Nomeansno has a song called Joy (off their album The Worldhood of the World – as such) and it literally just starts with them singing the only lyric: “JOOOOOY”. If you have two minutes and you like weird punk I recommend it. I also think it makes a great morning alarm song, but then I am excited to get up at 0430 every day.
I saw nomeansno in Tacoma back in either 2012 or 2013 and the show itself was a lot like this one in Copenhagen. I think it started the same way: just an explosion of energy from these guys who were at least 10 years older than me, and I was probably 43 at the time. I marvelled at their pure love of the music that they were making. As someone who has had to play a song I wrote more than 20 times, I’ve often gotten to the point where I just didn’t like that song anymore. But these guys were playing songs like The River, that they recorded in 1993 and playing it with the gusto of someone who had just written the song. I can only imagine that they love that song as much as we do.
Yesterday morning, I took a half day off from work and played disc golf with some friends at my favorite course, NAD park in Bremerton. Early morning Monday disc golf is one of the best things you can experience. The forest is empty, the air is clear, the birds are singing, the chipmunks chattering, and yesterday, the sunlight was streaming through the trees. Temperature was perfect. Friends, nature, and good natured competition. It’s a great way to start your day and your week. Highly recommend.
But the best part of the day was when my friend Chris nearly sank a shot from 100 feet. The course has two baskets and I had mistakenly told him to play to a more obscured basket. His shot went sailing past by about 40 feet when I realized I told him the wrong hole. So we all decided he should get to shoot again and this time, using his patented “forehand Cobra”, he flicked the disc laser straight at the basket and hit the chains dead on. We all cheered in surprise, Chris turned to us and was grinning like a fool and screaming. The veins in his neck were popping out, he was so pumped.
The odd thing for me is that the disc popped out and he merely got a par. If that had happened to me, I might have been a Debbie Downer – letting out a big awww, and sinking inward at my “misfortune”. But he just had a blast and wouldn’t stop talking about it for the rest of the round.
Chris won that round. I was runner up and had a terrible day of putting – I couldn’t stop missing from 11 feet, I think I had 13 two-putts in circle one, I only made 25% of my circle one putts. I kept getting the fear and noodle-arming my putts. Chris, on the other hand, just played the day with abandon, fun.
Those moments of joy only pop up every once in a while. You gotta hold on to them, let them be your guide.
Joy is infectious. Keep trading in it.
MCMBD
+1
+1 +1
“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley
big up to west ham for winning the conference league. nice to see declan rice lift that trophy. if he comes to arsenal, i’m hopeful it’s the first of many. special shout out goes to david moyes; been a closet fan for years. he’s a proper manager and coach. unfortunate to see those “green street hooligans” throwing projectiles onto the pitch, injuring the fiorentina player. shameful you need police supervision to ensure you behave. once again, congrats to west ham and particularly david moyes.
Me too, I’m a Moyes fan. He managed our manager at Everton.
I laugh whenever I think of international players trying to understand the deep Scottish brogue of a Moyes or Ferguson.
I like to think that they just nod that they understand and then just go and do what they do, hence the great reputation of Scot managers.