D's Notebook

D’s Notes

October 22, 2024 /

A few other notes from last week/the weekend plus life in general.

Health

I’ve had a couple longer spells of irregular heart beats lately, so the week before we went to Denver I wore an event monitor again. Just like the first two times I wore one, I had zero issues, so it wasn’t really helpful. Plus it made it hard for me to sleep since I’m a stomach sleeper. And you’re not supposed to get it wet so I couldn’t work out very hard or take full showers. And it itches.

There are way worse heart issues than what I’ve got, but I think this is all pretty dumb since it is so random and never fires off when the docs are keeping an eye on me.

Football

A mostly good weekend for my teams, although I wasn’t able to follow any of the games very closely.

Friday #5 Cathedral dropped their regular season finale to #6 Warren Central by 8. Sounds like it was a good game, with CHS jumping out 14–0 then the teams trading the lead in the second half. A 5–3 regular season for the Irish. Class 6A gets a bye week before starting sectionals next week. CHS will play across the street vs 0–9 North Central, then most likely play the new #1 team, 9–0 Lawrence North.

KU finally got their shit back together, although Houston being really bad helped. Every time I checked the score while we were walking around Boulder KU was either scoring or Houston was turning the ball over. Seems like the Jayhawks played well, most importantly Jalon Daniels, who had his best statistical game in two years.

Just in time, as KU has K-State, Iowa State, and BYU the next three weeks, the top three teams in the Big 12. What better moment to flip the script on this season?

The Colts won an ugly game against a banged up Dolphins team. We were home for part of this, although I wasn’t paying much attention as we got settled and unpacked. This team just isn’t that fun to watch at the moment.

WNBA Finals

I barely watched the WNBA playoffs after the Fever were eliminated, only checking in on games for a few moments here-and-there. Which is partially on me, partially on the league for agreeing to a TV schedule that often had its games going up against the NFL. Not super smart.

I did turn on the fourth quarter of game five of the Finals Sunday night. What a shit show! I was somewhat amazed at how bad the officiating was while watching the Fever this year. Each game had objectivey terrible calls, and replay reviews that sometimes had indefensible conclusions.

It was no surprise to me that the championship may have come down to an absolutely atrocious call in which the refs bailed out Breanna Stewart and then somehow upheld the defensive foul after Minnesota challenged it. Stewart hit two free throws, Minnesota missed a wide open 3 to win, and then New York won in overtime. The refs also failed to call a clear foul against New York that cost Minnesota a basket and should have put the Lynx on the line late in regulation.

I’m not saying the game was rigged because that’s dumb. But I understand all the anger flowing from Minnesota after the game. Anyone who has watched the WNBA all season was not surprised that the biggest game of the year featured calls this bad. The quality of officiating is going to be a major growing pain for a league that has more eyes on it than ever.

World Series

Oh goody, Yankees-Dodgers. There’s a lot of star power in the series, for sure. But I haven’t watched much of the playoffs since the Royals went out. I doubt I’ll spend a lot of time with this series. It is kind of crazy it’s been 33 years since these franchises last matched up in the fall classic.

Wildlife Fun

Monday morning as I walked to the gym I noticed what seemed to be a couple big piles of garbage in our yard near the busy street we sit on. This isn’t unusual. Fools are always throwing garbage from their cars. We get tons of fast food bags, beer cans and bottles, plus other random stuff. I made a mental note to grab it after my workout.

An hour later I was walking towards said piles when I realized I should have investigated closer to get out of the morning sun glare. One pile was part of the front corner of a car, including the headlight. Ten feet away was a dead deer.

Yikes.

How the fuck do I get rid of a deer?

Fortunately the city of Indianapolis has an app where you can make service requests. I wear it out in the winter reporting potholes. For the most part it seems to work, although it can take them a while to work through my list in the worst of the winter.

After enough digging I found a section where you can report dead animals. Deer was even included in the dropdown box where you identify the carcass. Midwest, baby!

I put in a request and hoped they would get to it sooner than they do potholes.

I left the house to run some errands this morning and when I returned our dead deer was gone. My tax dollars at work! I guess it could have been some hillbilly who saw a way to fill his freezer for the winter, but I’ll give the city credit.

C said she had heard an impact around 1:00 AM Monday morning and by the time she looked out her window the car had left and it was too dark to see the poor deer. Hopefully it went quick.

Comet

I might have missed the full northern lights a couple weeks ago, but I did not miss the chance to see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, the brightest comet we’ve had since 1997.

Tuesday I drove about 10 minutes north to a park where there are no lights and a clear view to the southwest. I was able to see the comet as a bright spot and smudge with the naked eye. A three-second exposure with my iPhone got a much better view.

Still not nearly as bright as Hale-Bopp was – one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen with it’s bright tail streaking across a good chunk of the sky that summer – but I’m still glad I got to see it.

Fall Break 2024: Colorado

October 21, 2024 /

To celebrate the glories of CHS fall break, we took the girls (well, C and L) to Denver to stay with S’s sister and her family for a few days.[1] We hadn’t been to Colorado since Christmas 2017, although we were scheduled to spend spring break there in 2020 until, well, you know…

We flew out Wednesday evening, returned Sunday morning/afternoon. Other than heavy fog causing us to sit at the gate for an extra 40 minutes before leaving Denver, we had no travel issues.

Thursday we headed down to Colorado Springs. Our first stop was a drive through and quick hike in the Garden of the Gods. I doubt these rock formations are quite as amazing as some of the more famous ones in Utah, but they also make less sense because they are far more isolated.

