Author Archive: Jake Breinholt

Good Reads — Trouble Boys

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On any given Monday night, more likely than not, you can find me bellied up a at certain north Brooklyn establishment enjoying some happy hour oysters for dinner. In all honesty, I rarely make it for HH anymore, since I’m typically getting my little one bathed and ready for bed during that slot of the evening, these days. But I still make it a point to pop over after the little guy is sawing toothpicks. In the years since establishing this weekly ritual, I have made some friends, namely the gentleman who holds court behind the bar on Monday nights. He, and I have heavily overlapping musical taste and often chat about such. My discovery of this book was a product of one of those conversations.

Like many of the bands I discovered in my youth, the Replacements were already over by the time I was introduced to their music. Notwithstanding the fact that I would never be able to see them play live, I was a fan. I picked up the “Pleased to Meet Me” album on CD at some point, and even followed Paul Westerberg’s solo career for a while after seeing the movie The Singles. But I’ll admit that I didn’t really know much about the band prior to reading this book: “Trouble Boys, The True Story of the Replacements” by Bob Mehr.

The Replacements, or the “Mats” (short for “place mats”) as they called themselves, had a rough (ROUGH!) existence as a band. Their story is not some sort of underdog conquers the world, feel-good, happy ending-type. It is one of self sabotage and wasted brilliance. Just the same, it is an incredible tale. Mehr really gets into the weeds a little more than necessary with some of the peripheral characters, but overall his writing is easily digestible. I had a few stop-starts while reading this book, where I had to put it down for a few weeks during times where I was taking in particularly dark segments of the text. But this book also caused me to revisit the band’s entire catalogue, which is now all very accessible on streaming platforms. If you are a fan of 80s-90s alt rock, I strongly recommend checking this one out.

2024 Recap in Photos from Jake’s iPhone

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Family Photo | Courtesy Sazbi Erdei Private Collection

It’s that time of year where I load all of the photos saved to my iPhone from the calendar year into a video editor and play them back at 1/4 of a second per frame. It goes without saying that, for me, the most meaningful event of 2024 was the birth of my son. He is by far and away my most photographed subject of the 2024 recap vid. Some other notable events from the year are:

  • The solar eclipse in April. At our place in the Catskills, we experienced about 90% of total coverage, which was pretty cool. As a bonus, we watched it with my parents, who were in town to meet their new grandson that week!
  • Something that was probably only exciting to me- we finally painted the Catskills place. I never liked that baby blue-ish color that it was painted when we bought it. But it was new paint and we couldn’t really justify spending the cash to paint over it just because I didn’t like the color.
  • Something that was initially only exciting to me, but B eventually came around to- we built a garage. I should say, we had a garage built. I would have loved to have done the whole thing myself. But it would have taken me years of weekends and evenings. I did get to learn to operate a giant excavator though!
  • I completed marathon number 15.
  • Final item to mention is that after over 10 years of working in midtown, I’m now sitting in the Flatiron District. Still getting used to it, but overall positive. Biggest change is not being able to run in Central Park at lunchtime anymore.

Happy New Year!

December 2024 Photo Dump

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Here is a quick and dirty little photo recap from the month of December 2024. Notably, most of these are from Rincon, where we spent the first weekend in December attending B’s cousin’s wedding. The weather was awesome and we had a great time.Continue reading→

Photo Dump Nov. 2024

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Here are a handful of snaps from November that seemed nice to publish. Up top is from a hike that we managed to sneak in at Windham high peak. Our good friend Szabi and his dogs joined us and was kind enough to take a family portrait (second to last below). Continue reading→

December 2024 Playlist

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Mixing it up a bit for the final playlist of the 2024- I started with a few tracks that I have been jamming to lately, then sprinkled in a track or two from each of prior playlists I published this year. Most, but not all of them are tracks that were released this calendar year. Anyway, happy holidays, new year, etc..

Bebe’s Art Collection Pt. 1

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Our little dude got a jump start on art collecting. This is thanks to the longstanding tradition of gifting quilts to new babies. Hand made quilts come in many varieties. Growing up in my house I saw the process of just about every iteration of quilt imaginable. The most basic design is literally just two large pieces of fabric sewn around a layer of batting, punctuated by short sections of yarn tied in knots. Nothing wrong with this type of quilt. It is probably the most utilitarian solely based on how many trips through the laundry it will withstand before starting to fall apart. It can also be constructed by most people who have a cursory understanding of how to sew. Most of it can be done with a basic sewing machine, save for tied yarn.

At the other end of the spectrum is the type of quilt that is meticulously designed, then painstakingly stitched together. Continue reading→

No. 15

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The Author at Mile 12 | Photo: Courtesy Anwar Ragep Private Collection

Guys, I had a really nice race this year. I shortened my traditional 12 week training program to 10 weeks, since I had always felt a bit “over-trained” in prior years. I’ll say that I wasn’t feeling particularly fast going into this year’s race (possibly a product of the truncated program). Because of this, and the fact that I would not be running with any friends this year, I decided to go in without any expectations for time. Instead, my goal was to just enjoy the experience, take in the city, the energy and the sights & sounds of the crowds.Continue reading→