Friday Playlist

Between the holiday weekend and me spending mornings watching the Tour de France, I’ve been a little slower on getting through the music this week. I think I can still come up with a few decent ones to share with y’all.

“Summertime” – The Sundays
Pure pop genius.

“Paint A Picture” – The Hives
Yes, it is those Hives, back for more nonsense.

“Stay Out Of Place” – Idlewild
Speaking of bands that first broke out in the early part of the new millennium, these Scots are also back with new music. No where near their best, but I will always give them music a chance.

“All The World” – Pale Fire
Holy crap, these guys sound like classic Idlewild! And they are Scottish, too! This is from their 2020 album Husbands.

“Bag of Bones” – Lord Huron
Steven Hyden has a great piece on Uproxx about how Lord Huron might be the best example of a “popular but not famous” band at the moment. They sure don’t drift from the sound that made them famous.

“Insulin” – Black Honey
In addition to the latest shoegaze revival, can we also admit there’s a strong ‘90s alt rock revival thing going on? It seems like I’m playing a song that could easily be from 1995 every couple of weeks.

“Lonely Town” – Steve Queralt & Emma Anderson
Queralt is in Ride. Anderson was in Lush. This track manages to sound like both bands, which isn’t that big of a stretch since both were among the giants of the original British shoegaze movement.

“Cropduster” – Pearl Jam
The old joke about Pearl Jam was that they couldn’t keep a drummer. Over their first eight years, they had four official drummers and two unofficial, temporary ones.[1] Then in 1998, when Soundgarden was on hiatus, Matt Cameron filled in on tour when Jack Irons was unable to play. When Irons decided he did not want to tour anymore, Cameron became a permanent member of Pearl Jam.

As I stood in line to get lunch at IU orientation on Monday, I received an email from the band saying that Cameron was leaving. Reasons were not given. There was speculation he had tired of the band’s touring cycle, or that he was just interested in working on his own projects while staying close to home. Chris Cornell’s widow finally reached an agreement with his former bandmates and there is expected to be a new album of leftover Soundgarden songs, so perhaps he is focused on that. He gave Pearl Jam 27 years. I think he’s earned the right to do what he wants. Like so many fans, I hope Cameron isn’t facing some kind of major health issue.

He wasn’t my favorite drummer; I’ve said many times I found his style too clinical and precise, and I thought his best playing was on their last album when he seemed to let loose more. But if he was the big brother they needed to get out of the Nineties alive, it was worth it. I don’t think rest of the band are ready to stop touring, so it will be interesting to see who they bring in next.

Props to Matt. He had several writing credits, this is my favorite of them.

“Sunchaser” – Arc de Soleil
This cat is Swedish. His music is very reminiscent of Khruangbin’s.

“Atlas Drowned” – Gang of Youths
I was listening to some GoY this week and wondered what they were up to. My internet sleuthing suggests they may be taking a long sabbatical before they begin work on their next album. And then they are infamous for taking a long time once they get into the studio. That’s a bummer. To you bells in the curve, I will love you but love not the powers you serve.


  1. Matt Cameron played on some of the early demos that were sent to Eddie Vedder by Jack Irons before Eddie was invited to join the band. And Dave Grohl filled in temporarily during a set of dates in Australia in the ’96–97 range when Irons had some health issues and Foo Fighters were serving as the opening act. That would have been a hell of a show!  ↩

Greatest Songs Of The Century (So Far)

It’s been 12 years since I’ve updated my Favorite Songs of All Time list. Which seems like a crime for someone like me: a music freak with lots of free time and a blog. I’ve thought about it a lot, trust me. I’ve reached the point in my life, though, where the return on that process doesn’t seem to justify the effort that would go into it. Streaming has messed with my head too, and I just don’t listen to the old songs as often as I used to, so I think I’m worried I would need to scrap big parts of the 2013 list if I ever jumped back into it.

However, last week The Bridge, 90.9 FM in Kansas City, which I stream often, played their top 909 songs of the century (so far), based on listener voting. I streamed off-and-on all week, but really locked in Friday evening, somewhere around #50, after all our holiday guests had left. It’s amazing how fast you can go through a countdown when there aren’t commercials!

That experience inspired me to crank out my own Best of the 2000s list. Which, again, seemed daunting. I gave myself a couple rules to simplify the task. First, I would only select songs from my annual Best Of lists. Second, for the years I did not make a Favorites list, I would only do a quick glance at my Apple Music catalog, The Bridge’s list, and a brief search of the Internet to make sure I was including anything important for those years. I wasn’t going to spend hours on 2000–03. Finally, I would try to keep the descriptions of each song brief.

(Several of these appeared on The Bridge’s countdown, so I’ll put that number in parenthesis.)

25 – “Wreckage” – Pearl Jam
I’ll sneak this in at 25, as recency bias is still in play, but after spending most of this century making good but rarely great music, Pearl Jam found a new path in 2024 and it paid off with one of the best songs of their entire careers. I still listen to it often.

24 – “Can’t Do Much” – Waxahatchee
Katie Crutchfield is an American treasure.

23 – “The House That Heaven Built” – Japandroids (#294)
Straight ahead, roaring, beer drinking, gasoline burning, rock ’n’ roll.

22 – “American English” – Idlewild
True story: one of the first nights that S worked a 24-hour shift in the summer of 2003, after we had gotten married and moved to Indy, I listened to this over-and-over-and-over. I loved it so much I was sure there had to be some kind of hidden meaning in it. Turned out it was just a great song, and also my introduction to Scottish indie rock.

