I started my April Mixtape for Kim with “Back to Nowhere,” the title track by the band UV-TV. I’d never heard of UV-TV before despite this being their third album. It was on a list of best new songs and the reviewer mentioned the opening riff reminded them of the opening of the Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary.” Yeah, I can see that… But as soon lead singer Rose Vastola’s melodic voice joins the jangling lead guitar all comparisons to the Cult fade away and it’s just a great pop track.

Many moons ago my friend Kim and I were talking about music and she mentioned she had a hard time finding new music. I responded that I love finding new music and I’ll put together a mixtape of new music for her. Mix tape, not a playlist, thank you very much. Am I dubbing things to a tape like I did growing up? No, no I am not. But I maintain this is the spiritual successor to the mix tape and wholly different than a playlist. There’s more cohesion – a through-line if you will – to a mixtape where a playlist is just a collection of songs. Sure, you could make a playlist with the kind of attention to order and linear listenability (and, okay, that’s what I’m doing), but the majority of playlists, I maintain, have little in common with mixtapes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

But I digress… Okay, look, obviously I’m a little passionate about the subject, but suffice it to say, I put together a mixtape for Kim (I might have even burned it to a disc…) back in November 2009 and since then I’ve put together a mixtape every month, rarely missing a month. Kim lost interest a few years later – life, you know? – but I still put the mixtape together. By that point it had become a mental exercise for me even if I was the only person paying attention.

My criteria has coalesced a bit: about an hour worth of music (sticking to how much I could burn onto a CD), trying to get music from that month or, failing that, that year. Exceptions happened because, hey, it’s my mixtape! There were a few theme collections, like the November 2011 addendum mixtape of tracks I heard on French MTV during a business trip to Switzerland. Or the Christmas music addendum in December of 2014. But by and large the mixtapes drew from whatever 14-16 new tracks struck my fancy in a given month.

All of this, however, ground to an unceremonious halt during lockdown. March was pretty much already in the can when things went pear shaped. April is complete, but I remember it being a real effort to get together. I didn’t even try in May. I rallied over the summer, but by September I was coming apart. There’s drips and drags in October and November, and a few songs across January, February of 2021…

I wasn’t writing much during that time either. Despite the extra time at home, the uninterrupted periods of time in my head, I couldn’t manage to put together stories or, well, Selfie entries or, really, anything.

I was talking with Akilah about this, about how my creativity just shriveled up during the pandemic and I didn’t really understand why. She countered with all the projects I did. She was right (of course). Yes, I did jump on the sour dough band wagon (again, RIP Tina) but also fermented ginger beer! I built an organizer for my kitchen and coffee tools. I built three mobile work tables, and modified a coffee table to be more mobile and useable. I built a bar cart that tucks under a kitchen cabinet, and I built and installed a shelf to display growlers. I’m sure there’s things I’m missing because in that regard I was quite prolific.

But I didn’t write. And I didn’t put together my mixtapes.

The fourth track on April’s Mixtape, “Family Van” by the band cleopatrick, opens with Luke Gruntz playing a fuzzed out alternating guitar riff and talking about when another band ripped off one of their songs. But thirteen seconds in, a kickdrum snare rhythm bursts in and gives order and drive to what started as a loose sonic rant. A little bass guitar dips in approaching thirty seconds providing another bit of structure before the whole thing blossoms into a thrumming punk jam that has elements of late 90’s pop-punk but definitely with a hip-hop vibe to the whole thing. It’s not a track I necessarily would have gravitated to except for the structure the rhythm section brings.

Structure. That’s the thing that fell apart during the pandemic. A giant existential threat to all the routines we’ve developed over the years of our lives. An invisible, silent killer that could strike if you didn’t wash your groceries — I kid, but you remember that whole thing early on about how we were supposed to do that, right? We didn’t know! We still don’t know everything, but it feels like we’ve come lightyears from where we were last year.

Luke Gruntz’s guitar and lyrics wouldn’t go anywhere without those drums and bass and without the drum and bass propulsion of my day-to-day, the esoteric, open-ended creativity behind my writing failed me, as did the drive to collect music from varied sources.

A writer whose newsletter is always a welcome Friday joy, Austin Kleon, described it recently by saying, “I’m not languishing, I’m dormant.Like a plant. Or a volcano.” He adds, “I’m waiting to be activated.”