We were just a little behind schedule, thus the short hike. We went to the Broadmoor estate for lunch at the Golden Bee, which was very good.

After lunch we hit the Cave of the Winds Mountain Park for a cave tour. That was kind of freaky, especially for tall people. The girls were laughing at me after saying I was ducking way more than I needed on the tight passages. I told them it’s hard to get a 53-year-old, 6’2” body scrunched into a sub-four foot opening gracefully. We were most amazed by how and why people explored these 150 years ago. There is a part of the tour where they turn the modern lighting off and illuminate a large cavern with the type of candle-lamps they used in the 1880s. You can’t see shit. Maybe that’s how they explored so deep: when you can only see a few feet ahead you don’t realize one misstep could lead to a cold, lonely death.

The Broncos were playing Thursday night so we ordered pizza and stayed in to watch that. Mountain Time is pretty good for sports.

Friday we stayed in Denver. First we picked up our nephew, W, from his school, which had a half day. He’s a freshman at a Catholic school of about 725 students, and was able to give us a little tour. Then we hit the trendy Washington Park area to explore a bit and have a fantastic lunch at Perdida Kitchen. By far the best biria tacos I’ve ever had.

As a huge bonus we have good friends from Indy who are in the midst of a family relocation to Denver. One of S’s best friends from high school, K, who also happens to be L’s godmother, has two daughters who have taken nursing jobs in Denver. Because K and her husband are kind of crazy, after making a first visit to move the girls over the summer and falling in love with the city, they decided to rent their own condo for a year. K has been working from Denver off-and-on for the past month. Her husband C, who teaches at CHS and has our C in a class this year, has been coming out for weekends. He had promised us he would teach long enough to have his goddaughter in class when she is a senior, but we wonder if that’s still in the cards as they really seem to like Denver.

Anyway, we checked out K & C’s condo. Their daughters both have smaller places in the same complex. One was sleeping off an overnight shift so we only got to see her sister’s place.

Fun and kind of random.

Rain was moving in so we cut afternoon plans to walk around Wash Park more and instead checked out the Cherry Creek mall. Holy shit! Who knew there were still megamalls that were full of good stores? The girls spent a ton of time picking out clothes at Zara. After standing around letting them select and try on stuff for nearly an hour I finally discovered there was a Lucid showroom that I could have been hanging out in.

For our family activity that night the dads decided it was time all our kids watched Anchorman. None of them liked it as much as the dads did. Oh well…

Saturday we had to get up early to go watch our nephew play football about 30 minutes north of Denver. This is his first time ever playing football and he loves it. In the C game, he rarely comes off the field, playing a linebacker/safety hybrid on D and as a receiver on offense. He had a great tackle on defense and pancake-blocked a kid on a screen pass, which was awesome. However his team got blasted so that kind of sucked. Especially since it was early and cold.

Now, I could probably write 3000 words about this part of the game, so I’ll try to be brief. W’s team was down 26–0 in the third quarter and had done nothing on offense the entire game other than punt or turn the ball over before they connected on an 85 yard TD pass. However, one of the sideline refs threw a flag because W’s coaches ran onto the field and blocked the ref’s view during the run. Even though this ref had no call to make on the play. I see/hear sideline warnings called in pretty much every CHS game I’ve followed over the past seven years. The refs throw a flag, a sideline warning is announced, they pick up the flag, the play counts, and if it happens again there’s a penalty.

Maybe the rules are different in Colorado, but there was no warning Saturday. In a C game that was a blowout, a ref took away MHS’ only good play of the day. Even if I had no interest in the game, this would have been an insane call.

Well, as you can imagine, the MHS parents were not happy. One dad in particular, who was already an asshole before this call, cranked things up to 11. Or 111 actually. It was embarrassing even as a non-MHS parent how he would just not stop. My brother-in-law was ready to fight this guy because he was being such an idiot. The coaches came over and told him to shut up. The athletic director of the home school came over and asked him to pipe down. But he kept going. Literally 20 minutes of yelling before he finally took a walk around the track. Then when he came back he complained loudly to all of us again.

Makes me look forward to high school basketball cranking back up here in Indy!

We did not stick around for the JV game since W only played on kick coverage. Instead went took the 30 minute trip up to Boulder. I had never been there before so was excited. The only bummer was that the Flatirons were socked in with clouds until right about the time we left in late afternoon. While we were waiting for W and his dad, we walked around campus and downtown. Campus was deserted, it must have been CU’s fall break, too, so it was pretty lifeless. After W and my brother-in-law joined us we had a really good lunch at the West End Tavern on Pearl Street.

Our girls seemed to like Boulder. It is pretty funny to see the juxtaposition of these rich college kids – it’s over $60K/year for out of state students – with all the grungy, anti-establishment-ness of the full timers. And then it’s also a quasi-tech town. Just a lot going on. That’s true of any college town. Boulder is next level, though.

Then it was back to Denver, finally with clear views of the mountains from the car, for a chill evening. We had a very early flight home Sunday so focused on visiting while we watched football and got packed.

C had a cold the whole time, which was a bit of a bummer. My body is trying to decide if I’m catching it this morning.

Fun trip. We didn’t get the best of what Denver has to offer because of the clouds, but it’s easy to see why so many people flock there from elsewhere. Of course, with that comes a much higher cost of living than in the Midwest. Recently S and I have started thinking about what is next for us, in the 5–10 year window when the girls start cycling out of school and she can think about retiring from medicine. Where we end up will depend on where the girls land; we’d like to be centrally located if they spread out. We are both Midwesterners at heart and have a hard time seeing ourselves in certain parts of the country.[2] But Denver would be cool. Especially with family already there and some good friends with one foot out the door in that direction. That’s a long way away, though.

