D's Notebook

I could write about the Pacers-Knicks series today. But given how the first two games have left me royally pissed off, I think you all would rather read more car content rather than me bitching about the referees or the Nova Knicks or how the Pacers refuse to play defense or block out guys four inches shorter than them.

Another Addition

For roughly 60 hours we were a five-car family.

Saturday S and I were browsing through the options for M and we found a Mazda CX-5 that checked almost every box at the CarMax in Cincinnati. That made us laugh. It was listed as a free shipping option so after double-checking its inspection and vehicle history reports, I put in for it to be shipped to Indy.

It left Cincy at 9:00 Monday morning. I test drove it at 3:30 that afternoon. M drove it home around 5:30.

It is a year newer than the CX–5 she drive for two years and that C drives now. It is listed as the same trim level but is missing a few features that C’s has. It seems like it is in great shape. You wouldn’t guess it was a rental for nearly 30,000 miles from its exterior or interior appearance.

I tried to surprise M. She was doing some work for an aunt and when she got home I told her I needed her help with an errand. I tried to hide my checkbook but she saw it, and when I told her to bring her purse she said, “Are we getting a car?”

So she wasn’t surprised but she is happy. Now she needs to get a job that is more regular and pays better than occasionally helping family and friends do things around the house.

Adios, Audi

We took my Q5 back to the dealer this morning, putting us back at four cars. My favorite car I’ve ever had, and it treated me pretty well over the past three years.

I drove it a lot this week, because M accidentally filled it almost all the way up when she put gas in it last week and I wanted to use as much of the fuel I paid for as possible. Still fun to drive, but after driving a Tesla for three weeks, the transmission lags are even more noticeable and frustrating.

While we were waiting on the dealer to check the odometer and finish the paperwork I looked at a nice Q8 that was in the showroom. It will only set you back $90,000!

When I pulled into a parking spot there was a white Q5 in the next spot that had the exact same KU license plate holder. I think it was in for service, because I didn’t see anyone lingering around so couldn’t talk Jayhawk hoops or realignment rumors with its owner.

Tesla Updates

More notes from the new car.

Charging has been super easy. I used the Supercharger around the corner once, before my home charger arrived. Then I used them each time I’ve been to Cincinnati. That could not be simpler. At home I’m keeping the battery charged between 20–80%, which is supposed to be ideal for normal use. So far that’s meant plugging in about once a week, a little more often when L has basketball games over the weekend. My app tells me that at roughly 1400 miles, I’ve saved about $150 compared to gas.

I dig being able to control the climate system from my phone. At basketball last week I got warnings that the interior temperature had surpassed 100 and the fans had kicked on. When L’s games ended, I turned on the AC from inside the gym. In the five minutes it took to walk to the car, the climate system had cooled it to a pleasant 71 degrees inside.

One big annoyance is Tesla’s reliance on Google Maps. Remember when Google Maps were so much better than Apple’s? But years of a bazillion people using iPhones has shifted that. The traffic conditions color coding on Google Maps never seems right. Sunday we pulled into a lengthy slowdown on the interstate. Google gave no warning and showed traffic speeds as normal. Other times I’ll approach an area that shows lots of reds and oranges, indicating slowdowns only to find normal traffic when I pass through. Not sure where they get their info from, but it always seems to be wrong.

I used to laugh when Apple Maps would show heavy traffic in the neighborhood around St. P’s before pickup. It was just dozens of parents parked on the side streets, waiting for the lot to open, scrolling through Twitter on their iPhones that created those “traffic jams.”

One of the many rabbit holes I fell into during my car search was watching car wash videos. I’m not sure how I landed there, but through the process I bought a foam cannon, some microfiber towels, and some good car soap. After both Cincinnati trips I washed the Tesla in the driveway. I wouldn’t say the job was perfect, but the car looked pretty damn good when I was done!

What’s funny about me turning into a Home Car Wash Guy is that a Crew Carwash opened up three blocks from our house in April. It is safe take Teslas through automatic washes; there’s even a special Car Wash Mode to make it easier. I think I’ll save that for the winter, though, and keep doing the driveway thing for now. It takes maybe 15 minutes and is kind of relaxing.

We are nearly three weeks out from the release of Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter. As an OG PJ head, I should probably do a review. Especially since I’ve been listening to it daily over that entire stretch.[1]

That last sentence could be the entire review. For the first time since 2006’s self-titled album, a Pearl Jam disk has stuck with me for more than just the few days after its release. As much as the band has meant to me over the past 30+ years, I haven’t had much patience for their post–2006 albums. They each featured one or two songs I liked but little about the entire works made me want to play them on repeat.