21 – “Bohemian Like You” – Dandy Warhols (#271)
Looking back this may have been the first, big indie rock song I ever loved.

20 – “Catch the Sun” – Doves
Then again, I heard this a few months earlier in 2000, so this would be first.

19 – “Pynk” – Janelle Monáe featuring Grimes (#669)
I’m not sure that any artist this century has been as successful making insanely ambitious music as Ms. Monáe.

18 – “Believe” – Amen Dunes
There were a couple better known and possibly more deserving songs that could have filled this spot. None of them have the hold on me this song has.

17 – “Anything But Me” – MUNA
The best indie song that is sneakily a straight pop song of the century.

16 – “For Nancy (’Cos It Already Is)” – Pete Yorn
Musicforthemorningafter was the first great album of the century, and maybe the first new album I ever downloaded in full from “file sharing” sites and then burned onto a CD-R. Ah, nostalgia! This absolute banger was the first thing I heard from that album, on the Music Choice channels on my cable TV package.

15 – “Motion Sickness” – Phoebe Bridgers (#93)
Phoebe is our Indie Rock Queen, and this is the song that will likely stand above everything else she does in her career.

14 – “Call Your Girlfriend” – Robyn (#199)
Any one of three Robyn songs could have been here, but this wins thanks to perhaps the greatest video of the century.

13 – “Stacking Chairs” – Middle Kids
Marriage is hard. This song is a reminder that sometimes the best way to tell your partner that you love them and will always be there for them is through a simple act of helping to clean up after a party.

12 – “Hey Ya!” – Outkast (#2)
The greatest crossover song of the 21st Century. You heard it on pop stations, Black stations, and rock stations, saw the video on MTV. It was everywhere. And, at least to me, it never got old. This was #2 on The Bridge’s countdown.

11 – “Wild” – Spoon (They had 10 songs on the list, but somehow this didn’t make it.)
The best song from the most consistent and enduring indie rock band of the last 30 years.

10 – Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand (#25)
What an amazingly awesomely arranged song.

9 – “Ball & A Biscuit” – The White Stripes
OK, allow me to brag for a moment. When The Bridge started their countdown, I thought ahead to what might possibly be the #1 song. Their playlist leans to the alt/indie rock side of the spectrum, although what makes them so great is how they play plenty of modern soul, thoughtful hip hop, a smattering of enlightened country, and plenty of classics that have influenced all those modern genres. I gave the subject about 30 seconds of consideration before landing on what I thought would be the top song.

When they got to #1 sometime around 10 PM eastern Friday, my guess was confirmed: “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes. It was so obvious! I told S and she was whatever the exact opposite of impressed was. Oh well…

Anyway, “SNA” is a GREAT song. But as my brother in music E$ put it, it would be better if we had all heard it 10,000 fewer times. And it’s not even the best song on the album it comes from. This is that song.

8 – “Phantom Limb” – The Shins (#160)
The most beautiful song of the century.

7- “Mistaken For Strangers” – The National (#213)
The most cinematic song of the century.

6- “Float On” – Modest Mouse (#6)
This was the song I was listening to when S’s water broke the night before M was born and we officially became parents. Good thing it is a jam!

5 – The Rat – The Walkmen (#206)
Anger kind of went out once Korn and bands of that ilk ruined it in the late 90s. This is the best angry song of this century, though, a lament of both a fractured relationship and what that relationship cost the narrator.

4 – The Gold – Manchester Orchestra (#530)
The moment MO figured out if they dialed everything back just a touch, their music worked better than when everything was pushed to 11.

3 – “Stuck Between Stations” – The Hold Steady (#164)
I had dabbled a bit in The Hold Steady’s music before they released Boys and Girls In America in 2006. Notably “You Little Hoodrat Friend,” one of the key songs that helped guide me into the indie rock world. But the first time I heard this? It blew me away with its literacy, its humor, and its pure, American, bar-band rock.

2 – “Red Eyes” – The War on Drugs (#170)
Another band I could throw a handful of songs into a hat and be happy with any I selected. This is the song that launched TWOD’s ascent from esoteric indie rock darlings into the mainstream of the indie rock world.

1 – “The Modern Leper” – Frightened Rabbit
A song, and an album, that really fucked me up. In the best possible way. And continued doing so for years. Until the pain that birthed them became too much for Scott Hutchison and they took on a whole other level of fucked up-ish-ness.

Two other of my annual #1’s made the Bridge’s list:
2009 #1 “Whirring” – Joy Formidable was #309
2016 #1 “Pain” – The War on Drugs was #153

Holiday Weekend Notes

C and I are off to Bloomington early Monday morning for her IU orientation, thus the Sunday evening post. Our holiday weekend was a little less chaotic than in recent years, so I’ll throw in some other stuff that happened over the past week as well.


Holiday Weekend

Our Fourth was fairly laid back, at least compared to recent years. We only had 15 relatives over, and just two of the young nephews were here so the pool was all theirs. I have a new Blackstone griddle and used it to cook burgers, brats, and hot dogs. I thought they all turned out pretty good, and it was much easier than past years when I tried to do the same meal on a combination of a pellet smoker and charcoal grill.