  1. Originally M was going to join us. But it was homecoming week at UC and as house social chair, she had a lot of important activities. Plus she had a big math test from 6–8 PM Friday. Who gives tests on Friday evenings?!?!  ↩
  2. Pretty much any red state not in the Central time zone.  ↩

Reader’s Notebook, 10/16/24

October 16, 2024 /

Going to fire off three quick summaries of recent books before we head to the airport.

Middle of the Night – Riley Sager
The Only One Left – Riley Sager

I was not at all familiar with Sager’s work, but when I saw Middle of the Night pop up on multiple lists of must read new books over the summer, I jumped on it. Wise choice.

It is an excellent, spooky, freaky, fun mystery revolving around the disappearance and presumed death of a young boy in 1994 and his best friend’s efforts to cope with that loss as an adult, and then deal with weird coincidences that pop up 30 years after the disappearance. It pushes up against the supernatural, but eventually the causes for those seemingly unexplained incidents are relatively mundane. Except for one element…

Lots of twists and turns, especially in the final 20 or 30 pages, when Sager fakes the reader this way and that. Highly satisfying.

After that, I put a ton of his old books on hold and The Only One Left was the first to pop up. You can tell it’s from earlier in his career. It is less subtle and more in-your-face at times. That final stretch, where he offers several solutions for the mystery before the final reveal, is less elegant than in Middle of the Night. But it’s still a cool story, in this case about a 50-year-old murder mystery that has a shocking story that has been hidden in plain sight for those decades.

Cold Shot – Mark Henshaw
This is book two in Henshaw’s Kyra Stryker & Jonathan Burke series. After stopping a secret Chinese weapons program in the first book, here they are investigating a connection between the Iranians and Venezuelans that seems pointed at producing nuclear weapons for one or both of the rogue nations. Henshaw has been described as a modern Tom Clancy. That fits. He doesn’t go into pages-long descriptions of weapons or technology, but does find a way to still provide a lot of detail about such things without derailing his story for too long.

Solid plot, lots of action, the good guys win. What else do you need?

Wednesday Playlist

October 16, 2024 /

A special, early playlist this week, as we are headed to Denver later today to visit family over the CHS fall break.

“Tell Me Why U Do That” – Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge
So Grace Bowers is some kind of prodigy. She’s still in her teens, has had an endorsement contract with Gibson guitars for four years, and is already putting out music that sounds like this.

“Clueless” – Beach Bunny
If Taylor Swift was a decade younger and made indie pop, it might sound like this song.

“Catholic Dracula” – Wild Pink
WP’s Dulling The Horns is one of my favorite albums of the year. This song is appropriate for the season.

“Ridiculous Thoughts” – The Cranberries
Speaking of the season, with it finally getting chilly and some days have a more gauzy look to the sky, that means I’ve been listening The Cranberries.

“Circle” – Big Head Todd and The Monsters
For people my age, BHT is probably the first band you think of when you think of Colorado. Currently our weekend plans include a trip up to the band’s home base of Boulder, although weather could alter that. Anyway, their Sister Sweetly was one of those 20-or-so albums that 90% of kids who went to college in the early Nineties had in their collection.

“No More Lonely Nights” – Paul McCartney
It’s kind of crazy how big Macca still was in the early ’80s. Three Number Ones and another #2 in the first four years of the decade. Plus the Beatlemania road show was keeping the Fab Four’s music as relevant as it had been since its initial release. This was his last, biggest hit of not only the Eighties, but his entire career until that random, regrettable Kanye West partnership nine years ago. Written for his film project Give My Regards To Broad Street, it features Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour on guitar. Both the movie and soundtrack got terrible reviews, but this song did ok, peaked at #6 in the US, #2 in the UK. It landed at #38 this week, just its second week on the Hot 100.

Weekend Notes

October 14, 2024 /

Kind of a quiet weekend for us on the personal tip. Plenty of other shit to review on this gloomy, chilly Monday morning.

Northern Lights

Since we live inside the city’s light dome, we weren’t able to just walk out and see Thursday’s northern lights. I was able to get a couple shots, using a long exposure, that showed a bit of the colors.

There were tons of amazing pictures from not too far from us. It definitely would have been worth my time to get off my ass and drive 30 minutes or so to get a bette naked eye view of them. But did I? Nope, despite seeing northern lights being on my bucket list.

Interesting Times At School

CHS parents got this text last Tuesday afternoon.

Screenshot

When the girls got home their eyes were big and they were talking fast. Apparently they were nearly in the midst of all the fun.

C said as they exited campus and headed west, they saw a car that had been pulled over by the police take off through the intersection she had just passed through to the east. Moments later they heard a bunch of loud noises as that car collided with several others that had just come off of campus. That proved these fools weren’t super criminals. Traffic around CHS during dismissal is a true nightmare. It can take you 15 minutes to travel a quarter mile if you hit the lights wrong. Yet these geniuses decided they were going to use that moment to evade cops.

A few of girls’ friends who were behind them got videos of first the car taking off, then the driver and his passenger sitting on the curb in handcuffs.

Word was they were arrested on drug and weapons charges. Awesome.

Two years ago M and C missed driving through an intersection by St P’s where there was a road-rage shooting by about five minutes. Now C and L missed get smacked by a criminal by literal seconds. They’ve obviously been saying their prayers, and/or their dead grandmas are looking out for them.