That is very different with Dark Matter.

In his review, Steven Hyden made a great point. For a band that is, arguably, the best live group in the business, their recent albums have lacked the spark and sense of fun and community that characterizes their concerts. It wasn’t just that the songs weren’t as good as the ones from their Nineties heyday. It also seemed like the band was trying too hard to force too many ideas into each one, and that weight kept the albums from being very engaging.

Producer Andrew Watt fixed that, though. He produced Eddie Vedder’s 2022 solo album, a collection of songs that was shockingly good and enjoyable. While recording, Vedder realized he had tapped into something special, and invited his PJ bandmates into the studio to catch the vibe. When it came time to record their next album, they agreed to bring Watt in for assistance.

Watt kept them on a tight schedule. He wanted to capture that spirit of the live shows. Instead of taking months or even years to make the album, as has been the case over the past decade, he and the band cranked out Dark Matter in just three weeks.

Even if the songs weren’t good, you hear that kinetic force throughout the album, setting it apart from their last three disks.

That’s the thing, though. There are a lot of really good songs on Dark Matter.

I’ve already shared my love for “Wreckage” and “Waiting For Stevie” in recent Friday Playlists. Those are two of the best songs they’ve ever done, let alone in the back half of their career.

Lead single “Dark Matter” was the rare “old band trying to prove they can still rock” track that actually worked.

Opener “Scared of Fear,” while ostensibly about someone who is drifting away because of addiction or maybe just indifference, features a chorus that is a perfect statement for a band full of guys who are nearing 60 but once defined a generation:

We used to laugh, we used to sing
We used to dance, we had our own theme

We used to laugh, we used to sing
We used to dance, we used to believe

The chorus is anchored by a classic Jeff Ament pop-punk bass riff, with Stone Gossard roaring in to match him.

Matt Cameron’s drumming sounds better than it’s ever sounded.[2] Mike McCready’s solos remind you of all the great ones from the hits, without being derivative.

I’ve watched a lot of Curb Your Enthusiasm over the past few months, and I can’t help but channel Leon Black when describing the music on Dark Matter: these cats are locked the fuck in.

Eddie Vedder sounds great, too. The best he’s sounded in years. His songs are a little more universal than they used to be, which means a critical reading of his lyrics shows they may not match his best from the first few albums. But they work. And his voice and music more than make up for any lyrical flaws.

“Got To Give” and “Won’t Tell” are poppy tracks refined enough they would likely be big radio hits if rock music still had a home on radio.

The album ends with “Setting Sun,” a track that begins as a gentle, fireside ballad and grows into a soaring affirmation of life and loyalty to each other.

I love thinking about last tracks from the perspective of “If this was the band’s last album, how would this hold up?” Thinking, mostly, of the close of Abbey Road with its melody that leads up to “The End.” That was quite a way to go out.

I don’t think Pearl Jam is going anywhere any time soon. But were this to be their final album, “Setting Sun” would be a fitting way to say goodbye, especially with Eddie repeating “Let us not fade…” as the song ends.

From start-to-finish the band sounds as energized and connected as they have in years. Or, more properly, as energized and connected in the studio as they have for years. Watt got them to relax and stop worrying about Making Statements with their songs and, instead, just discover some good grooves and melodies and turn those into great songs.

Dark Matter won’t have the cultural impact of Pearl Jam’s first three albums, nor will it sell as many copies. But it is their most accessible and satisfying album of the 2000s. It is an album made to satisfy both the long time fans who followed them through the many twists and turns of their career and also those who stopped paying attention around Vitalogy and have longed for good songs that rock and hit you in the heart since 1994.[3]

Kid Hoops

Teenagers are funny. One day they are on top of the world, the next everything is shit.

That might be a little dramatic but it kind of sums up the weekend for L’s travel team. Saturday they played great, winning their two games by a combined 22 points. They should have one the first by 20+ – they got to a running clock midway through the second half – but turned sloppy and let the lead slip to single digits before stretching it out in the end. We had a girl score 22 points in this game.

In the second game was the third against this team this season. Game one was a one-point win. Game two was a two-point loss. Saturday our gurls controlled most of the game. They had a 10-point lead midway through the second half. Again, they got sloppy and let the other team come all the way back to tie. But then we controlled the last 3–4 minutes of the game to win comfortably by eight.