It was funny looking back at pictures of July 4’s past, and seeing how we had rather casual gatherings at other people’s houses, mostly S’s dad and stepmom’s, until 2012 when we bought our lake house. For the next six years holidays were always down there.[1] After a year’s break when we moved and had an unfinished backyard, starting in 2019 our pool became holiday central. Our girls don’t really remember the gatherings that didn’t involve water.

The girls were all out with friends in the evening and made it home safely.

Saturday evening S and I went to dinner with some friends.

Sunday the whole family got together with S’s group of best medical school friends for the first time in ages. We had a long ride on the hosts’ boat after dinner, which was cut a little short when we noticed storms were headed our way. We made it home before some nice, long, loud thunderstorms boomed for a couple hours. We needed the rain and it looks like the storms will knock the heat down for at least a couple days.


Pacers/Myles Turner

Wednesday I was sitting down to eat my lunch when I saw the shocking news that Myles Turner had signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. It was a shock because all indications were that he was close to re-signing with the Pacers, who were willing to pay the luxury tax to keep him. I was certainly surprised, even if I suggested a week earlier that keeping him wasn’t the sure thing it seemed to be before Tyrese Haliburton’s injury.

Also shocking was how the move was panned for both teams by most NBA analysts. Usually at least one side is the winner, but it didn’t seem so in this case.

In order to sign Turner, the Bucks waived and “stretched” Dame Lillard’s contact. Meaning they took the two years of money they still owed him and spread it across five years. So they will be paying Turner an average of $26 million over the next four years, and have a cap hit of $22.5 million over five years for Lillard’s contract. Which means they are effectively paying Myles $48.5 million over the life of his contract. Myles is a nice player, but he ain’t worth $48M. The deal also almost completely hamstrings the Bucks from making further moves, which is important because they don’t have a true point guard on the roster at the moment.

Very strange.

Then the Pacers took heat for seemingly letting Turner walk simply to avoid paying the luxury tax. It’s hard enough to get free agents to come to Indianapolis in the first place, a task made harder as the team has a reputation for being frugal. Letting Turner go seemed to reinforce that view. One analyst suggested letting Myles walk would cause a mutiny amongst the rest of the team, which I thought was a little extreme.

Our idiot local sports columnist, who doesn’t know much about how NBA contracts work, suggested that Turner and his agent were the bad guys here, and that they lied about the Pacers not being willing to pay the tax. He also claimed the Pacers had offered a lot more than Turner was saying.

Which misses the point that the Bucks still offered more than whatever the Pacers’ final offer was. For some reason us Midwesterners always think our best players should take hometown discounts to stay with our teams[2] Yes, Myles Turner has made a ridiculous amount of money in his life. But why should he, or any other player, not take the biggest contract offered them?

Anyway, whatever the Pacers’ motivations, I totally get the move. Myles is on the back end of his career, turning 30 this year, and has shown some minor decline. This past season he was a nearly 40% 3-point shooter when Haliburton was on the court. In contrast, he wasn’t even a 30% shooter when Hali was sitting. Maybe those stabilize over the course of a season, but with Hali out all of next year, the argument to let Myles walk makes more sense.

This also means the Pacers don’t have to make a decision on Bennedict Mathurin this summer. They can let him play, likely as a starter, next season, see if his game improves/messes better with the Pacers system, and then extend or trade him next summer.

Biggest of all, next year’s draft is supposed to be very deep, with at least three franchise building block players at the top. With the new flattened lottery odds, you don’t have to be terrible to sneak into the top three. See Dallas this year. So let your center walk, play without your best player all season, and then hope the first round pick you re-acquired a month ago turns into a mega lottery ticket in the 2026 draft.

I get why some Pacers fans are pissed. But this is a completely defensible move from both Myles Turner’s and the Pacers’ perspectives. There are no true bad guys here.

I also laughed when I turned on the local news Saturday and they said there was big, breaking Pacers news! Yep, Indiana traded for Memphis backup center Jay Huff. Maybe they were just being puny, since Huff is 7’1”. But this is not a franchise altering trade. Hell, I didn’t even know Huff was in the NBA.


M’s Adventures

M was home for the weekend – and is actually working from our house Monday because she had a dentist appointment in the morning – but her real fun was the weekend before the holiday. She flew to the Bay Area to visit her sorority “little,” who lives in San Jose. It seems like they had a great time and she got to see almost everything she wanted to see, although the marine layer was thick so the Golden Gate Bridge was totally socked in and their trip to the beach in Santa Cruz wasn’t filled with sunshine.

It was a bit of a hassle to get there, though. Her first flight out of Cincinnati was delayed because of both storms near the airport, and storms between Cincy and Denver, where her first leg ended. Before she had taken off she got a message from Southwest saying she would not make her connection and that they had re-booked her on a new flight…the next morning. Keep in mind she was traveling alone, and for the first time no less!

Luckily she has an aunt that lives in Denver. S made a call and Aunt K was thrilled for M to come spend the night.

However, I was tracking M’s flight and noticed the arrival time in Denver kept moving up. And the flight to SFO kept getting delayed. There was a chance she would make it. Sure enough rather than fly nearly to Texas to get around storms, the pilots found a gap in the storms over Kansas, and they landed nearly on time.

I had already texted M that she would probably have to Uber to her aunt’s house. When she was on the ground and responded I told her that there was a chance she might make her second flight. She got very excited. And then they sat on the tarmac for at least 30 minutes before they pulled to the gate…just as the SFO flight was pulling away from its gate.

Oh well.