Royals

Well, it wasn’t unexpected, but after snatching game two in New York, the Royals couldn’t win either of the games at home and lost to the Yankees in four games. Another one-run loss and a two-run loss to end the season. It was pretty much all that was great about the Royals this year – the starting pitching with the bonus of an improved bullpen – and all that was not right – a woefully thin lineup that struggled to score to begin with, but had an even mightier challenge when Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez weren’t hitting.

The Yankees didn’t blow them out and the Royals didn’t embarrass themselves. Playoff baseball, especially the first two rounds, can be super flukey. That benefited the Royals in 2014. Their special blend of Royals Devil Magic did not make an appearance in this series.

Still, a surprisingly fun season. They got me at least partially interested in baseball after falling out of love with the sport because of how management handled the most recent labor stoppage.

It is probably too much to ask for the starters to be as good in 2025 as they were this year. The bullpen was bolstered late in the season and became a weapon, so pitching in general should continue to be a strength for the team. Now if management can go find a bat or two to plug the many holes in the lineup, we could be cooking with gas next year.

That said, surprisingly, the AL Central could be one of the most competitive in baseball next year. Cleveland is in the ALCS. Detroit had an amazing run late in the season and pushed Cleveland to the bring in the ALDS. The Twins fell apart late but entered the season as preseason favorites. In other words, even if the Royals make smart decisions to improve their roster for next year, there’s no guarantee it will be enough to return them to the playoffs.

KU

Hey, no Jayhawks loss this week! You never know, KU could always find a way to lose in a bye week.

It’s been kind of crazy to see how the teams that have beaten KU have done after knocking off the Jayhawks. Illinois is 5–1 and ranked. UNLV is also 5–1 despite their quarterback checking out. A week after beating KU, West Virginia went to Oklahoma State and destroyed the Cowboys before losing to Iowa State this week. Then Arizona State pulled a massive upset beating Utah this weekend. Only TCU has looked worse after beating the Jayhawks.

Mostly that doesn’t mean shit. Anyone who has watched KU this year has seen how flawed they are, both on the field and from a schematic/coaching perspective. Still, four of their losses have been by a single score. The TCU game was a single-score game until the closing minutes. As many issues as the Jayhawks have had, a few breaks here and there and they could easily be 5–1. While I think us KU fans would be waiting for reality to set in, we would feel a lot better about things.

This week brings Houston, and KU opens as favorites. Get a win and it doesn’t necessarily turn the season around, but it could at least change the vibes. Lose this one? Man, things will get ugly.

In totally unrelated news, Purdue fired their offensive coordinator last week. This week they went to Illinois. The ESPN boxscore was all messed up, but I believe they trailed by 27 in the second half before scoring 30 straight points to take the lead. They gave up a tying field goal at the final gun, then failed to convert a 2-point conversion and lost by one in OT. All from firing their OC. Hmmm….

CHS

Friday night Cathedral took on Southside Catholic rivals Roncalli. This was once one of the best rivalries in the city. Before the tournament success factor was introduced, the teams played in the same class and were often either in the same sectional or regional. In our first few years living here, they always face each other in the playoffs, and the score was usually something like 10–9 or 14–13. And Roncalli often won.

But Roncalli, aside from a 4A state title two years ago, has been kind of crappy since their legendary coach retired a while back. CHS beat them 42–0 last year. This year it wasn’t much better, a 35–6 Irish win. A CHS receiver made an insane catch for an 84-yard TD. He dropped two other sure touchdowns on easy balls. The only RHS points came on their final drive with a running clock and facing the CHS reserves.

The #5 Irish are now 5–2 with a big matchup at 7–1 #6 Warren Central to close out the regular season.

The sectional draw was last night. CHS gets the school across the street from us, who will be 0–9, to open. Then a likely matchup against presumptive 9–0 Lawrence North for the sectional crown. CHS has ended LN’s season the past two years.

Halloween Shit

Both the girls had friends over Saturday to carve pumpkins, eat fall foods, and have fun. Tough to get a shot of all the pumpkins but they look nice on our front porch.

Worth mentioning that L had a young man over she’s been hanging with for the past few weeks. He’s a nice kid. They were joined by another couple. Those four stuck to one part of our house while C and her group of ten-or-so seniors stayed in another part. Seemed like everyone had fun. Once things got going S and I kept to our room to stay the hell out of the way.

Closing Time

We closed the pool on Friday. It was sunny and 80° when the guys were shutting it down, the water still at 78° despite me not running the heater in a week. I think you call that perfect timing. Of course, the girls hadn’t been in the pool since August. I had been using it, but as I’ll share tomorrow, I haven’t been able to get in for a week or so, meaning we closed it a week late. Since I wasn’t running the heater I didn’t mind.

Then Sunday morning S and I first cleaned up the leftover pumpkin messes from the girls then stored away all the pool furniture and other summer goodies into the pool house for the winter. Our pool deck is now naked. Appropriately it was super breezy and gloomy while we were doing that, and 15° cooler than the day before. This week looks super fall-ish, although another warm-up is forecast for next weekend.

Colts

The Colts couldn’t get it done against pathetic Jacksonville a week ago, but did enough to win against the equally pathetic Titans this week. Man, Will Levis is fucking bad. Anthony Richardson, who sat out again, may end up being a bust. I’d rather have a dude that can only play every third game than Levis, who throws some of the worst balls I’ve ever seen. Maybe he figures the game out and turns into a solid QB eventually. But watching him Sunday, I was glad the Colts passed on drafting him a year ago.