Things were clicking Saturday. L wasn’t great scoring – 0 in the first game, 4 in the second – but had four rebounds and three assists in game one despite battling some light headedness that caused her to miss much of the second half. In game two she played great defense, was getting to the rim, and was a little unlucky to miss two makable layups while making two tough ones.

Then, Sunday, in the game to make bracket play, our girls just looked lost. We played another slow-ish, patient, tough defensive team. And we shrunk from the challenge. They let the other team get soooo many rebounds and loose balls. We got a tough whistle in the first half and it seemed to make about half the team afraid to dig in on defense.

We trailed by ten about five minutes into the second half. Each time we tried to mount a comeback it was undone by a missed blockout, a failure to get back on the break, or a missed layup. We strung a few shots together and finally got a real rally together, getting it to four with the ball with about 5:00 left. Then we fell apart, losing by 14. In the closing minutes we gave up at four completely uncontested layups when they broke our pressure and the girls who were playing the back line didn’t stop the ball.

On the ride home L was pissed. I saw her yelling at people after one of those unguarded layups. She said she was mad because only four or five girls play hard on every play. She was mad because we have two or three girls who are almost guaranteed to turn the ball over if they end up with it. And she was mad that our tall girls don’t rebound. “That’s the only reason they are on the team and they just stand there and watch.”

It was kind of awesome. She had a decent game, scoring six but not doing anything else in the boxscore. She played really good defense, again, and was solid when she was running the offense. I think she was also frustrated because she knows if she scored 10–15 points, she could really lay into people.

Weird that they were so good Saturday, and so bad Sunday. I know the other team had something to do with it but our girls just did not seem engaged or willing to fight. Again, teenagers.

Kid Tennis

C got to play her three matches of the high school tennis season over the past 10 days. They went about as well as you would expect for a kid who never practices.

They lost match one a week ago, 6–1, and I have no idea how they won that single game. The other team must have felt bad and given them a game on the scorecard because I don’t remember them dropping one. Then she played two matches last Wednesday at the school across the street from us. These were eight game, single set matches and she and her teammate lost 8–3 and 8–6. They should have won that second match but C’s partner seemed checked out, totally ignoring balls that were hit right at her. I was ready to yell at her but since it is JV tennis just quietly fumed and asked C, “What was up her ass?” when we got home.

Oh well. Not sure C enjoys it as much as M, but I’m glad her back condition has improved enough where she can get out and move around without complaining about pain.

Pacers

Hey, they did it! After dropping a massive turd in game five – getting crushed by the Bucks who were playing without Dame and Giannis – the Pacers controlled almost all of game six, blowing out the Bucks in the last 14 minutes or so of the game, to advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the first time in six years.

Kind of crazy how consistently good the Pacers were the first 10–12 years I lived here, brawl years excepted, and then how mediocre they’ve been since that. Nice to have them winning playoff series again. The Knicks aren’t in the best of health, which makes them a decent matchup if the Pacers remember to play defense.

I missed almost all of game six, although I was about a mile from Gainbridge Fieldhouse. We went to a fundraiser for a program a friend of ours is on the board for, hosted at Victory Field during an Indianapolis Indians game. We were up in a terrace, so spent more time socializing and eating than watching baseball. That was a bummer because it was a nearly perfect night for baseball. We also missed the top pitching prospect in the minors by two nights.

I did try to keep my eye on the big TV out in the lobby that showed the Pacers game. It got a little awkward when they brought all the attendees into the lobby to hear the spiel for the program, which supports a trio of Catholic schools that serve kids from some of the worst economic parts of the city, and the muted TV was directly behind all the speakers. You could tell who the hoops fans were by how we shifted our bodies to follow the action.

A Trip to Miami

M and two of her high school friends jumped in a car and traveled to Oxford, OH to visit two of their buddies who attend Miami. Miami still has another week of school, so it was the perfect chance for people to visit. M said she saw several friends from high and middle school who were also visiting Miami pals.

She had fun. She still thinks Oxford is too small. But she was impressed with how it has more bars than the area of Cincinnati around UC. Glad she’s focused on the important things.

Pool

Our pool is scheduled to be opened today. Probably two weeks too late given how the weather has been. We’ll see if the heavy rain holds off long enough for our guys to show up and get it cranking.

I did the second power wash of the season to get all the pollen and crap off of the cover yesterday. The water didn’t seem super cold, so I’ll be interested to see what the temperature starts at when they turn the heater on. Last year it was 57. As warm as it’s been lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s in the mid–60s. Which means the heater might get the water to a swimmable temperature before the filter cleans out all the crap that has settled into the water over the winter.