Turns out they were sitting on the tarmac so the ground crew could pull bags for people who were booked on other flights, including M even though she had been rebooked. Sometimes the right hand doesn’t talk to the left at Southwest. So she stood around for another half hour waiting for her bag and then had to go ask for assistance and was told her bag was on its way to California. Egad. She was a little flustered.

By now it was close to midnight in Denver, close to 2:00 AM to her body. Once she was in her Uber I went to bed and S woke up to track her progress. M made it safely to her aunt’s house just after 3:00 AM Eastern. She was thoroughly wiped out, but at least she didn’t have to sleep in the airport. We had no idea if she could have checked into a hotel if we found her a room since she’s only 20.

She got a decent night’s sleep and then her uncle and cousin drove her back to DEN the next morning for her delayed trip into SFO. She was excited that her bag was waiting at the Southwest office for her and she didn’t have to wait for it to come out on the carousel.[3]

A bummer that cut half a day off her time in Cali, but she has a story! And the rest of the weekend was great.


TdF

The Tour de France started Saturday. I doubt any of you care about that. Just in case anyone does have any interest in this year’s race, this is a hilarious and thorough accounting of each team and the primary contenders.

An entirely vibes-based guide to the 2025 Tour de France


  1. Or at least the closest weekend was. A few years, when the Fourth was mid-week, we stayed home and went to a local pool on the 4th and saved the family lake gathering for the weekend.  ↩
  2. Of course Myles is staying in the Midwest, so it’s not like he’s going to LA or New York.  ↩
  3. As a good dad I told her she probably should have reduced her toiletries since she was just going for a weekend and not checked a bag. This is why we are here.  ↩

Independence Day Playlist

It’s one of my favorite music days of the year! For the seventh time, I present my Independence Day playlist!

As a reminder, these aren’t necessarily patriotic songs, nor ones that have anything to do with this holiday, other than their titles. The first edition back in 2019 included 11 songs. With one addition this year – can you find it? – we are up to 22 songs. It’s not really made for backyard parties, but more for the getting ready before the crowd comes moments, when things are a little quieter and you are more reflective.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Reader’s Notebook, 7/2/25

My Documents – Kevin Nguyen
Books like this can be unsettling. It is about a fictional moment in modern America, but through the worst kind of serendipity, lines up with real events we are seeing on the news these days.

The book follows an extended Vietnamese-American family that crosses several generations, specifically a set of cousins. One set of the cousins have a Vietnamese mother and appear Asian. The other have a white mother and have a less pronounced, more racially ambiguous appearance.

After a series of terrorist attacks in the US are discovered to be the coordinated acts by middle aged, Vietnamese-American men, the government rounds up nearly all Vietnamese-Americans and sends them to camps. Those that can pass as American are often overlooked. Thus the story splits, with most of the overtly Asian cousins being sent to camps and those who can “pass” being left among the general population. Via a secret network that gets goods and information in and out of the camps, two of the cousins work together to get the real story of what is happening inside the camps into the mainstream media.

Good thing the idea of our government setting up prison camps inside our own borders that are used to house specific ethnic groups is something that can only happen in a novel, right?


The Guards – Ken Bruen
Years ago I read a couple Ken Bruen novels. I keep seeing his name pop up on various crime novel lists, especially his Jack Taylor series. However, the early books in that series are not available at the Indy library so I never got into it.

Until I decided to order a few of the books from a used book store. This is where it all starts, and it is gritty, terse, and very Irish. I’ll be sticking with it. Also rip to Bruen, who died earlier this year.


Beautyland – Marie-Helene Bertino
I LOVED this book. Despite that, it’s a bit hard to explain.

Adina is born in Philadelphia at the same moment Voyager 1 is launched in 1977. It’s soon apparent she is not a normal kid. When she is given an old fax machine as a toy a few years later, she sends a message to her own phone number. Surprisingly, she gets a response, telling her to send more. In that moment she realizes she is an alien assigned to send observations of life on earth back to her home planet, via that fax machine.

We follow Adina through her life. It is an interesting journey, to understate things. She doesn’t always fit in with the people around her, but that never really bothers her. She just keeps sending her faxes. And occasionally probing for information on who she really is, where she comes from, and when the people on her home planet will come to retrieve her.

When I already like a book and it has a satisfying ending, that is like an extra large cherry on top for me. Bertino absolutely nails the ending here. I went back and read the closing paragraphs several times.

One reason I think I really connected with this so much is that there were some similarities between Adina’s childhood and mine. My parents split up later than hers did, and with less trauma, but some of the stuff she went through mirrored the years just after my parents’ divorce. She is younger than me, but there were plenty of common cultural touch points in her childhood and mine. And I also sympathized with being smart and a little socially awkward and digging holes for yourself because of that combination of traits. Although Adina is way smarter than I ever was.


Nöthin’ But A Good Time – Tom Beaujour & Richard Bienstock
I wasn’t super into heavy metal in the 1980s. I liked plenty of metal singles, the ones that cracked the Top 40, from bands like Ratt and Scorpions and Twisted Sister and Mötley Crüe and so on. I certainly enjoyed their videos, which often featured scantily clad women. I even owned a few albums by those bands. But I was never all into the scene.

So why would I read a book about that era? Because it was the most outrageous, unhinged, sin-laden part of the music world at the time, and all those bands had some SERIOUS stories. Which made this a highly entertaining, if sometimes off-color, read.

