More years ago than I care to admit, I was lost in the snow outside the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.
I was a reporter at the time, covering some public event at the particle accelerator laboratory. I had parked by the wrong door, so was walking through an empty, snowy lot around the tall, swooshing tower when a car pulled up. I sort of knew the guy and he sort of knew me, enough that he offered me a ride and that I accepted. We chatted about the event and, at the end, he gave me a mix CD.
That was when I became friends with Andre Salles. And now I must destroy him.
Andre, you see, is a music blogger. The mix CD he gave me was part of what remains a year-end tradition of making a mix of the year’s best new music and burning hundreds and hundreds of copies for friends, acquaintances and people he gives rides to in the snow.
Although he was then a reporter covering the same event for a rival paper and now actually works for Fermilab itself, Andre has for the last 17 years run the site Tuesday Morning 3 a.m., named after the traditional drop time for new albums at record stores. It’s a music review site that every Wednesday offers up takes on music, life, the world around. It’s funny, pithy and, as of this morning, at column #869.
This is my column #868. On Friday, I catch up. On Monday, I destroy him and drink his salty tears as sustenance.
Andre himself is a funny, incredibly nerdy guy who owns more albums than a Sam Goody in its prime and more comic books than all the Graham Crackers in all the strip malls in suburbia. We would go on to work together twice. First at a newspaper I still think of fondly, second at a website I still swear a little at when I hear its name.
I would grumble and whine about the work, Andre would come up with ideas like having a local ukulele player sing the week’s news in review and writing a column about picking a new church with a pun title that still makes me sick with envy — Steeple Chase.
Andre got me into Firefly and helped me deeper down the rabbit hole that is Doctor Who. He keeps prodding me to write about the Fermilab Physics Slam and dang it I intend to.
Blogging’s an odd bird. You share yourself with the world, but most of the actual work is done alone in the dead of night eating leftovers out of the fridge. I haven’t seen Andre in person in years, but we argue about Peter Capaldi on Facebook and congratulate each others on life events and blog milestones. We tentatively half-joke about working on something together at some point, and at least on this side of things I mean it.
Once a week for 17 years, Andre Salles has crafted his love of music into his love of words and sent it out to the world. I shall hunt and destroy him and scream mightily when my numerical tally bests his, but it really isn’t a contest. It’s just two friends from afar who type too damn much.
Ladies and gentlemen, Andre Salles.