The Bullet Swallower – Elizabeth Gonzalez James
This book has gotten crazy praise in literary circles, landing on numerous Best Of lists already. With good reason. It is a very well-told, fictional story of three generations of Mexicans and their family history. One is a bandit in the late 19th century border territory, who is forced to bargain for his life after a raid on an American train goes off the rails (so to speak). The other two are his son and grandson, living in 1960s Mexico City, with the third generation uncovering the secret family history the middle generation tried to hide.

The bulk of the book is solid, but it builds and builds to a truly glorious final chapter. It was one of those endings that grabs you in an unexpected way, takes your breath away a little, and makes you want to go back and read it again.

I actually read the author notes in the back and James said she had wanted to write a Magic Realism novel, and do so while pulling in some of her family history. I’m not really sure what Magic Realism is, and nothing about her story seemed all that magically real. So I can’t really comment on that part of it. It was just a damn good story, regardless of genre.

The Helsinki Affair – Anna Pitoniak
Hey, another book about generations discovering family secrets!

In this case a young CIA officer becomes one of the youngest station chiefs in the service when she correctly predicts a US Senator will be assassinated and her superior officer ignores her warnings. With her new position, she is tasked with tracking down connections between the killing and Russia. She learns that the senator was working with a Russian businessman to expose efforts by the Russian government to manipulate the US stock market while blackmailing US companies. And, in turn, she finds her dad, who was once a CIA agent and now works in the agency’s PR division, listed among people involved in the blackmail.

Uh oh.

As she unravels the Russian conspiracy and protects her source in Moscow, she learns a hidden secret about her father’s career, the truth of why her parents’ marriage ended, and we get a nice setup for a sequel.

The Family Chao – Lan Samantha Chang
You know, I read so many books that they seem to fall into certain patterns of general themes. This one slots into the “immigrant family coming to terms with generational changes, troubles assimilating, and the younger generation feeling disconnected to both worlds” camp. Doesn’t roll off the tongue, does it?

Here James, the son of Chinese immigrants, is returning to his small hometown in Wisconsin for his college winter break. He steps into a fraught situation between his parents, who have split up, and his father and oldest brother, who has been pushing to take over the family restaurant. The first half of the book tracks all the various tensions in James’ and his family’s lives. Then, smack in the middle, his dad dies when he is locked into the faulty freezer in their restaurant and the book turns into a pretty compelling mystery. Finally, it spools out an unexpected plot line where a family secret is revealed as the likely cause of the father’s death.

Again with the family secrets!

Chang also throws in elements of teenage sexual awakenings, parent-child dynamics, issues unique to small towns, economic disparities and the anxieties that come with them, and religious barriers. There is also a part of the eventual trial for the accused killer of James’ dad that contains an element that is highly ridiculous, but is used to show how arguments against immigrants are often nonsensical and based on fear and stereotypes rather than facts.

There’s a lot going into the story, and Chang makes it all work.

Bottoms Up And The Devil Laughs – Kerry Howley
Howley dives into the “Deep State,” that semi-mythical, mysterious part of our government that allegedly pulls all the strings, protects child sex traffickers and baby eaters, and torpedoed our last president’s efforts to reform our country in his image.

However, she does not look at it either from the MAGA perspective or as a “Well, actually…” explainer. Rather, she hones in on how, in the post 9/11 world, so much of society has bent over backwards to give the NSA and its various offshoots and related agencies almost unchecked access to information about our lives. The general public often participates willingly in allowing the details of our daily lives to be weaponized, if needed, against us. The spread of that data has severe consequences.

Eventually Howley settles on Reality Winner, an NSA translator, to show the real power of the Deep State. When Winner comes across documentation that shows that the Russians actively sought to undermine the 2016 election, she is disturbed that no one is talking about the evidence in the public sphere. Not the media, not the government, not countless other watchdogs. There are general claims that something went wrong, but the evidence she has seen is never used to justify those claims.

So she leaks it. And is eventually caught. Then she enters a Kafkaesque investigation and trial where her defense attorneys are not allowed to see the evidence against her because they are not cleared, even though the same evidence has been published on public websites. And then they can’t access those websites because it would endanger both their efforts to earn clearance and violate court orders against accessed leaked, classified data. And on and on.

The danger of the “Deep State,” Howley argues, is not that this shadow government is working to undo the acts of elected officials. Rather it is that these massive, largely uncoordinated elements of our system can be leveraged to investigate the personal lives of regular citizens, finding data that, freed from context, can make anyone look like a terrorist, terrorist sympathizer, or enemy of the state. And unless you want to totally unplug and live off the grid, there’s not much we can do about it.