The second to last track on the mixtape is “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” a cover of the Dolly Parton song by Waxahatchee from an extended version of “Saint Cloud.” That album originally came out in March of 2020 and sustained me well into the summer – into my dormancy. Dolly’s version came out in 1977, and there’s a particularly haunting acapella version by the Wailin’ Jennys that came out just four years ago. But Katie Crutchfield’s plaintive voice singing, “’Cause I can see the light of a clear blue morning/ I can see the light of a brand new day/ Oh, and everything’s gonna be all right/ It’s gonna be okay,” has a special gravity in April 2021.

I finished my mixtape for April. I’ve started regularly updating this blog. I also built a stand for my amps last month. I can see the light of a brand new day, and it’s gonna be okay.

PS: All the above links are to Spotify. If you’re anti-Spotify I apologize, it was out of convenience.

PPS: You didn’t think I wouldn’t put a link to the complete playlist here, did you? I should mention, this is the first playlist done exclusively in Spotify. That in and of itself is a major change for me, and I’m still getting my sea legs in this new paradigm. But, you know, it’s gonna be okay…

I met up with an old friend in the parking lot of the Guerneville Safeway on Saturday. Under the steel gray sky, we headed west, meandering on the back roads out to Bodega Bay for fish and chips. As we were taking our helmets off in the parking lot of the Boat House restaurant, volunteers across the street in front of the Bodega Bay Grange Hall called “Free vaccines! Do you guys need to get vaccinated?”

My friend had his second shot a few weeks back. I had my second Covid vaccine shot last Wednesday – it was in the building that serves as the ticketing office for the Napa Wine Train – it’s been closed through this whole pandemic. Standing in a serpentine line with dozens of others waiting to get needles jabbed in our arms surrounded by brochures for various wineries was fairly surreal during this whole surreal moment.

No mentionable side effects, by the way. I’m quite grateful for that. Though I was kind of excited for that third arm the nanobots in the vaccine would build. Or the killer 5G reception I was supposed to get…

Seriously, though, one of my coworkers is just now recovering from Covid and told me about how he really feels lucky to have made it through — it’s still out there. It’s still laying people low. It’s still killing people. We’re not done yet.

When the company I work for bought the land for the building they also bought the lot next door so they would be prepared if/when they decided to expand. Twenty-plus years on, they haven’t expanded, but about five years ago they set aside a portion of that empty lot for community garden plots for interested employees. It’s a really generous benefit that I’ve tried to take full advantage of (another time I’ll tell you about the Scorpion Pepper I grew that I was all ready to film Akilah eating. Oh, she ate it. But let’s just say it was anticlimactic…)

Last year most of the building was working remotely and what with social distancing and the still evolving nature of the virus we didn’t do the garden. I’d swing by the building every week or so and I watched the volunteer plants and weeds grow and grow over the course of the summer and fall… About a month ago I saw that they’d mowed the five-foot tall green mass that occupied the entire garden area. A week later they tilled the plots. And then the email came: we’re doing the garden again this year!

I got the same plot I’ve had and the soil was a little tired the last harvest, so I added some soil and manure, tilling it in until you sink with every step into the soft soil. Akilah and I planted five tomato plants, six hot and sweet peppers, a row of beets, some beans, and a single zucchini plant that – if history is any guide – will produce way more zucchini than we can eat. I mean, seriously, we might have gone overboard… but despite the ever-present virus, we’re ready to let things grow.

I thought about that this evening as I let the water rain down on the little tomato starts: Sasha’s Altai, then Early Girl, and Gobstopper, next to Lucid Gem, and finally Isis Candy. Daring to start something normal. I write this even though we don’t have a date for when we’ll return to the office – not that I’m anxious to return to in-person work; I’ve got a puppy that’s going to have some serious separation anxiety. But at least visiting to water is a baby step.

It’s the duality of life right now – the bright shine of hope and optimism held against ever present darkness of ongoing dangers.

Overall, I feel really good about the direction things are going, but I’m still daily managing the knot in my stomach watching my bank accounts get tighter and tighter – the darkness…

…And the light: The weekend before last I was ecstatic to have the first bartending gig since October. A cool sunny afternoon at a ranch between Petaluma and Valley Ford hosted a full hundred-plus person wedding. It would have been just like the Before Times™ if I wasn’t wearing a mask the whole time. I’m not complaining, though. I was genuinely excited to be there watching the smiles around me. I have another gig this coming Saturday up in Hopland. These are two of my favorite venues, too. Reason to hope for a better summer than last year.