The crazy thing about watching the Colts is that if they could ever get healthy, they really should have a plus offense. They have two really good receivers in Michael Pittman and Alec Pierce. Josh Downs showed Sunday that he might be better than those two. And AD Mitchell has loads of potential although he has a long way to go. Old Man Joe Flacco gets them the ball just enough to be dangerous. If you can keep Jonathan Taylor on the field, easier said than done, you have terrific balance. Of course, you can’t keep him on the field and there is no decent backup. The O-line has improved, even losing one starter for the season.

But that defense? Woof. They make just enough plays, especially against a shitty team like Tennessee, to make you think they might be decent. But they aren’t decent at all, even allowing for missing important players up front and being too thin on the back end.

Feels like a season that ends in 5–7 wins and puts them too deep into the draft to get a player that can immediately plug a gap next year.

Fall Break

It’s appropriate the weather has finally changed, as this week is the girls’ fall break. They are in school today and tomorrow, then off the rest of the week. We are traveling to Denver to visit our family out there. It looks like we will have a 20° temperature swing while we’re out there, too, so packing could be tricky. Obviously a lot more about this next week.

Friday Playlist

October 11, 2024 /

“Much Ado About Nothing” – Waxahatchee
A leftover track from her most recent album that got a proper single release this week. In a very Pearl Jam-way, this as good as most of the tracks that made Tigers Blood. I nominate Ms. Crutchfield to be our queen.

“What About The Children” – Gary Clark Jr. with Stevie Wonder
Not a bad pull for a guest by Mr. Clark, huh?

“Slugger” – SASAMI
We have a fantastic new entry in the Crying In The Club Bop hall of fame.

“Grocery Store” – Enumclaw
A very difficult song to search for, as the engines want to tell you about grocery stores in Enumclaw, WA. Maybe it is hard to find info on this song because it has a very 1995 vibe, from before the days when Yahoo, Alta Vista, and eventually Google would change our lives.

“1995” – Starflyer 59
Speaking of 1995, why not segue straight into a song that doesn’t just sound like that year, but is named for it?

“Brakes” – Onsloow
OK, one more. The lead singer of this band sounds a lot like Juliana Hatfield, who was kind of a big deal in 1995 or so.

“Penny Lover” – Lionel Richie
I had another song picked out for this week that I like a lot more than this one. I realized this morning that other song does not have a video. And there is a ton of great trivia behind it. So I’m going to tuck it away for a future RFTS post and shift to this, the final single from Richie’s massive Can’t Slow Down album. Over 13 months or so, Richie released five singles from the album, all of which landed in the top 10, two of which topped the chart. This one peaked at #8. Not my favorite song, nor one of my favorite artists. But as Lionel was a huge part of the legend of ’84, he deserves some run here. It cracked the Top 40 this week at #38 in just its second week in the Hot 100.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 104

October 10, 2024 /

Chart Week: October 4, 1980
Song: “I’m Alright” – Kenny Loggins
Chart Position: #8, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 the next two weeks.

Every successful career has a turning point, a moment that elevates it from being run-of-the-mill into something special and lasting. This song, for example, recorded as a favor to a friend for a movie that initially was a bit of a flop, helped turned Kenny Loggins into one of the best known artists of the Eighties.

After a decent run in the Seventies – first with The Nitty Gritty Dirty Band, then in Loggins and Messina, and finally as a solo artist – Loggins hit the Top 40 six times in the 1980s with songs that appeared on movie soundtracks. Four of those would crack the Top 10. His title track for the movie Footloose would become the only #1 of his career.

Eventually, people started calling Loggins the King of the Movie Soundtrack.

It’s funny for me to think of him in just that way. That’s primarily because my mom really liked his music and had many of his solo albums. I can go deep on some early ‘80s Kenny! Really, only three of his movie songs had staying power beyond their chart runs. “Footloose,”“Danger Zone,” from Top Gun, and “I’m Alright” were so big, they are what people remember him for, not the eight other Top 40 hits from his solo albums, or for co-writing the Doobie Brothers’ #1 hit “What A Fool Believes.” But it seemed like every summer would bring another Loggins song (or two) that was tied to a movie.

He started on the path to his honorary royalty thanks to another movie connection.

In 1976 he wrote the song “I Believe In Love,” which Barbra Streisand sang in that year’s version of A Star Is Born. Through that project he became friends with the movie’s producer, Jon Peters. A few years later Peters called Loggins and said he was working on a new movie, Caddyshack, and needed a song for the title sequence. Loggins saw an early cut of the movie – one that did not yet include the animatronic gopher tearing up the golf course – and was struck by Michael O’Keefe’s character Danny Noonan.

“… I got the idea they wanted to portray him as a bit of a rebel, even though he had not yet achieved that particular character,” said Loggins. “(He) was trying to figure out where he fit. But at the same time he wanted people to leave him alone and let him find his own way. So I wanted to grab him and summarize that character, and that’s what ‘I’m Alright’ is doing."

I’m not sure I ever got much of that. Probably because I was nine years old when the single was released and didn’t bother to consider the lyrics much then. Or since, to be honest. It was just a really good song that I heard often before, during, and after our move from southeast Missouri to Kansas City in the summer of 1980. I heard it often on the AM radios in my parents’ cars and on the transister radio I received for my birthday that I carried around everywhere.