Back in February I vowed to get my YouTube algorithm re-calibrated so it was sending me more good videos. Jumping into the car-buying process kick-started that process. It might be time to swing back the other way, as I only watched a few “normal” shows in April and my YT feed is overrun with car vids.

Movies, Shows, etc

Curb Your Enthusiasm, season 11
Five foot fence!

B+

Curb Your Enthusiasm, season 12
LD pretty much stuck the landing. I wasn’t sure where the season was going early on, but it slipped into gear in the middle and finished up pretty strong.

I did not like how the finale began. We’re supposed to believe that someone who has harped on societal niceties for 35 years isn’t going to turn his phone off or fasten his seatbelt when a plane takes off? That fit into the broader point of the finale, though: Larry is a terrible person. It was great bringing Jerry Seinfeld back. Any time I see David and Seinfeld interact I think of what it would have been like to see these two bounce ideas off each other back in their writing primes. The final image was just about perfect.

A-

Conan O’Brien Must Go
As you’ll see below, a lot of Conan content this month, mostly because of this new travel show. Every episode is great, but the segment where he learns about common Irish phrases is one of the best moments of the series.

A

Duran Duran: There’s Something You Should Know
My brother-in-music E$ recommended this. It was indeed pretty good. In fact, it might be the perfect, modern rock doc. It was brisk, checking in at exactly an hour. It ripped through the band’s history. Four of the five original members participated. There wasn’t too much attention to the band’s most recent albums. I would have liked to have seen more details of their prime years, when I’m guessing these dudes lived AMAZING lives. I’d rather a flick like this leave me wanting more than dragging on too long, though.

B+

NBA Playoffs
I only watched the Pacers closely, but had them on almost every night there was a game.

B+

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

Tyrese Haliburton, Robbie Avila, and the Heart of Indiana Basketball
A fun piece that covers a lot of the state of basketball in Indiana these days. Notably they miss Purdue, but the Boilers were in Ohio the weekend these guys visited.

Conan O’Brien Needs a Doctor While Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones
This is outstanding in every way. I laughed so hard I cried multiple times.

Andy Richter Coming Up Clutch Pt. III
Andy Richter’s Best Zingers & Quips Pt. II
Hilarious.

Dave responded to Jay’s “Don’t Blame Conan”
This “commentary” by David Letterman about the Tonight Show mess was terrific.

Can Our Merino Wool T-Shirt Handle Tasmania’s Most Rugged Challenges? 72 Hours: Tasmania, Australia
I’m ok with commercials like this that are just as much travel videos as product pushers.

How the UN is Holding Back the Sahara Desert
This is both awesome and, likely, a relatively cheap project. So I’m sure there are a lot of folks in the political world who want to stop funding projects like it.

Exploring Japanese Street Food and Local Surfing Spots | DIRT Japan Part 1: Kyushu
Incredible scenes and food.

DIRT Host Josh Rosen Unpacks His Essential Gear From His Alaska Adventure
Of course he has cool gear.

Cycling Iceland – 18 Days Bikepacking Iceland’s Ring Road
This journey, and Iceland, look incredible. But I think it would be even more incredible done in a car or SUV. But I’m also almost 53 years old.

STEP BROTHERS – Bloopers
Will Ferrell, Exotic Animal Expert
Don’t Ask Will Ferrell About Professor Feathers
Will Ferrell’s SNL Audition
Will Ferrell rabbit hole.

‘Something had to change’: Larry David gets candid on Morning Joe
The Moment Curb Your Enthusiasm Went From Pretty Good To Great
Larry David Stand-Up Comedy
How Larry David ALMOST Broke Seinfeld
LD rabbit hole.

HOW the HELL Is This Apocalyptic 1979 Anthem MORE Relevant TODAY than it was THEN?-Professor of Rock
TOBTM.

Community 38 Greatest Quotes
I’m not sure about 38 greatest, but these are pretty good. The comments might be even better.
Community having world class writing for 13 minutes straight
Algorithm gonna algorithm.

Dave Franco and Alison Brie Read Thirst Tweets
Dave Franco & Alison Brie Take a Couples Quiz
They are just precious.

Steve Carell making the whole cast break: The Office Bloopers
Has to be some Office content if I’m diving into other classic, TV comedy vids.