One takeaway that had nothing to do with the actual music or bands was how little music scenes pop up all the time, and get geographic centers where like minded kids gravitate to, and then if the scene takes off the whole thing get quickly overexposed. Name a sub-genre that started selling singles and albums and this always happens. It certainly did with the hair metal scene in LA.

It was also interesting what bands got pulled into this book. It was mostly LA bands, but also included east coasters like Twisted Sister and Cinderella. But Van Halen were only viewed as big brothers, never actually part of the scene. Bon Jovi gets a lot of coverage for shepherding bands like Cinderella and Skid Row into the mainstream, but there’s not a page about that band’s success despite them being the biggest band of that era. Although then the argument becomes was Bon Jovi hair metal, and what bands do and don’t fit that category. Maybe it came down to what bands the authors had relationships with, and which ones would talk to them.

June Media

Movies, Shows, etc

NBA Playoffs
A+, until Hali blew out his achilles.

Your Friends and Neighbors
I think I have this complaint about all but the best modern, streaming dramedies: there were the wrong number of episodes. Some shows go on two episodes too long, others have two too few. It’s a tough needle to thread. I felt like this show had, maybe, 1.5 too many entires. So close but the middle part became a little too trashy, modern soap-ish and could have been trimmed. And as a show where almost every person in it is terrible, those sections where it was not as compelling really stuck out. I also wondered if this show really knew what it wanted to be. It pin-balled between noir-ish drama, schlocky soap, standard murder mystery, and comedy. I think you can do all that successfully if the writing is a little more dialed in and the overall direction of the show more confident. Both those aspects get like an 80 so it came across as unfocused.

All that makes it sound like I didn’t like this. I did. It was funny when it tried. A solid cast around the always good Jon Hamm. We watched it over three nights and I was never reluctant to watch the next one.

B

Oceans 11
Black Bag
Soderbergh weekend! A re-watch of Ocean’s on S’s suggesting, then followed it up with his latest movie the next night. Ocean’s never disappoints. I had heard great things about Black Bag but it was a little disappointing to me, although perhaps my expectations were wrong. Too restrained and subtle even if it did build to an exciting climactic scene. No action and some of the drama-building felt navel gazey in the early stages. I wonder if I hadn’t seen it listed as the best action movie of the year I would have approached it differently.

A, B

The Accountant
I had heard at some point this was decent, and with the sequel out figured it was worth checking out. I couldn’t get past the fact a boy with autism and anger issues was turned into a killing machine by his dad, and that’s supposed to be cool?

B-

Heart of Pearl
Wow, what a story. Former Jayhawk and Pacer Scot Pollard received a new heart just over a year ago. I knew a lot of that story. Seeing him go through the process and learning more about his background was pretty impactful. But seeing him meet his donor’s family…whoo. S and I watched together and that scene hit us both pretty hard. Sign up to be an organ donor.

A

The Bear, season four
See here.

A-

Van Halen – Live at the Capitol Centre 1982 First Night
I didn’t watch this whole thing. A combination of dodgy video and bad sound made it difficult to watch. Plus, come on, Dave is doing the minimum here. Wait, let me re-state: he’s doing the bare minimum as a vocalist. Plus his monologues were strange and cringey. But I guess if I was under the influence and in 1982, this would have made more sense.

B+

Titan: The OceanGate Disaster
The latest addition to the list of filthy rich white guy who ignores people who tell him his ideas are going to get people killed.

B+


Shorts, YouTubes, etc

Eddie Murphy Does The Greatest Tracy Morgan Impression
I never skip Eddie doing Tracy.

Joshua Jackson Shares a Great George Clooney ‘Ocean’s 11’ Story | The Rich Eisen Show
Great Clooney story with a bonus incredible Soderbergh story.

Picking up bottles and cans to pay for a lift
Possibly the silliest Beau Miles bullshit ever.

It took me 5 years and $92 to finish this cabin
Whereas this is classic Beau Miles bullshit.

DRIVING AROUND THE WORLD | Japan to Hawaii
All I could think while watching this was that those kids probably aren’t vaccinated against anything. I could be wrong, but that was my thought.

Island Hopping Around Canada in our Camper
A Few Nights in an Off Grid Floating Cabin
I continue to be jealous of this couple.

Prince Finally Revealed The 6 Bands He Hated The Most!
Musical geniuses pissing on other artists is always fresh.

John C. Reilly Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters
Not sure what is better, Reilly’s comments or his outfit.

No Laying Up: Las Vegas
I’m not playing golf but I’ll still watch these guys’ travel series.

Why doesn’t France own the Channel Islands?
Very good question.

Alessandro Del Piero – Best Goals EVER
I love when the algorithm spits out stuff like this. Del Piero was my favorite Italian soccer player during the years I followed that closely. It’s cool how his career spanned the range from when you relied on grainy video to perfect HD.

15 Times Will Ferrell Broke Other Actors On Set
Only 15 times?

EXPERIMENT : HIGH PRESSURE WASHER 10000 PSI VS FRUITS
David Letterman would be proud.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere | Official Trailer
This is me, sitting up in my seat, showing interest.

Oreo CEO: Stop Making New Oreos
Have you seen the Selena Gomez Oreos? What the hell is that? We have an Oreo freak in the house and she agrees any variations other than the original are stupid.

Living Colour: Tiny Desk Concert
Fantastic.