It also fit Peters’ title sequence perfectly. It followed Noonan as he rode his bike from his chaotic, overfilled, over-the-top stereotypically Irish home to the assumed relaxed and refined environment of Bushwood Country Club. The song is fun, engages the listener, and has some momentum to it that gets you amped for what you’re about to see on the screen. I also hear the rumble of the road in our multiple trips between Southeast Missouri and KC that summer.

When re-listening to “I’m Alright” this week, I thought for a moment that Lindsey Buckingham might have co-wrote it with Loggins. There are so many elements to it that sound like a Buckingham song. The structure, the instrumentation, the layering of the vocals, that hint of country-rock. Hell, the drums, with their floppy, heaviness recall Mick Fleetwood’s work behind the kit, so I guess this sounds more like a Fleetwood Mac song without the female vocalists than a Buckingham solo effort. There might be some common threads in there, but neither Buckingham nor Fleetwood had any involvement in the track’s writing and recording.

Casey Kasem’s introduction for the record on this week’s countdown blew my mind a little. He said sometimes a song will be a hit no matter what gets in its way. In this case, he noted, Caddyshack had not done well at the box office, and the soundtrack wasn’t selling well either. But “I’m Alright” was doing just fine on its own, still climbing in its fourth month on the Hot 100.

It’s wild to hear a transmission from the fall of 1980 claiming that Caddyshack was a commercial disappointment. I didn’t see it then, but it seemed like every kid I knew with an older sibling had seen it. There was much talk about it at the bus stop. Weird that Caddyshack didn’t really become a huge hit until a few years later, when it landed on cable and our generation could watch it over-and-over, memorizing every line, and boring bystanders with horrible immitations of Carl Spackler’s “Gunga galunga” speech.

The song holds up. It’s not just nostalgia for the movie that keeps it in high rotation on ‘80s stations. It’s a genuinely good song, by an artist who knew better than anyone else how to craft a pop tune that pulled in vibes from the film it was attached to.8/10

One more note: when Loggins was recording “I’m Alright,” Eddie Money was working on his own album in a nearby studio. Loggins invited him over to lay down some background vocals. You can hear Money most distinctly when he sings the line “You make me feel good!” in the bridge.

Well, Loggins did not give Money an official credit for his contribution. That started a grudge that lasted at least 34 years.

“I’m not a fan of Kenny Loggins to tell you the truth,” he told Cincinnati morning show host Kidd Chris of WEBN in 2014. “I sang the bridge in that. We were label mates, you know.”

I wonder if they made up before Money passed in 2019.

Weekend Notes

October 7, 2024 /

A busy, warm, disappointing, and significant weekend.

FNL + Party

Friday was a big night for a couple reasons. First, L was having friends over to celebrate her birthday. Seven girls, including her middle school buddy who goes to the rival high school, gathered at our house after school. They are a good group and fun to be around. They are mostly sassy and confident and silly, and while they usually congregate away from us, when we have to interact with them they always make me laugh.

Once S got home we ran them over to Marion University, which was hosting the big Center Grove vs Cathedral game. This was class 6A #5 vs #7. CG came in at 4–2, CHS 3–2. CG had won three in a row in the series and have dominated it over the past decade. In a change, it was moved from the final week of the season to week eight this year for some reason.

It was a wild game.

CHS scored on the first play of the game, a 64 yard run.
Trailing 10–0, CG had an 80-yard TD run.
CHS answered with a 74-yard TD pass.
CG led 30–27 at halftime, and eventually 45–35 with about six minutes to play.
The game ended with this sequence in the final five minutes:
Cathedral touchdown.
Cathedral successful onside kick.
Cathedral touchdown.
Center Grove interception.
Cathedral punt.
Center Grove interception.
Game over.

Huge win for the Irish. Normally you would say these teams are on a collision course for a rematch in semistate. CHS is going to have trouble getting past Lawrence North, who is 7–0 and destroyed #2 Warren Central this week, in sectionals though. They would also likely have to beat #1 Brownsburg between sectionals and Center Grove, and they’ve already lost to them. Anything is possible I guess.

The only bummer to the night was apparently there weren’t a ton of CHS kids at the game. Marion is on the opposite side of the city from school. Since CHS kids come from literally everywhere – something like 80 middle schools are represented in L’s class – you would think that wouldn’t be an issue. Especially for the Center Grove game, which is always huge. But I guess it was an issue. Anyway, L texted us at halftime that they wanted to leave because “no one is here” and it was boring. So the girls were eating cake and ice cream at our house when the Irish made their furious comeback. I kept listening and let them know the result.

Kids, man. Kids.

Royals

Man, so close to stealing game one in New York. Yes, there was a curious, at best, replay call that didn’t go the Royals way that directly let to the winning run for the Yanks. Bobby Witt Jr. got no love from the home plate ump in the 9th. Bummers.

What truly sucked was the Royals pitchers walking 80 Yankees batters. The fifth inning was really when the Royals lost this game. That inning went walk-single-walk-walk-foul out-fielder’s choice-walk. Two runs scored, both on bases loaded walks.

You don’t expect to lose in Yankees Stadium because you walked in more runs than you allowed on homers.

The Royals are a resilient bunch, though, and I think the loss will get them more re-focused than discouraged. Hopefully the pitchers are a little more locked in Monday while the hitters can keep generating runs.

Oh, and this ALDS schedule is nuts. Three days off in a five-game series? When these teams played a five-game ALCS in 1980, games one-through-three were played on consecutive days. And that was with a night game on Thursday in Kansas City and a night game Friday in New York. Since the Royals swept that series, I don’t know if an off-day was scheduled before either game four or five. But in 2024, there are scheduled off days between games one and two, two and three, and four and five if needed. Dumb.