Is the iPhone “Illegal?”
I’m no attorney, but I find the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Apple to be quite weird. There are some parts that make sense, while others seem completely illogical. MKBHD’s views largely mirror mine.

Middle Kids Live at WNXP’s Sonic Cathedral
Good stuff.

Walking 90km to work changed my life
Beau Miles bullshit.

Emperor penguin chicks jump off a 50-foot cliff in Antarctica
I love penguins. I hate heights. So I’m conflicted here.

Norm Macdonald Constant Shitting on OJ Simpson
Norm Macdonald Constant Shitting on OJ Simpson Part 2
35 minutes of Norm McDonald destroying OJ.

Car Content

Lucid Air vs BMW i5 | Battle of Electric RWD Sedans
When my buddy drove me around in his Lucid, sadly he didn’t drive like this.

How the 2025 Lucid Gravity Rethinks the SUV for an EV Age
Not in my budget now or probably ever, but still cool to see where the high end of the market is headed.

How Chinese EV Giant BYD Is Taking On Tesla
There are some advantages to the Chinese market the US can’t compete with. But a decade of roughly half of our nation running away from EVs, in terms of political/economic policy and buying choice, has put us woefully behind and now we’re resorting to threatening to ban Chinese cars. Ain’t that America?

18-Month Timeline of the Hyundai/Kia/Genesis EV ICCU Recall Revealed
Maybe they’ve figured out their electrical issues?

I Drive The Taycan Turbo GT For The First Time! Porsche Dials Up Their EV Performance To 11
Sweet Jesus!

I Drive The Porsche Macan EV For The First Time!
If you want a slightly more refined Porsche drive in an electric platform.

How To Ruin Your Electric Car’s Battery – 3 Common Mistakes
A typical YouTube title that overstates things, but some good guidelines for EV owners. I won’t follow these as strictly since I am leasing and am not trying to get the battery to last 10 years.

Podcasts

The Vergecast: The TikTok ban and the iPhone monopoly
This is in my normal podcast rotation, although I don’t always get to it. This episode was terrific for explaining what’s going on with Apple and the Department of Justice, and TikTok and the US government as a whole.

What Kind of a Superpower Is India Becoming?
We think of Russia, China, and the mess in the Middle East as the most important geo-political challenges of the moment. India is fixin’ to buck its head, though, and I found this look at where they are and where they are headed super informative.

How One Small Company Saves Retro Tech
I loved this look at Retrospekt, a company that refurbs and resells old technology products. What a great journey for the owners. Also I listened to this in podcast form, but this link is to the YouTube video.

Chart Week: April 30, 1983
Song: “Back On The Chain Gang” – The Pretenders
Chart Position: #37, 21st week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for three weeks in March and April.

The Pretenders were on the verge of big things in 1982. They already had a #1 hit in the UK – 1979’s “Brass In Pocket,” which maxed out at #14 in the US – and were generally beloved by critics. They somehow managed to dip a toe in almost every genre of rock without being relegated to a single camp. They had roots in the London punk scene of the late Seventies, but weren’t punk. They were contemporaries of the first generation of post-punkers, New Wavers, and New Romantics, but didn’t fit squarely into any of those schools. They stood next early College Rock bands like R.E.M. but weren’t really college rock. They had a healthy dose of 1960s jangle pop to their sound, and could have fit into the Paisley Underground scene had they come up in LA. But they weren’t from LA. Nor were they true mainstream rockers.

That difficulty in pigeonholing them resulted in broad appeal that was ripe for capitalizing upon when they started making their third LP.

In mid–1982 the band, specifically lead singer and lyricist Chrissie Hynde and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, began to hash out ideas for new songs. Hynde had one centered on finding a photo of her boyfriend, Kinks lead singer Ray Davies, and the feelings that came with it. The couple had a tumultuous romance, but Hynde was newly pregnant and hoped that would salvage their relationship. Yet she still thought back to how things were better when they had first met.

Hynde and Honeyman-Scott tinkered with the words and arrangement and knew they were onto something. They were excited about recording it with the rest of the band.

One problem. Pretenders bass player Pete Farndon had fallen deep into heroin addiction. He had turned irritable and quarrelsome towards his bandmates. Sensing that the upcoming recording sessions would be brutal and unproductive because of Farndon’s behavior, Honeyman-Scott laid down an ultimatum: either sack Farndon or he would leave.

On July 14, 1982 the band fired Farndon.

As upsetting as that was, something worse came hours later.

On July 16, Honeyman-Scott died of an accidental overdose.