Johnny Brunet
Last week I added a Blackstone griddle to my outdoor cooking setup. Since its arrival I’ve watched a lot of videos on how to season it, how to care for it, recipes, etc. This guy’s site is the best of the bunch.

Which Corvette is Best Corvette?
I watched this thinking it would be something my stepdad liked. I’m not sure if he would have liked this or not, but the whole weird bit made me laugh.


Car Content

First time in 17 months I didn’t watch a car review video.


Photography

Fujifilm X-E5 Review: The Series Just Got a MAJOR Up-Lift
Fujifilm X-E5 REVIEW: X100 killer?
Using the Fujifilm X-E5 as my daily camera for a week
The new Fujifilm X series camera that is certainly intriguing, but thanks to the state of the world economy and the popularity of Fuji cameras, it seems way overpriced for what it offers.

15 Years of Photography Lessons in 18 Minutes.
I brought my Leica M11P on a family trip to the Dolomites.
Postcards from Juneau, Alaska // Fuji X-T5
The Camera you told me I’d love…

The Bear, season 4

We had a very slow, uneventful weekend, which leaves this space open to discuss how S and I spent Thursday and Friday evenings: binging season four of The Bear.

If you want the TLDR version: I liked it. Although it had some flaws and inconsistencies and did not match the first two seasons, it was a nice rebound from the uneven and divisive season three.

Most importantly, it felt like there was momentum throughout the season, augmented visually by Uncle Jimmy’s countdown clock, reminding the restaurant’s crew when he would pull financial support and begin exploring options to unload the property. Like the proverbial gun in act one of a play, the constant presence of the clock made it feel like the show was moving forward, even when it was spinning its wheels.

There are three classic episodes in this season. Episode 4, “Worms,” in which Sydney hangs out with her hairdresser cousin, Chantel, and is forced to watch her daughter when Chantel has to run out. Ayo Edebiri was proven her acting chops over the past three years, but in this season, notably in this episode, we see what a remarkable screen presence she has. I would watch her in anything at this point. Episode 7, “Bears,” is the big ensemble piece we’ve come to expect each year. It takes a very different tack than others, “Fishes” for example, and because of that sums up what this season is all about. It is one of the longest, if not THE longest, episode in program history but it is so charming and warm that time races by. And episode 10, “Goodbye,” is almost exclusively shot on one set with two, then three, then briefly four actors. It crackles with energy. While it is secondary to the interaction between Carm and Syd, Carm and Richie’s segment of the episode floored me. We’ve seen Richie transform himself over the show’s run. As their scene begins in “Goodbye,” for a moment you feel him slipping back into his old ways. Then he shakes it off and he and Carmen have this deeply revealing and touching moment. “Goodbye” is the standard half-hour episode, but it felt much longer (in a good way) because the acting is so strong and the emotions so intense.

Aside from those three excellent entries, I thought the season was solid. I guess one downside of binging a show is sometimes the good and not-so-good all mix together. Maybe there was an episode that fell flat in the first six we watched Thursday and the final four we watched Friday, but they get lost when you’re rolling right into the next one. The season was filled with personal growth and genuine, heart warming connections between characters. There were so many deeply moving moments. And I found this to be one of the funniest seasons in the show’s run.

That said, despite the ticking clock in the background, there were too many plot lines that felt stuck. Tina spending an entire season trying to cook a pasta dish in 3:00 was the biggest waste. It’s been hard to give each character enough time as the cast has grown larger. Tina is one of the most satisfying characters and deserved better.

Along those lines, while I liked the addition of the refugees from the closed eatery Ever, did we really need them? Jessica and Richie’s connection was interesting, but only hinted at anything bigger. I would rather have spent more time with Tina. And for a restaurant that is in a serious money crunch – they couldn’t pay their weekly supplier bills! – how can they bring these A-list pinch hitters into the fold?

The final episode closes with ambiguity. The clock runs out, but what does that mean for the restaurant and the show? Neither FX nor the show creators have made any statements about a potential season five. While most people expect the show to continue, in retrospect so much of this season looks like a long goodbye, as Carmy comes to terms with his personal and professional failures, makes amends, and prepares to move on. It would be an odd way to end a show, but one critic I follow suggested it might be the best way to end The Bear as whatever comes next would be too far removed and less interesting than what the first four seasons gave us.

I get that. I also think that the combination of amazing actors and mostly great writing could still result in a compulsive watch. When The Bear was at its best, it was awe-inspiring. Not just in terms of pure television, but also because I would sit there and think that Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, or whoever was doing some of the most incredible acting I’ve ever seen. And the connections the cast made with each other on screen, even the bit players who show up for just a few scenes each season,[1] are so compelling and interesting and emotional that it feels like you could still make a prestige show after subtracting Carmen.

Honestly continuing the show may not be the choice of the network or show creator Christopher Storer. White is poised to become a big movie star. Edebiri can do whatever she wants. And the supporting cast is so broad it has to be a nightmare to schedule them. It feels like any season five would be very different simply because of logistics. Is it best to stop now, even with an unconventional finish?

The Bear was a great show, especially the first two seasons. I remember putting it off for several months when it first aired, thinking it was a documentary not a “dramedy,” and then watching the entire thing in one night once I finally gave it a shot.[2] Season two took all that was great about season one and ramped it up more. It may have become too ambitious, or full of itself, or chasing artistic originality over coherent story at times. Or maybe it just reached such a high peak that it was impossible to keep pushing and seasons three and four had to step back some, or take different directions. Even at its most frustrating, it was one of the most interesting shows of its era.