If you haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, please do. As my coworker reminded me, it’s still out there. And, no, a vaccine isn’t a guarantee you won’t get Covid. But if you’re vaccinated and you get the virus it almost certainly won’t land you in the hospital or worse.

Let’s do this so we can meet old friends for motorcycle rides and fish and chips. Let’s do this so we can grow gardens. Plant the seeds now and we’ll have a great harvest soon enough.

PS. Akilah has banned me from writing about Covid at all for the next three weeks. Minimum. That’s fair…

Please say hi to Allison Lynnette — you can call her Alli.

This little ball of fur and fury turned six months old this month. She’s been part of our fur family now for four of those six months. This selfie was taken in the car after she and I went for a hike at Crane Creek park in Rohnert Park. This picture on the right? Yeah, that’s her on the trail. She looks so cute and calm – tired, maybe? Not even a little. Let me say this: this wasn’t a great walk. What it did, though, is show how far she’s come and how far we have to go.

First, though, how did we get here?

You may remember the Reflection I wrote for Winston after he died. That was a year and a half ago and I’ve missed him every day. I figured I’d get another dog… someday. I had a load of good excuses, but ultimately, I think it all came down to the fact that no dog could live up to Winston. He was that kind of a dog.

When my friend Kirk’s dog, Mishka, went into heat he made the appointment to get her fixed. But that was a week away, and she had already, shall we say, gotten the attention of the neighborhood dogs. One in particular broke out of his house up the street and hid out in the bushes overnight. The next morning when Kirk sent Mishka out to go potty… well, you get it.

Nine puppies survived a rather harrowing birthing. When the runt came out Kirk noted she wasn’t breathing. But there were complications with other puppies and Kirk didn’t have time to work on the apparent still-born. But when he came back a bit later she wasn’t dead, she was nursing. He worked with a service to find homes for all but two. He was going to keep one – a boy puppy he named Ernie. But the runt didn’t have a home.

He’d been sending me pictures since shortly after the puppies were born. They were adorable, of course, but I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready…

I can’t tell you exactly what changed. Akilah blames it on the copious rye whiskey David Erik and I imbibed on his porch in late November. I’ll admit two things: one, it was a lot of rye. Two, I did text Kirk that night saying I’d take the runt. But I do know I’d already decided it was time.

It was time.

The next Saturday we drove up to Redding to Kirk’s house and picked her up.

What in the hell had we gotten ourselves into?

I don’t remember much of Winston’s puppy time. Maybe that’s nature repressing those memories? Alli has been… well, she’s not nicknamed “Alligator” for nothing…

Earlier this month she went in to get fixed (or broken) herself. The vet sent her home with a sedative so she wouldn’t get too excited and inadvertently tear a stitch in exuberance. The directions said she could have half or a whole pill every 12 hours. I need to explain that when Alli isn’t sleeping, she’s generally running at 10 out of 10. Full tilt. Ball of fury. Alligator. So we started in on a whole pill. That took from a 10 to… maybe an eight…. Possibly nine.

This one will not be slowed.

She did manage to heal just fine. We’ve had some little walks, and she’s back to playing with her friends. Today was her first hike since surgery. We’ve got a lot work to do…

I’m not a parent, but I imagine a parent can’t help but compare one child to another, even if it’s not something they’d ever speak aloud. Alli is not Winston. Part of that, of course, is comparing a puppy to a 12-year-old dog, but Winston was just a different soul. I get glimpses of what Alli will grow into, and I think she’s going to be a wonderful companion. Not Winston, though.

And that’s okay. The truth is when we picked Alli up, I wasn’t over Winston. But her crazy licking attacks, her adorable pterodactyl-like yawns, the way she talks back when she doesn’t get her way, how she cants her big old floppy ears this way and that… I’m not going to say she has mended a broken heart. That’s trite and overly simplistic. But for all her puppy faults, for all her wackiness, she acts as a contrast to Winston. In the space in my heart reserved for dogs Winston has made space for Alli to come inside and cuddle up; there’s space enough for both of them — the big gentle black lab with some dalmatian spots, and the young tawny puppy with floppy ears and a black nose. Both tails are wagging. Vigorously.