In two days, half of the original Pretenders lineup was gone.

Most people would have retreated from the world to deal with the immense pain they were experiencing. Not Hynde. She leaned on her music.

On July 20, 1982, she and drummer Martin Chambers entered the AIR Studios in London and recorded “Back On The Chain Gang” with help from several friends, including Big Country’s Tony Butler on bass. What began as an ode to the early days of her romance with Davies turned into an elegy for Honeyman-Scott.

There is an immediate sense of melancholy in Hynde’s opening riff. I think it comes from the languid, contemplative tempo she plays at. You can feel the sadness that must have been overwhelming her at the time. Once I knew the full story behind the song, I always imagined her taking a long, deep breath before she hit the first chord, steeling herself against the emotions that were sure to swell up.

She adds to that mournful vibe with the “Oh oh oh ohs” that are sprinkled through the tune. Hynde is one of the great, badass, female rockers of all time. I wouldn’t say she was ever as vocally aggressive as her contemporary Joan Jett, but she was certainly as assertive. The restraint she used in “Back On The Chain Gang” was wonderful, conveying all the emotions she was going through without over doing it. The real genius of her performance is that it doesn’t sound as though it recorded less than a week after her band seemed to fall apart. It sounds like she is a year or two out, looking back on what happened, and trying to make sense of it all.

The song peaks with an emotional section where the bridge transitions into the final verse.

First, Hynde sings this:

But I’ll die as I stand here today knowing that deep in my heart
They’ll fall to ruin one day for making us part

Her restraint falls momentarily, with her voice breaking as she stretches out the final word.

Then there is that magical line in the next verse. After repeating “I found a picture of you,” she adds:

Those were the happiest days of my life

A truly heart-wrenching, soul-destroying choice of words. You don’t have to know about the state of her partnership with Davies, the health of her band, or the loss of one of her best friends to get all the feels from that line. The “Oh oh oh ohs” hit harder in the final verse, too.

When asked a few years later about how she could record music so soon after experiencing so much pain, Hynde responded, “What else were we going to do? Stay at home and be miserable, or go into the studio and do what we dig and be miserable?” That idea, jumping back into the grind when faced with calamity, was as much the theme of the song as celebrating Honeyman-Scott

Despite everything falling apart around her, Hynde got back on the chain gang. The result was the best song of her career. 9/10

As if all that weren’t enough, as the song was falling from its US chart peak, there was more terrible news. On April 13, Farndon was found dead after overdosing and drowning in a bathtub.

“Back On The Chain Gang” was released as a single in late 1982. Somewhat strangely, the album it was featured on, Learning to Crawl, was not released until early 1984. Included on that LP was another ode to Honeyman-Scott, “2000 Miles.” I wouldn’t say it is a holiday classic; it is far too depressing to get much radio airplay. Coldplay did a version in the early 2000s that revived it a bit. KT Tunstall’s slightly less sad version is in all my Spotify holiday playlists.

How about this amazing rendition of the song from the Covid days. Hynde was nearly 70 and still had it.

Some quick weekend notes. I’m going to try to really let the content flow this week. So be prepared either to read a lot or be disappointed if I only crank out a couple posts.

Home For The Summer

I went down to Cincinnati Friday morning to pack up M for the summer. She had called me Thursday night to let me know that in addition to being the day a lot of the dorm kids were leaving, UC was hosting two big graduation events Friday.

Urban campus + limited parking + people moving out of dorms + thousands of extra people on campus for graduation = ???

It ended up being not as bad as I feared. I thought I was going to have to park well away from her dorm and then we’d have to huff it several blocks to drag all her crap to the car. Right when I got to the front of her dorm, though, a police officer directed me to a spot right across the street. He even held traffic so I could spin around and pull in! The only downside was once we were done, we had to wait about 20 minutes for traffic to clear to get out of our spot. But at least we didn’t have to walk blocks.

Move-out was pretty easy. Her roommate had gone home the previous weekend, and I had taken a load of stuff home from L’s basketball games last week, so her room was fairly empty. Thursday night S suggested I take her Telluride so I had plenty of room to load everything. I scoffed at that, saying she didn’t realize how much cargo space the Model Y has. I admit there was a moment Friday when I wasn’t convinced we were going to squeeze everything in. But we managed.

We stopped for her last lunch in Ohio for four months then headed home.

