Back in the saddle. Again. Yet another time.
I haven’t written a new post in nearly three years. Many factors contributed to the absence, but I think I can boil it down to two basic ingredients:
- I’ve been extremely busy bordering on overextended, both personally and professionally, for at least a couple years now.
- I’ve been glad that the last post was about Matthew Barney’s Secondary, and very few topics have seemed worthy of “dethroning” that entry. For those that did, “1.” kept them from being realized anyway.
And now it’s well into 2026. In one sense, things seem generally “different but the same,” to borrow from Stephen King. It took a long while after moving, but over the last 4-5 years I’ve managed to finally develop some sort of niche locally. In the abstract, it’s largely an extension of what I was trying to develop while living in Michigan: a dependable freelancer across various styles. That said, some directions have been unexpected. For example, I’m playing more alto and less tenor, more clarinet and less flute, and much more jazz and almost no original music. There are times when I’d like to adjust those dials and others in different directions. However, I’m happy with the groups and projects I’m a part of and the degree to which I participate in them. I’d rather maintain and grow those roles than give them up for little-to-no reason.
I’ve always preferred to stay busy. Better to have too much to do than too little. But in many ways 2024 and 2025 were my busiest adult years. Too busy, in fact. I’ve tried to make a conscious effort to pull back some in 2026 by saying both “yes” to less and “no” to more (and trying to not lose sleep over either). Those are both difficult for me to do, but the nascent boundaries have been valuable thus far.
One thing I’d like to devote more time to is this space. TBD. Time is the primary roadblock. But one other hindrance is the absolute glut of “content” that now exists and grows at an exponential rate, from The Discourse to AI slop and many points in between. It feels pointless to add to it. But, if nothing else, I pay for this little corner of cyberspace, so I may as well not completely abandon it. It’s arguably the only single resource in which you’ll find information on Matthew Barney‘s River of Fundament, Kelsey Grammer’s acting method, and Boyd Tinsley’s departure from Dave Matthews Band. (So noted because those seem to be three of my top performing posts or topics in web searches over time, oddly enough.) Plus it’s not (yet) a Substack. I still believe in websites and miss the days of RSS feeds.
There are several notable anniversaries and items I’ve missed writing posts for in recent years, including tomorrow’s Miles Davis centennial. For each one, I’d have the intention weeks in advance but I lacked the time to see it through. Ah well. We’ll see what the rest of this year brings. I’ve made time for more reading over these last several years, so hopefully I can get back into writing a little here and there. We’ll see if 2026 gets more than one post…