KU

Same old same old. A disastrous end to the first half. A lead in the fourth quarter. The inability to stop the opponent when it mattered most. A fifth loss in a row.

Lawrence radio guy Derek Johnson posted this amazing stat on Twitter after the game: In each of their losses, at some point in the second half KU has had at least a 74% win probability. Add those up, and the odds of going 0–5 over that stretch is 0.01%, or about 1 in 10,000. Yet KU found a way to do it. Never say we can’t do amazing things in football season!

I think that stat also points out the truth to this season, something I pointed out last week. KU got just about every break possible last year. This year, though? No breaks. Or when they get a break, they find a way to fuck it up.

The offense and OC Jeff Grimes have taken the bulk of the criticism this year. The offense was fine Saturday. Yes, there were a few bad choices, notably in the two three-and-outs after KU forced turnovers because of hopelessly conservative play calling. One first down late in the second quarter and Arizona State never gets a chance to tie the game going into halftime. Jalon Daniels, who might have had his best game of the year, rushed a throw to a wide open Quentin Skinner that cost KU four points in a four-point loss.

Those aside, Saturday was on the defense. Yes, they forced two turnovers and blocked a field goal. But there were, yet again, massive holes for ASU to exploit all night. Almost no pressure on the quarterback. KU got destroyed at the line on running plays and gave up 313 yards rushing! Not technically on the defense, but they also gave up another long punt return to a player who should have been tackled seconds after fielding the ball by one of three players.

I know they were missing one defensive captain the entire game, and Cobee Bryant left the game late with what appeared to be a bad injury. That doesn’t excuse how bad the D looked as a whole, and has looked all season.

I read a theory this week that the transitional recruiting class between Les Miles and Lance Leipold, which was ranked in the 110s nationally, is what is killing this team. There are a ton of seniors of various types, a lot of freshmen and true sophomores, but not many of those third year players who maybe aren’t ready to start, but have been in the system and can come in briefly to spell the starters when needed.

I have no idea if that explains KU’s defensive woes or not. I am starting to think last year’s performance was a fluke. DC Brian Borland should definitely be under as much pressure as Grimes, because he hasn’t found a way to scheme around talent issues.

I genuinely hated sports late Saturday night. The Royals and KU games overlapped some. I had the Royals on the TV, KU on the MacBook. It was harder to follow both than my attempts to listen to CHS and watch tennis or football earlier this year. Higher stakes, I guess. KU and the Royals both scored at about the same time once, which was fun. The Yankees scored the go-ahead run at nearly the same moment Arizona State tied the game going into halftime, which was not fun.

Oh, a couple of my KU buddies and I had talked about going to this game a while back. We didn’t go forward because, for some reason, tickets even on Southwest were over $500. I was glad we chose to stay home. Not just because of the loss, but also because it was 106° at kickoff. I read somewhere this was the hottest temperature at kickoff for an ASU game this century. And, (in)famously, whatever Sun Devil Stadium is called these days has all aluminum bleacher seating. I can’t believe the game was nearly sold out.

Colts

No Anthony Richardson or Johnathan Taylor, plus a couple key defensive injuries. An offensive lineman breaks his leg during the game. And the Colts hadn’t won in Jacksonville in 11 years.

So no surprise that after giving up their third ridiculously long touchdown of the game, they trailed by 14 late. I went outside to water some plants, figuring my weekend didn’t need any more sports disappointment.

A few minutes later I noticed S looking at the window trying to get my attention. I strolled over and glanced inside at the TV and saw the Colts were kicking a PAT to tie. Apparently Joe Flacco and Alec Pierce did their best to save the day, but the Jags kicked a field goal to win at about the same point in the clock as where Arizona State beat KU. Perfect.

I don’t think the Colts are terrible. But they are definitely on the bottom half of the mediocre middle of the NFL. That middle is so big that any team in that group can beat any other, so the Colts might still manage six or seven wins. I wonder if they would be better served to start thinking about the draft and focusing on getting the best pick possible. Which means as tempting as it will be to keep starting Flacco when AR is healthy, you have to focus on both developing Richardson and determining if he is the man going forward. You can’t delay that question another year while you’re chasing a Wild Card spot with Flacco.

LB

Some milestones for B girl #3.

She turned 16 Thursday.

Saturday we got her travel basketball assignment for next year. She’s with the same coach she’s been with. It does suck that we’ve lost two more of her best friends she’s played with the last three years. We might steal one of those girls back but we’re not confident. Travel ball at the high school level is brutal when it comes to roster building. You have very little say in who you get, as teams higher in the pecking order can “steal” girls if they need them. That happened to one of her besties, and from what I’ve heard from that girl’s mom, she does not want to play with the team that picked her. L is hopeful they can get her switched back to our team, but I’m doubtful.

L is still suffering from the lingering effects of mono, but will try to go back to preseason practice this week. She feels mentally bad about missing two weeks, but also feels physically bad any time she breaks a sweat. Knock on wood I don’t get a call at 6:30 AM Tuesday that she’s sick at practice, or just can’t continue and needs to get picked up.

Sunday she passed her driving test. She’s been doing a great job with her practicing, so there wasn’t much doubt. Her instructor even said “Piece of cake” when they returned. She can officially get her license on Jan. 1, although she’ll obviously have to wait another day.

Weather

A gorgeous, warm weekend to wrap up an unseasonably warm week. Saturday I hardly watched any football during the day, partially because I knew I would be watching both the Royals and Jayhawks at night. But also because I wanted to sit outside and read and enjoy the beautiful day.