  1. John Mulaney, Bob Odenkirk, Jon Bernthal, Gillian Jacobs (especially this season!), and of course Jamie Lee Curtis.  ↩
  2. Actually, looking back to my post about season one, we didn’t have Hulu when it first aired. But I also don’t recall being interested in it until I had weathered several months of hype about it.  ↩

Friday Playlist

Several new songs by old artists this week. And some new songs by new artists. In other words, a normal week.

“In The Sun” – Blondie
We’ve had a little too much sun this week. It’s been miserable. This song makes me feel a little better about it.

“Breakaway” – Been Stellar
These kids keep cranking out good tracks.

“Modern Man” – MORN
Kick ass music from Wales!

“Move Now” – Marshall Crenshaw
One of my all-time favorite writers of pop songs is back with a new album of old tracks. From The Hellhole collects songs he released on vinyl for Record Store Day between 2012 and 2016 and then went out of print. Not up to his classics, but still good stuff here.

“Got To Have Love” – Pulp
As with The London Suede last week, Pulp is one of those bands that went away for a while then came back, sounding the same, and as good, as in their prime.

“Live Forever” – Sloan
These Canadian power pop legends are about to release the 14th album of their career. That’s a lot, even with the CAD-USD conversion rate.

“Crossing Fingers” – Rocket
Another Rocket jam filled with ‘90s nostalgic goodness.

“DEAD” – Sudan Archives
One of the most original and interesting songs I’ve heard this year.

“Just Like A Flower” – Winter
Winter said this captures the essence of daydreaming in her bedroom as a teen. I definitely hear that.

“You’re Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)” – The White Stripes
The Stripes second album, De Stijl, was released 25 years and one week ago. It would be another 18 months or so before they exploded into the mainstream with tracks off White Blood Cells, but you could hear them working on getting to that point on this album. Here is side one, track one. Because you know Jack would prefer you to listen to it on vinyl.

Also, the album came out the same day as my 29th birthday party. An evening where, after dinner and many drinks a large group of friends went to The Levee in Kansas City to listen to Sonny Kenner. A show at which I ignored a lot of my friends to talk to a young lady who had just moved there from Indianapolis.

“Summertime Girls” – Y&T
I just read a book about hair metal. More about that next week. Y&T didn’t get a ton of space in it, but they were referenced, so perfect week to throw this one in as our summer bookender.

“Dr. Feelgood” – Mötley Crüe
While we’re on that subject, let’s end things with one of the best songs of that era.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 113

Chart Week: June 23, 1984
Song: “I’ll Wait” – Van Halen
Chart Position: #32, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 for two weeks.

I made my three-hour drive to Lexington, KY last Saturday morning solo. As it was also my birthday weekend, I thought the best way to celebrate would be to listen to an American Top 40 from June, 1984. Believe it or not, I could recall exactly what I was doing 41 years ago! Almost to the minute, even!

This probably doesn’t surprise some of you.

On the morning of June 23, 1984, my Little League baseball team was scheduled to play a game. When we arrived at the field, our coach was already there, and he was pissed. The team we were supposed to play, the Rangers, had decided not to show up, gifting us a forfeit win. He was angry not because we all got up and got ready and showed up on a hot, humid morning for no reason, but rather because the Rangers were ducking us. We were battling them for first place and, apparently, their best pitcher was not available that morning. So the Ranger’s coach, who my coach did NOT get along with, decided to bail rather than have one of his weaker pitchers face us. Which seemed dumb. Why not at least try to beat us rather than hand us a win that could make the difference in which team got to bat last in the playoffs?

Keep in mind, we were all 12 and 13 year olds, playing mediocre youth ball in Kansas City. Not exactly high stakes stuff.

Anyway, we had an open diamond and our entire team was there, so our coach decided to put the time to good use. In full uniform, he worked us out harder than he ever had at a practice. He hit rockets at us for infield practice, had the outfielders sprinting to cut off line drives, and even sat behind home plate and had us try to steal bases as he fired balls to the second baseman. He knew word would get back to his nemesis that rather than sit in air conditioning like his team, we were toiling to get better.

Throughout the practice our coach cracked off-color jokes about the Rangers, and despite the intensity of the workout, we were laughing the entire time. He also let us pull out a boombox and play music. We heard a lot of songs from this countdown in those 90 minutes we spent practicing. When we walked off the field we were all sweaty and dirty like we had actually played a game, and in great moods, high-fiving each other as we headed our separate ways.

I have no idea if that morning had any impact, but a month later we beat the Rangers two games to one in the championship series. Oh, and we were the home team, although we scored the clinching run in the bottom of the fifth, not the bottom of the seventh. Take that, Rangers coach!

So this countdown was a bit of a mental time capsule.

This might blow your mind, but it ended up being a double time capsule.

WHAT?!?! DOUBLE TIME CAPSULE??? TELL US MORE, D!

This is one of the shows in my collection that was recorded straight off an American Top 40: The Eighties broadcast, commercials and all. It aired in June 2021 on a station in Maine. A station here in Indy was still playing AT40 at the time, and I bet they inserted a lot of the same commercials into the program. Ads for Cologuard and Home Depot, Geico and Progressive, plus the inevitable bad ads for local car dealerships.