She’s been submitting job applications online for several weeks without any bites. She was scheduled for jury duty starting today. When she called last night to get her status, she was cleared. So her task for this week is to complete some applications in person. S gave me instructions not to complete getting M a car until she’s got a job. I told her C has first dibs on the Mazda if we don’t have a fourth car when the Audi goes back, so hopefully that lights a fire under her ass. She already helped one of her aunts do some stuff, but she needs a real job.

She was the first of her high school friends to get home for the summer. A friend who goes to Pepperdine got home Saturday night. One who went to the College of Charleston arrived Sunday. The bulk of the kids who went to public schools will trickle in over the next 10 days.

Strangely, as we were waiting for traffic to clear Friday, I got notifications from CHS that both C and L had earned High Honors for the year. With a month of school left. Bizarre. Not sure if this was an error and was supposed to just cover the third quarter. The certificates in the emails clearly noted the entire academic year. We told them this doesn’t mean they can slack off for the last month.

Pacers

What a weekend!

Friday night’s game three could not have been more exciting. The Pacers jumped out to an early 19-point lead, hitting just about everything they shot. They were up 12 at the half before a 5–0 run extended that to back to 17. The Bucks methodically sliced into that margin, finally taking the lead late in the fourth quarter. Some back-and-forth, including a ridiculous Khris Middleton shot to send the game to overtime. Another crazy Middleton 3 with about five seconds left in OT tied it again. Then Tyrese Haliburton torched Patrick Beverly for the game-winning shot.

Sunday, no Dame Lillard, Beverly got injured early, and Bobby Portis was ejected in the first half. Yet the Bucks played their asses off and stayed in it until a couple huge Pacers runs after halftime broke the game open. Even then, the Bucks trimmed a 17-point lead to six at one point. Myles Turner might have played his two best games as a Pacer over the weekend to key the wins. And now the Pacers are one win away from advancing, with both Giannis’ and Dame’s status in doubt going forward.

HS Hoops

L didn’t have any games this weekend. But she did go to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony with several of her teammates Saturday to watch their head coach get put into the hall. That was kind of cool. L and her teammates all snuck out after about 90 minutes as there were A LOT of speeches and they were more interested in doing silly high school girl stuff than listen to old people talk.

Weather

Man, it suddenly got really nice. We kicked the air on Sunday because it was warm and muggy. The forecast ahead looks great. We are opening the pool next Monday. I probably should have scheduled that a week earlier.

Let’s start with a fantastic Q&A with Jerry Seinfeld.

The great joy to me is: I’m making this up, but let me see if I can make it sound like it makes sense to me. That’s what comedy is to me. They know I’m lying from the first line, and they don’t care.

Jerry Seinfeld Says Movies Are Over. Here’s Why He Made One Anyway

I found this summary of how and why Congress actually seemed to work like a functioning body for a few days recently really informative and interesting. Especially this section. Another reminder of how extreme gerrymandering hurts our political system far more than creating “safe” districts for the party in power.

…even as emotional hatred towards the other party (“affective polarization”) has skyrocketed, “ideological polarization” — the distance between Democratic and Republican voters on the issues — has barely grown.

Unlike in Congress, where ideological polarization has increased to the point that members of the two parties almost always vote in two distinct blobs (see above), a plurality of Americans still hold a mix of liberal and conservative views.

The week fluidity returned to Congress

Obligatory share of some terrific science news.

NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

Your mileage may vary, but I geeked out over this insider look at one of the first in-car navigation systems. As impressive as our current technology is – our vehicle and phones are connecting to outer space to keep us on the correct route! – it is often more impressive to see how things were accomplished in less advanced times.

A Curious Phenomenon Called ‘Etak’

This piece focuses on how our mobile phones aren’t changing as much, year-to-year, as they used to and what that means for Apple’s business model. That’s true for all technology. Where you almost had to get a new laptop every two years not that long ago, now a good one will last you half a decade. Much of that is because way more of what we do is on the web rather than in apps, and the value of and need for highly-specced machines is much more limited.

As much as Apple would like us to think otherwise, this is where we are: iPhones are just phones. To most people — even to someone who spends all day selling them — they’re just a tool, and getting a new one feels like an inevitability, not an event. Something about as exciting as upgrading your washing machine.

The walls of Apple’s garden are tumbling down

I’ll admit that I’ve never been a KISS fan, even ironically. Yet I’m still flabbergasted they could sell their catalog for over $300 million in 2024. Can you really put their two or three songs that resonate with the general public into enough movies, shows, and ads, count on streaming revenue, and sell enough clothing to justify that outlay?

Kiss sells catalog, brand name and IP. Gene Simmons assures fans it is a ‘collaboration’