All last week they were saying this week would be much different. It is cooling off a little; we’ll be down in the upper 40s for a few mornings. But days will still be in the low 70s, slowly warming back to the low 80s by the weekend. These are the days you have to hold on to because even when they are mild, the Midwest winters will suck the life out of you.

Friday Playlist

October 4, 2024 /

“October” – The Helio Sequence
It is here, people. Decorative gourd season. Motherfuckers.

“Perfect Me” – Blossoms
First off, these dudes don’t sound like your typical Manchester band. I would have guessed Southern California first. Then, they said this song is a homage to their love of Abba, Bruce Springsteen, and The Killers. I hear some Killers, the other two? Not so much.

“Drop Me Out” – High Vis
If it doesn’t work because I’m not smart enough to make it work, there should be a GIF of Beavis and Butthead headbanging and yelling “YES!!!!” here.

“Under A Cloud” – Susanna Hoffs
Ms. Hoffs is releasing an album called The Lost Record that features tracks she recorded in her garage 25 years ago. This one eventually landed on the Bangles 2011 reunion album Sweetheart of the Sun. There isn’t a ton of difference between the songs. This one is a little funkier. The Bangles’ version has slightly more dreamy harmonies. Oh, and Susanna is a national treasure that should be protected by an act of Congress.

“On The Floor” – THUS LOVE
I don’t know much about the Vermont post-punk scene. I do know, though, that when I want to listen to post-punk music from Vermont, this is the first band I think of. Like all good post-punk, this song could be from 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014, or 2024. It is brand new, for the record.

“Dangerous” – Liz Stringer
I’ve been down on Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist lately. However, a few weeks it spit out this remarkable track and it kind of makes up for all the other crap. Stringer is a bit of a cult artist in Australia. Other artists love her, but she hasn’t had a ton of commercial success. Musically, this could be a Ryan Adams song from 10 years ago. Her lyrics are fantastic. I need to dig into her music more, as I’ve read a couple interviews with her and it seems like she’s had quite a life and has written a lot about what she’s been through.

“Edge of Town” – Middle Kids
Speaking of Aussies, my current favorites released a surprise live album last week. I’m not normally crazy about live albums, but I found this one to be quite good.

“Out of Touch” – Daryl Hall and John Oates
I told you there were some big songs left, and some weeks where it was going to be tough to choose what song to share. This week I could have selected Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go,” or Tina Turner’s “Better Be Good To Me,” which both cracked the Top 40 at #32 and #34 respectively. However, I couldn’t ignore one of my all-time favs. In just its second week in the Hot 100, it landed at #38. In December it would spend two weeks at #1, the duo’s sixth and final US #1. I will never, ever change the station or hit the skip button when it comes on. Dance on your knees!

R’s: Surviving and Advancing!

October 3, 2024 /

What a glorious October morning today was. Made all the more glorious by the mighty Kansas City Royals sweeping Baltimore to advance to the ALDS against the evil New York Yankees.

It’s like the late 70s up in here!

Two tense games in gloomy, Baltimore weather, which made the Wild Card series feel so much like the 2014 ALCS between these two teams. Poor Baltimore. That’s six-straight losses to the Royals in the postseason, a healthy chunk of their 10 straight postseason losses. The Royals won those six games by a combined eight runs. Three times they won 2–1!!!

To make things worse, aside from one bad misplay by MJ Melendez Tuesday, the Royals were flashing leather like it was 2014. Both Melendez and Tommy Pham had catches that would have made Lorenzo Cain proud.

In the Wild Card era, baseball playoffs have consistently been the most volatile of the professional sports postseasons. Home field doesn’t matter as much as in other sports. A couple good pitchers can make up for a huge disparity in total talent. And baseball is just the streakiest of sports. All that is amplified in the current system, which begins with the three-game Wild Card series. One bad inning can doom your entire postseason in a series that short. The Orioles gave up a couple hard singles to Bobby Witt and are now headed to Cancún or wherever.

So while it’s not a huge surprise the Royals got the Wild Card win, neither is it ridiculous to think they can keep things going against the #1 seed Yankees. Now, it would be nice if they could score more than a run or two per game. In fact, I’m going to go out on an analytic limb and say the Royals must score more than that if they want any chance to upset the Yanks. Then again, the Royals pitchers were absolute nails in Baltimore. Who’s to say that won’t continue and a few well timed runners and hits will be enough?

It’s just a lot of fun that the Royals are still alive. Even more fun that they seem to be mimicking the ’14–15 Royals by playing terrific defense, getting great pitching from the entire staff, and using their speed to create runs. They still feel a little flukey. I doubt they care what outsiders think.

It is also worth mentioning that this week’s games were far less stressful for me than those games in ’14–15. I’m sure a lot of that is because I’ve not been as fully into this team as I was those. While I paid a lot more attention to them this year than in the past 3–4 years, my investment still wasn’t nearly what it was before and during that championship run. It would have been a bummer if the Royals had lost both games in Baltimore, or split then lost the deciding game today. I would not have been crushed the way I was after game seven of the 2014 World Series, or would have been if the Royals had lost game four in Houston in 2015.

In those two playoff runs I was locked in, every pitch a super-stressful moment. I missed parts of a few games because of work, family, and kid sports, but I was still following every moment of those games. This week I was able to often be splitting my attention elsewhere, which surely helped my blood pressure a bit.

Anyway, it is October, the Royals are heading to New York for a playoff series, and it would not be completely ridiculous if they were still standing in 10 days.

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