Category: Longform
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Blink and you’ll miss this legendary spot…
I almost missed it on my trip to DC this week, but if you turn down the right little alley on Georgetown you see this sign and find a legendary jazz club: Blues Alley.
While I didn’t get to a show there this week, this unassuming little club hosted the recording of one my my favorite live records of all time: Eva Cassidy’s Live at Blues Alley.
Much like when I visited the Blue Note in New York a few years ago, this little swing past Blues Alley had me marveling at the rich history of live music that has come out of some very unimpressive places.
Oh, and if you’ve never heard that album, go give it a spin. Eva’s voice defies description. We lost her way too soon.


My Podcast Experiment
I just completed my second week of my podcasting experiment on micro.blog. I’m not sure why this seemed like a good idea, but it’s been an interesting experiment. I started my first recording with “I don’t know why you’re listening to this…” and it’s been a suitable title so far.
Basically I take a few minutes in the morning Monday - Friday, pick a topic, and record basically off-the-cuff for no more than 5 minutes. I do one very quick editing pass to cut out the most egregious “um”s and false-starts, then I upload and publish.
Does the world really need 4 minutes of me talking every morning? Doubtful. And yet it probably hasn’t needed my thoughts in text on the internet since 1999 and that hasn’t stopped me. I’ll see how long it continues to feel like a good idea, but it’s a low-weight effort in the mornings and has been fun to try.
I don’t have any stats on listens, and frankly that’s just fine. I know I have at least a couple people listening because they’ve emailed me or mentioned it in person. (If you want emails when I post something you can sign up for them on chrishubbs.com.) If you want to add my podcast to your podcast player, the feed isn’t linked anywhere obviously yet but it is https://chrishubbs.com/podcast.xml.
I Don't Know Why You're Listening to This: October 16, 2026
On the fun of air travel and its weather-related snags…
I Don't Know Why You're Listening to This: October 15, 2026
Some thoughts on elections… but not a political post!
I Don’t Know Why You’re Listening to This: October 13, 2026
A few thoughts on big-city life from a small-city guy.
I Don't Know Why You're Listening to This: October 12, 2026
I’m headed to an airport for a business trip. So, let’s talk about travel.
I Don't Know Why You're Listening to This: October 9, 2026
I made it almost a whole week without talking theology… almost. Some thoughts on this coming Sunday’s Gospel reading.
A more curious response
Sitting in a work meeting today, a co-worker was describing a presentation he had given and the immediate dismissive response he had gotten from another teammate. While my coworker was clearly a little disappointed in this rejection and disagreed with that teammate’s opinion, I was struck by how he described that negative opinion. He didn’t say it was bad, or foolish, or stupid, or uninformed, or anything else critical or judgmental that way. Instead, he said this:
“A more curious response might have been…”
I love this, because I think it gets to the heart of the issue, which isn’t about the right-ness or wrong-ness of someone’s judgment of an issue. It gets to the person’s willingness to set aside their instinct and judgment for just a moment and consider that the other person just might have a point worth considering.
I want to remember that critique - both for times when it’s an appropriate way to describe others, and when it might be an appropriate way to describe myself.
Ted Lasso’s “Be curious, not judgmental” dictum from the best scene in the whole series has, at least in my circles, been overplayed to the point of becoming trite. Still… it’s wisdom worth remembering.