There were also some ads unique to the moment. Several noted that various organizations or businesses were “getting back to normal.” A local junior college announced they would be returning to in-person classes in the fall, with a reopening ceremony scheduled for June 30. And there were government ads encouraging folks to get the Covid vaccines.

Wow, what a quaint idea: the government encouraging people to get a shot to keep them from getting sick. Somehow that seems like a long, long time ago.

The songs in this show got me thinking about the summer I was 13, and the commercials got me thinking about the summer we were coming out of Covid.

Naturally I loved all this. It’s probably a good thing I was by myself. And that I finished the show before L rode home with me on Sunday.

Lots of great, memorable songs this week. I’ve done the review of a full countdown from the summer of ’84 thing before, so I can’t go that direction. Instead, let’s focus on the second single from Van Halen’s 1984 album.

“I’ll Wait” was different from any other Van Halen song. Yes, it was heavily synthesizer-based, but Eddie had already shown his cards there on the #1 hit “Jump.” What really set the song apart from the rest of their catalog was that David Lee Roth did not write the lyrics on his own.

His original inspiration came from a magazine ad for Calvin Klein women’s underwear. Something about it struck him – I can make some guesses as to what – so he cut it out and taped it to his TV, where he could stare at the model while he wrote an ode to her.

Easy task for a legendary horndog like DLR, right? He kept getting stuck, though, spinning his wheels in his attempts to turn thoughts into coherent words while the rest of the band wrote and recorded most of the music he would sing over.

Hearing the bones of a potential hit, producer Ted Templeman called his pal Michael McDonald to help get Diamond Dave over the hump. They sat down and soon had a finished song.

Later McDonald said he made more money from his songwriting credit for “I’ll Wait” than he had made from the entire final Doobie Brothers album he helped to write. Who knows if that is true but he obviously got a good deal when he agreed to pinch hit for VH.

When I was 12/13, I was familiar with the idea of being a little obsessed by someone you saw on TV or in a magazine. But it was all pretty innocent, like “Gee, it sure would be nice to meet a pretty lady like that and have her be my girlfriend.” Mary Hart and Vanna White were high on that list.[1] I’m not sure I quite got some of the subtext in Roth and McDonald’s lyrics. At least not yet; that insight would come soon enough.

These days becoming fixated on a person you will probably never meet seems creepy. But Van Halen was never worried about that. Certainly not in 1984.

Where “Jump” was all poppy brightness, “I’ll Wait” has a much icier quality. Eddie’s synthesizers are still huge, almost as big as brother Alex’s drums, but they seem ominous, perhaps reflecting the weirdness of staring at a model in a magazine for too long. Eddie repeats the synth solo followed by guitar solo bit from “Jump,” as well. I think he does it better here.

However, there is something off about the song I never picked up on as a kid. It is all in Roth’s voice. Missing is the gigantic, Cock Rock swagger he was famous for. He was always the sexed-up life of the party, turning any room into a bash through sheer force of personality. Here he is subdued, perhaps in recognition that he will never meet the object of his desire? Has our fornicating superhero been tamed?

Who am I kidding? This was Van Halen and David Lee Roth. There was no great meaning to this song. If a woman turned him down, he’d find 20 more just like her and move on with his life. I’m overthinking things. Any flaws are purely because McDonald wrote a song that would have been terrific for anyone else, but didn’t quite match what was great about Van Halen. 7/10


  1. Vanna White turns 69 next February. Nice.  ↩

Wednesday Links

I’ve started following Denny Carter in recent weeks and enjoy his perspective on politics and the general state of the world. The sub-head of this piece is perfect: Being an asshole is a choice.

Free speech was meant to empower the powerless against the powerful, not to provide protection for society’s privileged members to hurl invective at the unprivileged and marginalized. The American right – and parts of the left – have twisted the idea of actual free speech into an unrecognizable mess that tells Americans they should have the right to say any insulting thing any time they want to anyone online or in real life. “It’s a free country, I can do what I want,” they say, just as I said as a young, stupid child.

Self Censorship Is Actually Good


Despite loving the Beatles, I found this list very funny. I guess there are tons of young people who think the Beatles are overrated, likely because they grew up on music that was influenced by or ripped off what the Beatles did first – or even music that ripped off those rip offs – and can’t appreciate the OGs.

  1. “The Fool On The Hill”
    What happens when a heartthrob boy band does a shitload of drugs and become hippies and start really trying to get creative? Poop on tape. I’m pretty sure this song has a kazoo solo in it. I’m also pretty sure this is what horses hear when they are killed.

The Top 10 Worst Beatles Songs


It was cool that America got to find out what a great coach Jenny Boucek is and what an interesting personal story she has during the NBA Finals.

Parenting and game plans: Inside Jenny Boucek’s extraordinary basketball journey to the Pacers


The Ringer is THE best place for NBA content these days. I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Simply put, The Ringer’s coverage came across as if it was created by people who have been following players like Haliburton since he was a draft prospect, whereas ESPN’s coverage did its best to force both the Thunder and the Pacers into predetermined morning debate show narratives.

Bill Simmons and The Ringer’s NBA Finals coverage was everything ESPN’s wasn’t


I haven’t watched any of these yet, but I 100% will be watching the Phineas and Ferb revival soon. Best kids show ever!

‘PHINEAS AND FERB’ STICKS TO WHAT WORKS IN A WELCOME RETURN


Another useful harnessing of the Internet’s power.

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A tediously accurate map of the solar system

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