the West Coast during the 1970s. They had bodies of work, in a sense, with much to offer both in terms of study and enjoyment.

Listened to many episodes of This is Your FBI.

Downloaded a copy of the Three Investigators' The Mystery of the Cranky Collector, the last book--number forty-three--in the series, written by Mary Virginia Cary. I believe this is the only Three Investigators book I haven't read. I've reread most of them. I'm always reading one along with the other things I'm reading.

The reason I hadn't read this one is on account of its scarcity. You just couldn't get a copy. And the Three Investigator books haven't been available on Kindle or anything. Cranky Collector had a single print run in 1987. You'll see it going for elevated prices on the used books market. I'll read it soon.

Called my mother. Asked about the kids. Thought up some Little Ghost Girl related items while waiting for the Monument to open to pass on to saucy, wiseacre five-year-old niece who takes what is called an engineering class after school now on Mondays. I think it probably involves blocks and the likes and building fun things.

Watched The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox. Merely confirmed things I already knew. But sure, Sean McAdam, tell me how brilliant Alex Cora is again. What a lackluster guy. Achievable in the classic achievable sense. Unimpressive, mediocre, not very on the ball, and nowhere near close to great. Just a guy with the job that he has.

Watched some of Dark. German TV horror. The going is slow. Am I really supposed to believe these people almost never turn lights on?

If the characters of something look like they're working with the creator of that something to make that thing the creator created happen, then the creator has failed. Write that down.

Patriots beat the Dolphins in Miami. Cue Patriots fan then going into predictable overdrive. Saw comparison of this team to 2003 Patriots team that went 14-2, played and defeated many high-quality teams, and won Super Bowl. Much closer to the truth: Two not good football teams played a game in Florida and one out-blundered the other. Dolphins win if their guy doesn't step out of bounds--which he barely did--on what was to be their final possession.

Red Sox got much-needed Sunday night victory over Yankees to avoid the three-game sweep. Important, always overlooked aspect of a team's MLB season: Winning that concluding third game of a series after dropping the first two. What the Red Sox really needed: That six-spot they put up in the first inning. Took pressure off. Crochet: Okay. Would like to see two more wins from him. 18 is a nice total. Chapman back to 101 mph on the gun. Whitlock can be a postseason weapon in Sox get there. Rangers finally lost. Thanks, Mets.

Don't think we're getting a 100-win team this year in MLB. That kind of season. Playoffs will be wide open. Wider, perhaps, than ever before.

Patrick Mahomes hasn't been who everyone thinks Patrick Mahomes is since 2022.

It's such a Notre Dame thing to be ranked at 0-2.

Hawking of pumpkins and gourds wherever one turns, apocryphally speaking (but close enough), which is what the fall fan likes to see.

I've always liked that line, "The squirrel's granary is full," from John Keats' "La Belle Dame san Merci." It suggests that the squirrel has gone ceaselessly, in turn becoming ceaseless itself. That's what I'm getting at with these terms. Look to expand. Grow. Add. I don't mean another car. I mean to you. Incorporate. Pull within. Get to. Move to. That's how a person themselves becomes ceaseless.

What I've documented in this entry is from a weekend. It's not everything. A mere forty-eight hour period. Keep moving, learning, trying, discovering, improving, growing. Have that become part of what you are. Who you are. Which in turn means it doesn't stop.